Tarrant County judge candidate says ‘Critical Race Theory is now dead’ in Carroll ISD
Tarrant County judge candidate Tim O’Hare says critical race theory is “dead” in the Carroll school district.
O’Hare issued a statement on Tuesday morning, a day after the school board voted to settle a lawsuit that alleged some trustees violated the Open Meetings Act by discussing a cultural plan in text messages.
O’Hare said, “I founded Southlake Families in the summer of 2020 in response to Southlake Carroll ISD’s Marxist, CRT-filled CCAP agenda. Southlake Families energized parents and encouraged them to take a stand and work together to take on the powers that be, and we prevailed. Critical Race Theory is now dead in Southlake Carroll Schools, and we know other districts in Tarrant County will follow suit.”
O’Hare, who founded the Southlake Families political action committee, said in an interview with the Star-Telegram that he began getting phone calls from people throughout Texas and the United States as they learned of the group’s success in electing school board candidates by a wide margin and in fighting against the proposed Cultural Competence Action Plan.
O’Hare said he and Southlake Families team leaders are meeting with concerned groups in Fort Worth, Grapevine-Colleyville, Keller, Mansfield and that some have already formed political action committees.
“Parents fought it (CRT) and we have been successful. This May, this is going to be a major issue not just in Tarrant County but throughout the state and the country,” he said.
O’Hare said he learned about the Carroll school district’s Cultural Competence Action Plan when the agenda was posted for an August board meeting in 2020 where administrators were going to present the plan.
He said he was driving to Glacier National Park in Idaho with his family when his phone “blew up” with texts and calls asking if he had heard about the plan.
O’Hare said he pulled over and read the plan despite spotty Internet service.
“I thought, as did 70 percent of the town, that’s not why we moved here. That’s not what our school district is about,” he said.
O’Hare said with his political experience as mayor of Farmers Branch, that he knew how to get things done with mobilizing and organizing people.
O’Hare said the main objections to the plan were tracking of microaggressions and that it shifted priorities away from a “world-class education that parents expect for their children in Southlake. The plan shifted the focus to race,” he said.
He said if kids mistreat other kids, they need to be disciplined, but the district’s code of conduct was over a hundred pages and needed an overhaul.
“People move to Southlake because of the schools. It’s no secret that because of the reputation of the schools, property values are higher,” he said.
O’Hare said many conservatives sat on the sidelines when parents “politicized issues” such as organizing student walkouts to protest the need for gun control and a program to teach about the Constitution.
“A group of parents kept trying to politicize the schools. Whenever this (CCAP) came out, this woke up traditional folks who said enough is enough. We’ve sat by as liberals tried to push their agendas. People said, we came here for excellence in education. This was the culmination.”
Southlake parent Kristin Garcia filed the lawsuit shortly after the school board voted to receive the Cultural Competence Plan in August of 2020.
Garcia’s suit alleged that several trustees, including former board president Michelle Moore, sent text messages to discuss the plan outside of a called meeting, which violates the Texas Open Meetings Act.
School board meetings became a battle ground to either protest or speak in favor of the diversity plan.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 2:03 PM.