Rep. Stephenie Scialabba (R-Butler) announced today the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is rescinding guidelines on its Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education (CR-SE) Standards following a successful lawsuit filed in 2023 by Scialabba, and Tom King and Tom Breth of Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham L.L.P. in Butler.

Mars High School, located in Scialabba’s legislative district, was one of several plaintiffs in this legal challenge through the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

“This is a major victory for teachers, students and parents in our great Commonwealth,” said Scialabba. “It is a relief to know school entities no longer need to fear loss of funding over these standards. Today’s result is a win for the First Amendment and reaffirms the conservative commitment to providing students with a quality, no-nonsense, factual education that is free of ideology. I am overjoyed to see this result.”

According to the signed mediated settlement agreement, a portion of the win reads as follows:

“The Department hereby rescinds the previously issued Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education (‘CR-SE’) Program Framework Guidelines. School entities (public schools, school districts, intermediate units, area career and technical schools, charter schools, cyber schools, and independent schools) have no legal obligation to implement or comply with the (CR-SE) Program Framework Guidelines.”

According to Scialabba, these standards threatened to withhold funding from all school entities unless they fully adopted and incorporated the guidelines into their trainings and curriculum. They also were designed to withhold teaching certifications for new and existing teachers until the accompanying trainings were satisfactorily completed. She added that the trainings were rooted in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) agendas, going so far as to state that “equity requires a passport to discriminate” and requiring teachers and curriculum to “believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real.”

Teachers were also mandated to:

• Actively counter deficit-based and invalidating behavior in themselves and others by engaging in affirming practices.
• Challenge their own beliefs, attitudes, assumptions and behaviors regarding the knowledge and backgrounds of dominant and non-dominant social groups, thinking critically about the nuances of culture, identity, and other social markers, and how they manifest themselves in curricula and other education materials.
• Know and acknowledge that biases exist in the educational system, and disrupt harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness.
• Engage in critical and difficult conversations with others to deepen their awareness of their own conscious/unconscious biases, stereotypes and prejudices.

According to the agreement, PDE will be sending formal notice to each school entity to notify them of the official rescinding of the standards.