School board supports anti-discrimination training
Members of the Gateway School Board of Directors, at the recommendation of the superintendent, have declined to comment on the resignation of board member Paul Caliari because of a pending lawsuit. But that doesn’t mean the reason for the resignation isn’t being addressed.
Mr. Caliari and the school district were named in a federal racial discrimination lawsuit filed Jan. 1 claiming that Mr. Caliari texted a question related to race in discussion of a job applicant. After word of the text and the language used in it became public, Mr. Caliari resigned Jan. 7.
Prior to the board’s Jan. 19 meeting, Superintendent William Short posted a statement on the district website saying administrators were “unable to comment further at this time due to pending litigation.”
However, the members did approve a proposal recommending anti-discrimination training sessions endorsed by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association for teachers and board members.
Member Scott Gallagher, speaking on behalf of the Equity Committee, presented the motion to approve the training.
Member John Ritter said he took the equity training three times in recent months and encouraged all school board members be fully trained. But he said he did not feel the trainings should be “forced on people.”
President Brian Goppman stressed that the trainings are not forced but encouraged.
“I don’t think you could ever be over-trained,” said board member Susan Delaney. “Because our world is constantly changing, I don’t think you could ever have too much training.”
Former board president and member Mary Beth Cirucci asked why a motion was required if the training is not mandatory. Mr. Ritter said some of the training is mandatory by the PSBA but that there are optional training and paid training sessions as well.
“One of the reasons I put this resolution forward is that, specifically, it’s going to connect us with our Equity Committee who knows the details of our district,” said Mr. Gallagher. “This gives us a little bit of insight for our Equity Committee to say ‘these are the things we hope our board of directors would have an understanding about the changing dynamics within our own district.’”
“We are all elected officials, chosen by the voters of this community to represent them,” Ms. Cirucci said. “That means we are also not employees of the Gateway School District.” She encouraged board members to follow the PSBA and PA School Code for guidance on such training.
“The call for a diversity program for the school board, prompted by one school board member’s mistake, lump every one of us into one pool of guilt and is becoming a distraction,” she said. “These programs make crucially wrong assumptions about the beliefs and character of the people they train and have not been proven to improve the results over a school district in a measurable way.”
She added that, “Putting this motion on the table puts your board colleagues in a precarious situation because if they don’t support it, they
will be subject to the political attacks and false labels that are flying around social media in this politically charged environment.”
According to the resolution, the board members are “encouraged” to participate in training such as cultural understandings/sensitivity training, religious differentiation training, etc.
All of the school board members voted for the motion except Ms. Cirucci, who abstained, and Mr. Ritter, who voted no.
Meanwhile, the unexpired term of Mr. Caliari remains vacant. To apply for the position, residents are urged to “submit a letter of interest along with a statement of background” by Feb. 5, according to a notice posted on the Gateway School District website. The term is set to run through the year until the first Monday of December.