Alabama state school board members want to know what exactly teachers and schools are forbidden from teaching under a 2021 ban on “social or political ideologies that promote one race or sex above another.”

State Board of Education mber Tonya Chestnut said conflicting messages are impacting the celebration of Black History Month.

“It appears there is confusion around Black history and CRT [critical race theory],” board member Tonya Chestnut said during Thursday’s work session in Montgomery. “What can we do to raise awareness of what CRT is and is not to prevent the future confusion that I’m hearing?”

She said educators have asked her if they could get in trouble for Black History Month programming and lessons. She also pointed to a student walkout in Tuscaloosa County schools Wednesday as an example of conflicting accounts about Black History Month events. Hillcrest High School students said they were told to make an event focus more on current events and less on “old stuff” before 1970; school officials maintain the student event was not censored.

The 2021 resolution, which doesn’t specifically mention CRT but was passed during the national fervor over the academic theory, prohibits teaching anything that would “indoctrinate students in social or political ideologies that promote one race or sex above another.”

“There just seems to be a question of what is and what isn’t,” Chestnut said. “I know that’s the big elephant in the room. But at some point we need to bring some clarity so we aren’t dealing with these same issues over and over again.”

Lawmakers already have pre-filed a bill banning the teaching of “divisive concepts.” The bill stops short of listing exact lessons that are off limits. A similar effort in the legislature failed last year.

Board member Yvette Richardson said that before 2022, schools celebrated Black History Month for many years without concern.

“People are confused,” Richardson said. “What we’ve done for years, they’re afraid to do now. Something needs to be done.”

Richardson and Chestnut were the only board members who voted against the resolution.

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said the state department will work with districts to help plan programming for Black History Month if needed. He maintained that the state is not interested in laying out point-by-point descriptions of which lessons are and are not allowed.

“There’s not a way to make a list of things that aren’t acceptable,” he said.

Last year, when describing a complaint made about Black History Month, Mackey defended cultural and historical celebrations of different aspects of Alabama’s heritage.

“Having a Black history program is not CRT,” he said in 2022.

After the work session, Chestnut told AL.com that no one in Alabama has really defined critical race theory, and the range of topics that are now off limits depends on who you talk to, which makes it more confusing for teachers.

“It concerns me to think that we have portions of history that people don’t want to hear about. History is what has happened.”

“Not talking about it does not make it go away.”