Ten questions for the Superintendent of Westport schools

Oct 12, 2021 By WP06880

O n October 8, the Superintendent of the Westport Public Schools sent an email to the community to address concerns around the equity study. In this email, he acknowledges lapses in communication and commits to further transparency, while providing some additional information about the equity study and how it will influence the next strategic plan.

The Educational Equity Movement is having an enormous impact on schools throughout the country, most recently driving the elimination of Gifted and Talented programs in New York City. Given the potential for a significant impact on our own schools, we appreciate the Superintendent’s openness and would like the following questions to be addressed as he continues to dialogue with the community.

In the previous strategic plan 2017-20, the prior Superintendent referred to “the District’s longstanding commitment toward economic and racial diversity,” as well as its “strong commitment to social and emotional learning and student wellness” and “excellent programs for struggling and high achieving students.”

Given the success of our school district with respect to diversity and inclusion as well as cultural sensitivity expressed in the prior plan, what led you as the new Superintendent to the conclusion that our schools now require aggressive external intervention to address pervasive DEI problems within our schools?
In your Strategic Entry Plan of September 18, 2020, you discuss “our collective efforts in Westport to combat systemic and institutional racism” and “fostering the capacities of our children to advance the cause for a more just, anti-racist society.” You further declare, “the need for a decisive response and sustained action to combat centuries of systemic and institutional racism warrant the full and complete attention of the school district.” Training students to see everything in the world through the racialized equity lens, in order to transform them into anti-racist social just warriors, is the primary purpose of CRT as applied to education.

Given the goals expressed in this document and the vocabulary you utilize, why do you feel critical race theory represents a gross mischaracterization of your educational priorities?
Similarly, the NYU Metro Center in its description of its “Anti-Racist and Critical Whiteness Initiative” notes that its “ongoing commitment to promoting educational equity and confronting anti-Black racism and white supremacy has spanned four decades.“

Can you explain how the Metro Center’s self-description conflicts in any way with the core concepts and objectives of the CRT movement?
In your email to the community, you consistently refer to certain unnamed “community members” who have played a key role in the equity study to date and who will play a key role in the formation of “action plans.”

Can you please provide the names of these community members, how they were selected and by whom, and indicate what steps were taken to assure diverse viewpoints were represented among those community members, including political party affiliation?
In a document posted on the TEAM Westport website, TEAM notes its involvement in the search process that led to your hiring.

Can you explain in detail what role TEAM had in your selection as Superintendent and what commitments if any were made to TEAM in exchange for their support?
Among the reasons you cite in the email for launching the equity study is that “this focus is currently a part of the educational landscape across the state and nation.”

Why is it important for Westport to align itself with this perceived trend and should we not align ourselves with the perhaps more powerful anti-CRT trend, motivated by a sense of preserving the most important American values like equality for all, that is now embedded in legislation in many states much larger than Connecticut?
You cited a number of reasons for the selection of the NYU Metro Center but failed to address its core mission of dismantling “whiteness.”

Could you explain how the Metro Center’s ideology was assessed and specifically identify the individuals and/or organizations in Westport who had input in this important decision to work with NYU Metro?
You discuss in your email how the action plans that come from the Equity Study will be folded into the strategic plan that will be sent to the BOE for a vote.

Could you please be more specific about how the BOE will be able to evaluate and modify these action plans as they will apparently be embedded in a much larger set of decisions facing the BOE?
As you know, parents are very concerned that the action plans from the equity study will significantly impact honors/AP/gifted offerings along with SPED programs. As noted in the prior strategic plan, the District historically viewed these offerings as “excellent.”

Can you provide parents assurances that these “excellent” programs will not be touched by the action plans that follow the equity study?
You have suggested that parents and community members who draw a connection between CRT and the Metro Center/equity study have fallen prey to “hyperbole” and “emotional appeals.” Yet the parents who represent this point of view are a highly educated, highly successful, multi-cultural group of individuals, who have children in the schools you manage and pay the property taxes that pay your salary.

Would you be willing to sit and listen to parents who have concerns about the origins and direction of the equity study, even if they are unaffiliated with TEAM?