A Boston-area charter school is in trouble with state regulators because it focuses on “the fundamental ideals of our American Culture” and embraces “the melting pot theory by highlighting our citizens’ and students’ commonality, not their differences,” writes Molly Ball in Time. New state standards require cultural responsiveness.

Students at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School, which attracts a diverse student body, do well academically, Writes Ball. “Test scores and graduation rates routinely rank among the state’s best.” Attrition is low. The wait list is huge.

But, after 23 years, the K-12 school is worried its charter will be denied in 2023.

Eric Henry, a black father with triplets in fifth grade, complained about the racial slurs in Tom Sawyer, which is approved by the state as part of the public-school curriculum.

“This is horrible,” wrote Olympia Stroud, a program coordinator at the Massachusetts department of elementary and secondary education (DESE). “How long have these books been in the curriculum?” Stroud forwarded the concerns to a supervisor, Benie Capitolin, who called the matter “heartbreaking.” “If our system can’t protect Black and brown students from unsafe environments,” Capitolin wrote, “how can it possibly educate them?”

DESE issued a draft report in September citing Mystic Valley for not fully meeting the new standard, writes Ball. The school sued, uncovering emails showing “DESE employees were secretly coordinating with the school’s critics, including the Henrys, the NAACP and local racial-justice activists unconnected to the school.”

In their emails, the activists advocated a “stealth approach,” using “cloak and dagger” tactics. And DESE went along, adding employees to the review team who were concerned about the school’s racial climate, then deliberately delaying the review for months to allow parents to submit official complaints. When none materialized, the department created informal focus groups that they packed with the same complaining activists, then incorporated the groups’ feedback into its report, the documents show.

A Puerto Rican–Palestinian social worker, Zinah Abukhalil-Quinonez, is angry that Mystic Valley didn’t issue a statement that “Black Lives Matter” and doesn’t celebrate Black History Month, writes Ball. “Her concerns deepened as she monitored her daughter’s virtual lessons. In one second-grade homework assignment, a multiple-choice answer about Harriet Tubman identified her as ‘a conductor on the underground railroad,’ as though she were merely operating a train.”

“What Mystic Valley’s proponents and critics agree on is that its colorblind approach is at the heart of the controversy,” writes Ball.

“Their view is, we’re a melting pot, there are no racial differences, no cultural differences—essentially, as long as you accept white culture, you’re fine,” says Greg Bartlett, secretary of the local NAACP branch. Students of color may be getting good test scores, but they are not safe, he says. “In my judgment, the school isn’t overtly racist, but it’s clear there’s a lot of hurt going on.”

Mystic Valley’s supporters say the best “way to fight injustice” is “to close the achievement gap and make better futures possible for children of color,” writes Ball.

Rita Mercado, a Filipino-American lawyer “is among the parents who believe in Mystic Valley’s vision of inclusion,” she writes.

She sees a group of children from diverse backgrounds who are learning to get along without taking anyone’s identity for granted. At an “American heritage” performance her son took part in when he was in kindergarten, “seeing 100 kids of different nationalities singing ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ I remember thinking, This is what I envision America to be.”

Mystic Valley uses Direct Instruction, Saxon Math Core Knowledge in K-8 and offers International Baccalaureate classes in high school.