Even for nationally known celebrities, all politics is local.
HGTV “Fixer Upper” celebrity couple Chip and Joanna Gaines donated $1,000 last week to Chip’s sister, Shannon Braun’s campaign to serve on her local Texas school board, The Hill reported.
Braun is trying to get a seat on the Grapevine Colleyville Independent School District in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area of Texas.
Although she came in first place during the May 1 election for the seat currently occupied by incumbent Mindy McClure with 5,199 votes to 4,237 votes, she won less than required 51 percent of those running, according to the district.
She will face McClure again on June 5 for a runoff election.
According to the district, the K-12 school system has a total enrollment of 13,970 students and 2,008 employees.
According to The Hill, Braun is running on a platform that opposes Critical Race Theory, a controversial developing curriculum in school districts throughout the country that posits that the nation was founded based on slavery and white supremacy, which continues to dominate systems and institutions to favor whites over other citizens.
“I will vote down anything and everything that further promotes critical race theory in our school district and actively work to remove all critical race theory,” Braun says in a video posted on her campaign Facebook page.
According to the video, Braun claimed the district website included slides and information that aligned with CRT curriculum until May 13 when they were apparently “taken down.”
In a statement to The Hill, the district denied having any interest in bringing CRT into the curriculum.
“The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS, are state standards for what students should know and be able to do in each grade level,” the district’s statement said. “These are adopted by the State Board of Education and are then shared with school districts across the state to determine curriculum to best meet these standards. As we encourage our students to take ownership of their learning, they often have choice in how they approach an assignment or the topic they research and study, as long as they can demonstrate mastery of the TEKS. This does not mean, however, that Critical Race Theory is part of GCISD’s curriculum.”
The district has 17 “traditional” schools, two alternative and one early college, and one virtual school, for a total 21, with a graduation rate of 97.5 percent.
It reports that it is made up of 53.15 percent white students, 25.43 percent Hispanic students, 10.15 percent Asian students, 6.19 percent African American students, and six percent mixed or other races.
Chip and Joanna Gaines became popular through the HGTV series “Fixer Upper,” and are scheduled to return to television with their own media company this fall, according to HGTV.
Source: Newmax
