Marxism for kindergarteners? California elementary school to pay $20,000 for 10-hour woke consultancy

Woke Education founder, Akiea “Ki” Gross (image credit).

Parents of children in one California elementary school don’t have to wonder what their school’s five-figure consultant “Woke Kindergarten” is all about. 

But even the name doesn’t indicate how radically rooted in Marxism the organization’s agenda is.  

For some 10 hours of virtual facilitating at Glassbrook Elementary School over the month of August, Hayward Unified School District has agreed to pay up to $20,000 to the contractor, Woke Kindergarten LLC, to train and create resources that “disrupt whiteness, white dominant/settler colonial narratives and anti-Blackness.” According to the contract, it’s a continuation of a previous partnership. 

Woke Kindergarten describes itself as a “global, abolitionist early learning ecosystem” committed to “abolitionist early education and pro-Black, queer and trans liberation.” 

In the “woke wonderings” page of the organization’s website, a series of images contains questions that contemplate Marxist ideals such as the abolition of police, military, national borders, money, landlords and even work itself. 

The goal of the school’s month-long partnership is “to continue our anti-racist, anti-bias training and connect it to building thematic units along with coaching.” The contract also refers to the school’s request for a 16-20 month partnership, presumably in addition to the month-long one. 

Critics are crying foul, pointing out the radical Marxist, Critical Race Theory-infused agenda – and how it actually hurts kids. 

“This is the greatest outrage,” Woodson Center President Bob Woodson, a leader in empowering disadvantaged communities and a critic of CRT, said in an interview on Fox & Friends. “What we are witnessing now is really an internal assault on the self-esteem of black people. When blacks walk into the room, the first thing that has to happen is we must lower standards – and that’s an insult.”  

Woke’s founder, Akiea “Ki” Gross, identifies as transgender, prefers they/them pronouns, and is a self-described “abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy.” 

The organization claims the problem with early education is that it’s too much like a prison. “The Prison Industrial Complex manifests in early childhood in a variety of ways and anti-racist teaching and reform just isn’t disruptive enough.” 

The solution? Create early childhood resources that promulgate abolishing school norms for educators “to eliminate carceral logics” to liberate communities. 

“Do parents and taxpayers realize the school district is paying $20,000 for a month’s worth of services from a consultant that describes itself as pro-black and queer and trans liberation and dedicated to abolitionist education?” Erika Sanzi of Parent’s Defending Education wondered in a statement to Fox News Digital.  

“The organization teaches 5-year-olds that they can identify as a boy or girl, or neither, or a tree. This is ideological indoctrination and it has no place in a kindergarten classroom or any classroom.”