Carroll schools reject donation of ‘In God We Trust’ signs displaying pride flag
Carroll school trustees on Monday rejected donations of “In God We Trust” signs displaying the rainbow flag and colors, stating that the district already had signs donated.
Sravan Krishna, who spoke during the public comment portion of Monday night’s board meeting, said the signs complied with a state law passed during the last legislative session.
The law requires public schools to display donated signs and posters with the national motto “In God We Trust” in prominent places in all buildings within the school district.
The signs displayed at Monday’s meeting also show the Texas and United States flags. In one sign, the motto is spelled out in Arabic.
“We were hoping that they (trustees) would accept our donation and make us feel included as part of this community as workers, taxpayers and citizens,” Krishna said.
Krishna worked with several groups including the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition that designed some of the posters.
Krishna said they also worked with the Texas Bipartisan Alliance to make sure the posters conformed to the requirements of the state law.
The Carroll ISD board recently accepted donations of “In God We Trust” signs from Patriot Mobile, a self-billed conservative Christian cellphone company based in Grapevine. The board stated Monday that it had no obligation to accept any more donations of signs beyond one copy.
Patriot Mobile created a political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action, and gave it more than $600,000 to contribute to conservative candidates running for school board in Southlake, Grapevine and other areas in North Texas.
Krishna said the groups requested to be added to the school board agenda last week, but the request was denied. Krishna said he decided to use the three minutes he was given during public comment to offer the donation.
He said there was no explanation of the donation process and nothing was posted on how many signs the district would accept.
“This is very clearly a very discriminatory and bigoted action against others in the community that are not Christian nationalists,” he said.
The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag, is a symbol of LGBTQ pride and social movements.
This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 8:42 PM.