TOPEKA, Kan. — Gov. Laura Kelly and indigenous lawmakers on Thursday called on Kansas’ top public school administrator to resign after reviewing video of him making an offensive public remark about Native Americans.
Kelly and three state House Democrats issued statements after the State Board of Education called a special meeting for Friday to discuss Education Commissioner Randy Watson’s remark, which he made during a conference on virtual education last week.
Kelly watched the video from the conference, spokesperson Lauren Fitzgerald said, declining to discuss the details of Watson’s comment. The Native American lawmakers also said they had reviewed the video and one of them, Rep. Ponka-We Victors-Cozad, of Wichita, called the remark “racist.” The Associated Press and other news organizations have filed open records requests to obtain the video showing Watson’s remarks.
The Democratic governor said the state school board must deal seriously with “derogatory and discriminatory language.” The 10-member elected board appoints the commissioner to run the State Department of Education.
The board’s agenda says it will have a closed session to discuss personnel matters and confer with its attorney. Board Chair Jim Porter said board members expect to review video of Watson’s remarks. Porter said he has not seen the video, but Watson informed him and other board members of the situation.
“Some statements were made that were offensive to a group,” Porter, a Republican from southeast Kansas, said during a telephone interview, later adding: “Offensive to the Native American community.”
Watson has not responded to a request for an interview Thursday.
“While Education Commissioner Randy Watson has had a long career in advocating for our children in Kansas, the State and the Kansas Board of Education must take issues of derogatory and discriminatory language seriously,” Kelly said in her statement. “There is no question that Randy Watson must resign his position immediately.”
The two other Native American lawmakers, state Reps. Stephanie Byers, of Wichita, and Christina Haswood, of Lawrence, joined Victors-Cozad in calling on Watson to resign.
Haskell Indian Nations University is in Lawrence. Northeast Kansas is home to four Native American nations: the Iowa, the Kickapoo, the Prairie Band Potawatomi and the Sac and Fox.
“This situation has reopened a trauma that many Indigenous youth experience in the classroom and contributes to the mental health crises that are faced by Indigenous youths at a disproportionate rate,” Haswood said.
State school board member Ann Mah, a Topeka Democrat, said she heard about Watson’s remark from several constituents before Watson informed her about it.
“He was basically retelling a story from childhood, trying to demonstrate how people have stereotypes,” Mah said. “And it involved a story about Indians.”
Watson became commissioner in November 2014 after serving as superintendent of McPherson’s public schools. As commissioner, Watson has pushed for a redesign of the state’s public schools to place more emphasis on personalized learning and better preparing students for adult work.
The special meeting comes at a politically tricky time for the board and the state’s public schools. While Republicans hold a 6-4 majority, the board is less conservative than the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Lawmakers are coming off nearly a decade of being forced by the Kansas Supreme Court to increase spending on public schools. Kelly’s shutdown of schools in 2020, in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompted criticism of virtual education and restrictions on it.
Conservative Republicans are pursuing a measure to allow parents who are unhappy with their local schools to enroll their children in any other district and to use state education funds to help such parents pay for private schooling.
Also, GOP conservatives weren’t assuaged by the board’s assurances last summer that the public school curriculum standards didn’t include critical race theory, part of a scholarly movement that developed in the 1970s focusing on the legacy of slavery and racism in American history and society.
Republicans are pursuing measures to force schools to post information about classroom materials online and to give parents more power to shape what is taught and in school libraries. They have said they are promoting transparency in education.
But Byers said: “The current assault on teaching history truthfully highlights the need for a more thorough teaching of the history of Native Americans in Kansas.”
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