Letter to the Editor: No CRT in Noblesville Schools?

Dear Editor,

I attended the School Board Forum on 10/24/22 and was happy to hear all five Noblesville School Board candidates don’t support CRT in the classroom.

Sounds familiar.  Where have I heard that before?

In May 2021, I attended one of the Community meetings on DEI in which the former Superintendent Beth Niedermeyer officially stated that CRT was not supported or taught in Noblesville Schools.  Yet at the 10/24 School Board Forum, Joe Forgey, current President of the School Board seeking re-election, admitted that CRT was indeed being taught in a few instances going back to 2018.  To further confuse matters, during a prior Forum on 9/26/22, Joe Forgey denied that CRT was taught in Noblesville Schools.  Which is it?  

Furthermore, at the 10/24 Forum, Forgey stated that he brought CRT to Dr. Niedermeyer’s attention starting in 2018 and they started looking for evidence of it in classrooms.  I attended many School Board meetings the summer of 2021.  I remember several parents providing Joe Forgey and the School Board with current evidence of CRT that seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Joe Forgey never mentioned any prior occurrences and he did not offer to investigate further. If Joe Forgey was focused on keeping CRT out of the classrooms in 2021, he did an excellent job of keeping it a secret.

I also found it interesting during the Forum Forgey’s statement that on his watch several links to CRT were found on the Noblesville School website and “bumped out”.  Again, there were links to CRT identified by parents during the summer of 2021 that were simply moved to a different spot on the website….not bumped out.  Interestingly enough, those links are currently back in their original spot under the DEI section of the school website.

Noblesville voters . . . don’t be fooled.  Joe Forgey is not tough on CRT.  Despite all the reassurances by the School leadership that CRT was not being taught, somehow it managed to sneak in and stay in while Joe Forgey was on the School Board and President for the last 2 years. He may be a nice man and a good dentist, but we need to use facts, not feelings, as we choose the next members of the School Board.  Maybe Joe is against CRT in K-12 education but his actions certainly haven’t demonstrated that. 

Candidates Melba Kiser and Misti Ray have seen the decline in Noblesville education over the past several years and are running on increasing academic excellence and getting political agendas such as CRT out of our schools.  Vote for Melba Kiser and Misti Ray.

Alison Hanley
Noblesville