Parents applaud those speaking against the idea of a mask mandate at a Mars Area School District meeting on Tuesday night.

The Mars Area School District board voted to approve an addition to the district's mission statement to promote “Informed, Engaged and Patriotic Citizens” at a meeting on Tuesday night.

The addition prohibits “the teaching of concepts that assign fault, blame, or guilt to people solely because of race, sex and religion,” and opposes materials that “indoctrinate” students in “a single social, or political, ideology and/or theory, or promote one race, religion or sex above others.”

A change to the addition was proposed at the meeting by board member Anthony Depretis and approved by the board.

With the change, the policy now bans teaching of “social theories (for example, the 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory) and conspiracy theories (for example, Holocaust Denial Theory, 9/11 Theory)” unless approved by the school board. A previous edition of the policy had all four examples in the same category of “social theories of any kind.”

Critical Race Theory is a typically college- and graduate-level theory that explores societal and legal issues and structures to examine how they relate to race.

Depretis' amendment also added a Merriam-Webster definition of patriotism as “love for or devotion to one's country” to the addition.

Board member Dayle Ferguson, who originally presented the proposed addition at a July 20 meeting, said at the meeting Tuesday that “patriotism is not controversial.”

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