Indiana School Officials Admit to Hiding CRT, DEI Teachings From Parents in Undercover Video

A teacher walks through an empty classroom during a period of Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) at Hazelwood Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., on Jan. 11, 2022. Jefferson County Public Schools, along with many other school districts in the United States, have switched to NTI in response to severe staffing shortages caused by the prevalence of the omicron variant of COVID-19. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Video footage has emerged showing officials across schools in Indiana allegedly admitting to teaching critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles to students under different terms to avoid upsetting parents.

The undercover interviews by the nonprofit conservative news media watchdog, Accuracy in Media (AIM), were published on April 12.

The footage allegedly shows AIM investigators speaking to various officials at Carmel Clay School District, Elkhart Community Schools, Fairfield Community Schools, Goshen Community Schools, Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, Monroe County Community School Corporation, and Plainfield Community School Corporation.

In one video snippet of the hidden camera interview, investigators spoke with Plainfield Community School Corporation assistant superintendent Laura DelVecchio, who stated that before the COVID-19 pandemic, “we had started some really deep diving into our curriculum and kind of doing that white privilege walk and making sure, like, just understand right.”

“We really—we stay under the radar. And we’d like to keep it that way,” she said while explaining that some teachers have put up LGBT pride posters in their rooms.

When asked later if the school district has an “equity department or anything like that,” DelVecchio responded that the school has “decided not to call attention to it” so as not to anger parents, adding that “when you call attention to it then questions are asked, and I really believe that you can do more good under the radar.”

‘Just Have to Avoid the Words’

DelVecchio is listed on Plainfield Community School Corporation’s official website as the assistant superintendent for student learning.

In another undercover recording, investigators spoke with Elkhart Community Schools’ Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Brad Sheppard, who stated that CRT and social and emotional learning (SEL) are the “two biggies” that need to be relabeled at schools.

SEL is defined as a process in which young people and adults develop the “knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions” by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

“We just have to avoid the words, you know? The labels,” Sheppard states in the undercover interview. “You’re not teaching the theory, you’re just teaching the events of history... that’s how history teachers are approaching it.”

Sheppard continued that SEL “has become a bad phrase, and we don’t openly use that phrase, but we’re still doing it, so… I mean, just to avoid anything, I mean, we have not really been hit with it, but just to even avoid it.”

He added that subjects such as language arts can incorporate SEL “very easily.”

Schools ‘Prepping’ Textbook Presenters

Tracey Noe, who, according to Goshen Community Schools, is the assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, expressed similar statements in the undercover interview, according to the video footage.

At one point, she can be seen telling AIM investigators that the equity and inclusion committee’s name had been tweaked to “work group” because “we just didn’t want to make a target of it.”

In another video clip of the undercover interview, Jenny Oakley, who is listed as the director of e-learning and literacy at the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, told AIM investigators that school officials have spoken to textbook presenters to “prep” them before they come into schools to make sure controversial topics they are teaching aren’t revealed.

“I actually prep them a little bit because I’m like, ‘We want this in our curriculum, so if you could just not say specifically this, then it won’t cause a red flag with the community,’ and I hate that we have to do that but that way it’s still there, and they would support it if just the content was there they just—its the title,” Oakley told AIM investigators.

The undercover interviews come as Republican senators in Indiana are pushing to pass a bill that would provide “dignity and nondiscrimination” in education while banning schools from promoting concepts regarding sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, creed, color, or national origin, among others.

So far, discussions on the bill have been stalled by groups opposed to the legislation.

Schools Issue Statements

In a statement responding to the newly-released video footage, Fairfield Community Schools said, “We do not teach Critical Race Theory under that name or any other name.”

Elkhart Community Schools released a statement saying, “The promotion of CRT has no place in this important work as stated in a CRT statement adopted by the Board in July 2021.”

Elsewhere, Goshen Community Schools said: “A GCS administrator was secretly filmed under the guise of a couple posing as parents interested in enrolling their children in Goshen Community Schools. This interview was edited and took the administrator’s comments out of context. What was not included in the video was an emphatic statement that Goshen Community Schools does not teach CRT.”

Both Goshen and Elkhart Community Schools said they had placed assistant superintendents who appeared in the undercover video on administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident.

In a separate statement, Plainfield Community School Corporation said it is “aware of being featured in a video that gained public attention.”

The out-of-state group that created this video came to Plainfield with the intention of creating distrust in the school corporation by spreading misinformation and half-truths,” the statement continued.

“This video was edited from the original conversation, which does not offer the full story and is taken entirely out of context. Our curriculum is based on the Indiana state standards,” officials said.

“Critical Race Theory is not taught in Plainfield Schools,” it added.

The Epoch Times has contacted the school districts for comment.