School officials hope sign at Old Lyme game will be ‘learning opportunity’

Message may have had racial connotations

Old Lyme — Clinton Public Schools officials reached out to Lyme-Old Lyme Public Schools officials after students reported a sign at a boys’ soccer game in Old Lyme between The Morgan School and Lyme-Old Lyme High School that said “OUR DEFENSE IS A WALL.”

Clinton Public Schools Superintendent Maryann O’Donnell said the sign at the soccer game last month caught the eye of the soccer players and they were bothered by it and brought it to the attention of their coach and building administrators.

Some of the players on the Morgan soccer team are Hispanic.

The high school principal spoke with the team, and Clinton school officials contacted Lyme-Old Lyme school officials about the incident, she said.

“We made them aware of the sign and that our students reacted to it, and I’m pretty comfortable and confident that this was a learning opportunity and they heard our concerns and appreciated the perspective,” O’Donnell said. She said the matter was being handled internally by the school district and declined to elaborate on the specific concerns.

Lyme-Old Lyme Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser said that LymeOld Lyme administration has “had an ongoing positive discussion” with O’Donnell and her administration: “We will continue to work together to ensure all parties learn from this situation and move forward in what we hope will be a successful season for both programs,” he said.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and some

in the Hispanic community find the reference to building a wall offensive.

In a phone interview about the banner at the Old Lyme soccer game, Karissa Niehoff, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, said that what feels offensive to people is a personal response, and if one group felt offended by the sign, it’s important to address that. While there are certain defensive situations in which soccer players line up in a wall formation and the words on the banner do not name a group or reference politics specifically, others can see in the banner an allusion to the national conversation about a wall on the border, she said.

“If they felt the sign was offensive to them, then we need to pay attention to that and both schools need to pay attention to that,” she added.

She said the CIAC was aware of the banner and hopes it can be used as a teaching moment, but is not getting involved.

“We know that the two schools are dealing with that incident with their student athletes and they have good administrators that are taking care of it,” she said.

Lyme-Old Lyme students have a tradition of hanging signs from a fence in front of the school expressing support for their individual programs, Neviaser said. He confirmed the existence of the sign, but said he could not comment on who posted it, what their intention was, or the outcome of the hanging of the sign. He said no members of the soccer team were suspended.

Niehoff said the CIAC does not have direct oversight in terms of how schools deal with student behavior during regular season games, but she added that the CIAC does have sportsmanship guidelines. Hypothetically speaking, if there were an egregious sports incident, or a hate incident, and a member school did not respond or did not respond in an appropriate manner, the CIAC would intervene and connect with the school administrators, she said. If the school did not respond appropriately, it could lead to probation or even having membership revoked.

But she said in the case of the Old Lyme banner, both schools are addressing the situation and working with their students.