(upbeat music) - Welcome to Crosscut Now, the show that takes you beyond the breaking news and brings awareness to stories affecting communities.

In today's episode, we talk with Crosscut politics reporter Joe O'Sullivan, about the curriculum pushback targeting Washington school boards and teachers.

We'll also get a look at what inspired a Vancouver BC fashion designer turned tech entrepreneur to pursue her passion again and new COVID-19 vaccines will hit pharmacy shelves soon as the winter illness season is ahead.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Today's top story, we're digging into the pressure and pushback by some groups over what's being taught in Washington schools.

There's a national culture war and pushback against curriculum and policies aimed at school boards, teachers unions, and educators over LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color.

This summer, a group of residents grilled the Edmund School District Board during their regular meeting on whether the district was conspiring to distribute puberty blockers to transgender youth.

This past year, like many school board meetings in Washington, those who attend are not there oftentimes to chime in on the superintendent's report or the state of the school district's budget, but rather to discuss LGBTQ+ issues or Black Lives Matter.

State school superintendent Chris Riechdell tells Crosscut he thinks the level of aggression and the ability to get to a teacher is different.

A research report by non-partisan, non-profit RAND Corporation this year noted teachers face limitations not just from lawmakers in states that are restricting teaching in books but teachers most commonly pointed to parents and families as a source of the limitations they experience.

Crosscut politics reporter Joe O'Sullivan delves into this growing issue happening right here in several Washington districts.

Welcome Joe, and thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Joe, set the stage and tell us about when these calls for change in curriculum started to happen.

- Well, I think people, if you've been watching around the country, there's been a nationwide pushback on the LGBT community, Pride Month, trans individuals, and you've seen limitations on teaching and stuff in other states.

Of course, that's not happening here in Washington.

We have Democratic majorities and the governor and the legislature so you're not seeing things like that here, but locally in school districts around the state, you're seeing groups of parents or maybe church congregations show up and push back against LGBT policies or curriculum, Black Lives Matter month, things like that, that are taking place at the schools.

- Joe, you spoke with people from around the state including an Olympia teacher who was essentially targeted by a group of parents and regarding her work and her connection to a BIPOC resource group.

Tell us briefly about her and others.

- Yeah so you know, when you look around the state, for example, up in Edmonds, the Edmonds School District, there's been a group of people coming to public comment often for more than a year sort of speaking out against transgender individuals, saying they worry that a health center at the school is gonna dispense gender affirming drugs.

You know, back in June, down in Kitsap at a high school there in Kitsap County, some students wore T-shirts saying, you know, there were only two genders, and it sparked some outcry within the community and within the school.

And the school did a review and everything.

And down in Olympia there's a group of concerns, residents or parents and they're going to teachers, you know, they find their email addresses and stuff and they sort of know about their career.

And they said, you know, to this teacher who worked at one school district and who was worked with like the Black Student Union said, you know, we know you used to work at that stuff here or over here in the Olympia School district now because we have concerns about how this is happening here.

And that teacher told us, you know it was the first time in their career that they'd ever had you know, somebody, you know, kind of sit down, write a group, write them a letter anonymously sort of indicating that they knew, you know, who she was and what she was doing and sort of, you know, questioning what she was.

Of course, a lot of this stuff, you know, I mean policy is set by school boards and by the state and not by individual teachers or anything.

So, you know, the teacher felt like they were being you know, targeted in the course of this.

- And while these conservative groups may have the loudest voice targeting certain communities and groups of people, are there other groups speaking out against this rhetoric?

- Some of the teacher's unions are, but it's, you know, it's not getting a lot of comprehensive coverage.

You know, with controversial issues like this, I think the school boards are sometimes reticent to chime in, you know.

They're trying to keep things in the district calm and one of the things that people in the story tell me is that, you know, the divisions are so deep now that, you know, you may have a teacher in a school district that doesn't like the curriculum that's being taught and so they're pushing back.

So even, you know, teachers and teachers are pushing back or two students are going to school and, you know, they have these very deep divisive political views now and they're clashing and so it's sort of getting at the sort of the community fabric a little bit in a way that it hasn't a long time ago.

In fact, in the case of Edmonds, I talked to a former school district member who was on the school district board 15 years ago and she said, you know, we never had to, we never had conversations like this.

We never had public comment.

It was, you know, it was about the budget or you know maybe a little bit about what sex ed was gonna be like in school, but this kind of ongoing thing that really started during the pandemic you know, you had resistance against the lockdowns and mask orders and stuff, and some of that energy is translated now into some of these issues.

- Thank you so much, Joe, for joining us and we appreciate your reporting.

If you're interested in more of Joe's full story all you need to do is go to crosscut.com.

(intriguing music) A local fashion designer shelved her first love.

More on why a health scare sparked her journey to return back to the sewing machine.

A fashion designer turned tech entrepreneur journeys back to her first love to bring future noir to her new outerwear collection.

Fashion designer Katrina Hess found inspiration and opportunity in the somber and dreaminess of the Seattle rain.

Back in 2010, she debuted a cyclist friendly line of military style raincoats called Made in Soto, homage to her soggy bike commute between Georgetown and Pioneer Square.

Some years later, a unique opportunity presented itself and she switched gears back to tech to co-found a dating app but it wasn't the first time in that industry.

Hess took classes at Vancouver Film School, sparking an interest in graphic design that landed her her first tech job in the late nineties.

A personal health scare last year was as she calls it, a reckoning.

Hess remembers asking herself, if we only have X amount of time, am I doing the thing that I love?

This fall, Hess will launch her debut line for House of Daggers.

It's a brand new studio collection focused on outerwear with high collars and futuristic vibes.

(intriguing music) We're approaching the winter months.

You'll learn how state health officials say you should prepare for COVID-19 and other illnesses.

As temperatures begin to cool state health officials are hoping Washingtonians heed lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to stay healthy.

That means getting up to date vaccinations to navigate the winter season.

Soon updated vaccines for COVID-19, the flu, and RSV will be on pharmacy and medical clinic shelves.

Health officials hope people will get vaccinated and continue hygienic habits to protect themselves and the public from the spread of viruses.

The State Department of Health says it's time to recall what we all learned about mask wearing, hand washing, and respiratory etiquette.

It will likely take Washington medical providers several weeks to receive these vaccines.

In the meantime, health experts urge people to make appointments now to get prepared.

Health officials are changing the messaging around the immunization against the COVID-19 vaccine, calling it a shot instead of calling it a booster to help people associate it the same way they think of their annual flu shot.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching Crosscut Now, your destination for nonprofit northwest news.

Go to crosscut.com for more.

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