Community members gathered at the March 17 agenda review meeting to express concerns of religious references and academic quality, while officials said the district has no implementation plan at this time.
The gist
Jaretha Jordan, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, said this would only be a preliminary review of the material, and there will be no decisions on implementation at this time.
“We want feedback from stakeholders. We want feedback from teachers, [the] community, everyone,” Jordan said. “At this time, we are asking if we can get a set of resources in, along with the results of our audit, review all the resources, and build out a plan, whether it be a recommendation to move forward or [a] recommendation not to move forward.”
Superintendent Marc Smith said the district will do their due diligence to evaluate the quality of the materials, and any decision to move forward would require additional district and community feedback.
“We're talking about 80-plus campuses and all the change management that is associated with totally changing our curriculum,” Smith said. “So it's not like we can put the switch on and it just happens overnight.”
The debate
While Melissa Hubbard, executive director of teaching and learning, said the curriculum references non-Christian religions, many parents echoed concerns of advocacy groups that argue it has a disproportionate number of biblical references.
While religious references currently exist in FBISD language arts curriculum, Hubbard said, the references in Bluebonnet extend to science and social studies.
Trustee David Hamilton said the debate surrounding religious references is present because for many years, students have been expected to “check their faith at the door” when coming into a public school.
“[The Bluebonnet Learning curriculum] is not proselytizing, and this is not us establishing Christianity or any other religion as the religion of the Texas state government. However, it is a step away from functioning as if religious neutrality means no religion is true while you're on our campus,” Hamilton said.
Parent Nabiah Khan said she believes, based on her own research and that of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the curriculum has a clear orientation toward Christian beliefs.
“This curriculum is criticized as not applicable to diverse educational environments, and yet it is being presented as an option,” Khan said.
State Board of Education board member Will Hickman, R-Houston, who voted for the materials, said controversial biblical references in the curriculum were important for a broad range of students' learning experience, Community Impact previously reported.
“There's a line between indoctrination or evangelism and education,” Hickman said at the Nov. 19 preliminary vote. “In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy. There's religious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the golden rule that all students should be exposed to.”
Rishi Bhutada, FBISD parent and board member of the Hindu American Foundation, said many Hindu families would be concerned about curriculum, as the mention of other religions is often framed within the context of biblical texts.
“The curriculum's many religious references overly emphasize Christianity, and its minimal references to Hinduism trivialize our faith to such a degree that is almost a joke,” he said. “This disparity is clearly not religiously neutral.”
Budget explained
For the 2024-25 school year, FBISD received $171.82 per student plus an additional $15.58 for emergent bilingual students through the instructional materials and technology allotment, Hubbard said.
Under HB 1605, districts are also allotted up to $60 per student to purchase and print authorized materials, Community Impact previously reported.
While all of the Bluebonnet Learning Curriculum materials are publicly available through the Texas Education Agency website, districts that adopt the curriculum will receive $20 per student in printing fees, Hubbard said.
If approved, the materials would cost the district $1.6 million-$2.1 million for kindergarten through fifth grade materials in the first year of implementation, Hubbard said.
Zooming out
Conroe ISD recently approved the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum for the 2025-26 school year, with board members citing a savings of $8 million by 2029 and the need to facilitate teacher workloads through the prepared curriculum as the leading factors in the decision, Community Impact reported.
Lubbock ISD, which implemented the program in 2021 and expanded it to all campuses by the 2023-24 school year, saw an increase in ELA state test scores across all demographics for 2023-24 school year, Community Impact reported.
Meanwhile, FBISD parent Tammy Moreno said other districts in the state have rejected the curriculum because the materials were inadequate for their academic standards.
“Spring Branch, Denton, Frisco and more to come all decided not to adopt Bluebonnet because it is not up to their district standards,” Moreno said. “They didn't take the bribe to accept a curriculum that is pedagogically poor, not best for kids, not proven and religiously slanted.”
Next steps
Jordan said the literacy audit, which evaluates district-wide gaps in existing reading curriculum, will begin in late March, and the district will present recommendations six weeks later.
If trustees vote to review the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum on March 24, the district will likely receive the materials after the literacy audit, at which point they will evaluate the curriculum and others on the State Board of Education-approved list.
