COVID cash meant to get kids back on track took surprising detour in blue-state school district
Three hundred thirty-six thousand approved. Nearly seven hundred thousand spent. Seven hundred twenty-one staff trained.
Summary
- Fox News reports Albuquerque Public Schools approved $336,500 in American Rescue Plan funds in 2021 for training tied to the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, while America First Legal accounting records show APS ultimately spent nearly $700,000 on the program. District officials told Fox they could not immediately confirm the spending or how much came from federal COVID relief.
- PISAB, which Fox notes has received Open Society Foundations grants, circulated materials telling White folks to learn how they became white and defining race as a specious classification created by Europeans to assign worth and keep power. Training ran through the Anti-Racism Training Institute of the Southwest, which had a 23-year relationship with PISAB.
- By July 2022, AFL records show at least 721 APS staff, from teachers to senior officials, had attended ARTI training. Records also show a proposal for nearly $1 million in DEI training through 2024 reaching nearly 2,000 people a year, plus a fall 2022 idea for 20 to 30 students per school at up to 10 middle and high schools. APS told Fox the student component was never implemented.
- America First Legal counsel Bobby Crossin said money meant to help students harmed by lockdowns was spent on critical race theory sessions. Senior counsel Julie Levin said tax dollars paid to indoctrinate teachers. An APS spokesperson said the district had not received criticism and used the program to help with attendance and academic achievement. In 2023 ARTI quoted $27,000 for more in-person Undoing Racism training.
Commentary
A night-shift mom still packs a lunch on cracked linoleum and knows a rescue-plan stamp is supposed to mean a reading hour, not a workshop on how she became white. She did not pay the levy so $700,000 could sit while her kid waited on learning loss.
Three hundred thirty-six thousand approved. Nearly seven hundred thousand spent. Seven hundred twenty-one staff. Nearly one million proposed. The vinyl chair in that APS office still remembers the lockdown year. The honest household already bought the overtime for the reading hour that did not come.
Look every working mother who still checks a homework folder after a night shift in the eye and answer this: if 721 adults already sat the workshop, who still owns the next rescue dollar a district tries to spend on race lectures?
Comments
$336,500 approved. Nearly $700,000 spent. 721 staff. Keep the three.
I stood a gate so a rescue stamp still meant a book. A race workshop is not a weather report.
Nearly $1 million proposed. Student component not implemented. $27,000 2023 quote. Print the three.
Allied classrooms still treat learning loss as a ledger, not a lecture.
AFL records vs. APS cannot-confirm. File the gap.
I still pack a lunch at 2 a.m. I want the next dollar on a reading hour.
A $700,000 detour is not a vibe. It is a warning the street already paid.
A lockdown dollar spent on race talk is a second border around every honest backpack.
Fox printed $336,500, $700,000, and 721. Argue those nouns.
Put the money on books. Kill the lecture. A workshop seat is not a souvenir.
