The Department of Education awarded a grant to the University of Missouri System in 2023 that funded the deployment of 64 “antiracist” counselors to the state’s public schools, records show.
Through the Partnership for Antiracist Counselor Training (PACT) program, which was allocated just over $900,000 in federal funding, University of Missouri–St. Louis students were trained on how to provide pupils enrolled within Riverview Gardens School District with “trauma-informed, antiracist” counseling. Emily Brown and Mary Edwin, the two professors in charge of running the single-district program, expressed optimism that the antiracist counseling could help the school district decrease its number of suspensions while increasing student attendance, according to a university blog post.
Riverview Gardens School District has persistent problems with poor test scores, lagging attendance and mass fights, according to local reporting. Riverview Gardens High School transitioned to remote learning for one day in 2023 in response to widespread fighting.
As part of the effort to improve Riverview Gardens School District, University of Missouri counselors were tasked with delivering a “culturally and linguistically inclusive” environment to the district’s primarily black student body through antiracist counseling, according to a university blog post. The PACT program is also seeking to increase the number of school counselors who are racial minorities or otherwise “diverse.”
“Antiracism” is a component of a framework first coined by left-wing academic Ibram X. Kendi. Neutrality on racial issues, including the promotion of policies that do not consider race, is an example of racism, according to Kendi’s framework.
PACT is part of a broader federal effort “intended to increase access to school-based mental health services and improve the pipeline of mental health professionals in high-needs school districts,” a Department of Education spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The PACT program also provided counseling to “LGBTQIA+” students, as well as those struggling with substance abuse, according to a 2023 document published by the Riverview Gardens School District.
“There’s just a lot of really positive energy in what’s going on with our training for school counseling students,” Brown said in the university blog post. “I think that it’s affirming for us, as well. What we’re doing and how we’re training our students is being recognized and validated.”
The University of Missouri system and Riverview Gardens School District did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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