What to Know
- "Southlake" is a new NBC News podcast about belonging and backlash in a Texas suburb. Listen to the series here.
- Find the Southlake podcast on Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | Stitcher | TuneIn
- For more on this story, watch NBC's "TODAY" show on Tuesday at 8 a.m. CT
Last December, Lane Ledbetter landed his dream job as superintendent of one of the top-performing school systems in Texas: the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, where he grew up.
At 50, Ledbetter thought returning to his hometown would be a chance to give back to the community that shaped him. But so far, his tenure leading the district of 8,400 students has been dominated by a supercharged debate over how the suburban school system, 30 miles northwest of Dallas, handles issues of race, identity and student discipline.
As students settle in at the start of a new school year, Southlake residents on both sides of the fight have largely looked to one man — Ledbetter — to find a path forward. It's not yet clear, however, what that path is.
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"I do believe if any community can come through this, then certainly it's the city of Southlake and Carroll ISD," Ledbetter, who is white, said in a recent NBCNews.com interview. "They can come through this."
Read more from NBCNews.com
The city's fight over the school diversity plan is the focus of a new six-part narrative podcast by NBC News. The series, "Southlake," documents the district's initial efforts to address racism after a 2018 viral video of white high schoolers chanting the N-word led dozens of Carroll parents and students to share stories of racist, insensitive and discriminatory incidents. The audio documentary also traces the rise of an organized and well-funded local campaign to kill the diversity plan and win control of the school board.
Find the Southlake podcast on Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | Stitcher | TuneIn
