The Durango School District 9-R Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday night to suspend a decision to remove from classrooms the Black Lives Matter flag and an iteration of the LGBTQ+ pride flag that included representation of the transgender community and people of color.
Board members expressed a desire to explore alternative ways to resolve a parental complaint filed Sept. 11, which alleged that the flags “are political symbols that (1) don’t belong in schools, and (2) indoctrinate students.”
The district informed teachers over the last two weeks that Black Lives Matter flags and the pride progress flag had to be removed by the end of Friday, Oct. 11. The directive was made to teachers, whose freedom of expression as public employees can be more tightly restricted than that of students. The decision was made in an effort to avoid a lawsuit and ensure the district did not open the door to political speech by teachers.
Members of the public, many draped in the very flags that prompted the complaint, filled the Impact Career Innovation Center to capacity and spilled out onto the patio for Tuesday’s board meeting. More than 100 students also walked out of class in protest of the decision Tuesday afternoon.
Students, parents, teachers and other members of the public used the hour allotted for public comment to express impassioned appeals for change.
Although the La Plata County Republican Central Committee members circulated notices for members to show up in support of “political neutrality in the classroom,” just a handful of people showed up in support of the ban.
