HOUSTON, Texas – Nearly a year after Cy-Fair Independent School District removed chapters from state-approved textbooks, controversy continues to swirl.
Parents, educators, and elected officials remain sharply divided as the school board prepares to approve next year’s curriculum.
Cy-Fair ISD, the third-largest school district in Texas with nearly 120,000 students, made headlines last year for an unprecedented curriculum decision. The school board voted to remove 13 chapters from state-approved textbooks.
The excluded chapters cover topics that include global warming, diversity, and vaccines -- subjects some consider fundamental to a modern education.
The directive has resulted in a unique challenge for teachers: how to teach required state standards without using the state-approved materials that originally covered those standards.
And the community response is not unified behind the change.
A Cy-Fair student who hopes to become a doctor expressed concern in an open letter that the textbook censorship was depriving her of a well-rounded education.
Others, however, support the revisions.
Some parents say it protects children from what they see as misinformation.
“Science can’t prove any of this,” Julie Rix, a grandparent of Cy-Fair students, said while referring to global warming. “It’s opinions and theories. I don’t believe it at all.”
Rix also opposes teaching evolution.
“It doesn’t line up with the Word of God. We are a Christian nation. Our Constitution was by Christians mostly.” Rix said.
The deleted chapters address controversial scientific and social issues.
A sampling of the modified topics includes:
- Renewable vs. nonrenewable resources
- Climate change science
- Depopulation
- Vaccines and public health
- Social diversity and inclusion
Teachers confirmed to 2 Investigates that they are prohibited from teaching these topics directly from the original textbook chapters.
“There’s a really great graphic that National Geographic made about CO2 emissions and sea surface temperatures, and that’s in the chapter we’re not allowed to use,” a high school science teacher said.
Superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian initially recommended that Cy-Fair ISD adopt the state-approved textbooks in full.
The school board voted 6-1 against that recommendation.
“I gave a professional recommendation for the chapters and the whole book,” Killian said.
When asked if he supported the direction the board ultimately took, Killian responded, “Well, why would I have recommended to have all the books approved [if I agreed]?”
He later acknowledged staff frustration regarding the replacement lesson plans.
“Sounds like we need to have a committee to relook at all this stuff, doesn’t it?” Dr. Killian said.
Instead of the original chapters, teachers are using supplemental materials, some sourced from “web articles.”
In high school biology, for example, the new lesson plans about vaccines specifically instruct teachers to avoid value-laden language such as “good” or “bad.”
“It’s all reading passages and using lab aids that don’t align whatsoever,” one teacher expressed.
In Texas, local school boards have the legal authority to remove or modify textbook content, as long as they continue to teach the underlying state-mandated lessons.
“The local school board makes the final decision, regardless of what the State Board puts on its approved list,” State Board of Education member LJ Young told 2 Investigates.
Progressive board member Audrey Childs disagrees.
“If we’re preparing students for college and careers, they’re going to be left out of a lot of conversations,” Childs said.
Despite repeated requests by email, phone and in person at a regularly scheduled school board meeting, no members of the Cy-Fair ISD school board agreed to an on-camera interview with 2 Investigates.
The board members are elected public officials.
