Did VHS race memo do any good?
Some see response of ‘denial and diversion’ since 2014; administration defends progress
In 2014, Valparaiso High School administrators agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice to address issues of racism at the school.
The memorandum, in place for five years, expired a year ago and outlined seven recommendations to improve race relations at the high school.
Those from the community who were involved with the effort said little was accomplished under the memorandum and they have no evidence that anything has improved since it expired.
An official from the Valparaiso schools administration said in an email response to the Post-Tribune that initiatives began with previous leadership at the high school and have continued under the current leadership team.
Community members disagree. Now, they are bearing witness, gathering the stories of students who have been victims of or witnessed instances of prejudice at the school and their parents, and presenting them to the school board and Valparaiso’s Human Relations Council as evidence of the work left to do.
“The problem we have now is there are racial epithets at Valparaiso High School,” said George Terrell, a retired attorney with Allies Against Racism and White Supremacy who also is a member of Northwest Indiana African American Alliance, which helped spearhead the memorandum.
“The response from the administration as best as we can determine is denial and diversion,” though members of the school board recently told Terrell they want to set up a meeting with the concerned community groups.
Six years ago, a parent contacted a member of the Northwest Indiana African American Alliance because they said their child was the victim of racially motivated bullying at the high school and was expelled, said Tina AllenAbulhassan, who is with the alliance.
That member reached out directly to the DOJ, Allen-Abulhassan said, setting in motion the mediation process.
According to the memorandum, the parties involved in the agreement met in April, May and June of 2014 “in a cooperative effort to improve communications and protocol for the benefit of all students of Valparaiso High School and the residents of Valparaiso, Indiana.”
The parties involved in the memorandum, according to that document, “agreed to participate in this Agreement in the spirit of community reconciliation” and
included proposals “directed toward improving equity in education, student relations, school-parent relations, diversity recruitment and race relations.”
The memorandum outlined seven needs, including addressing racial student conflict; improving disciplinary measures and addressing allegations of disproportionality; improving communication between parents and school administrators; addressing a lack of a confidential grievance process for students; improving cultural awareness for students and teachers; addressing tardiness among Black students; and increasing parent participation at the high school.
A July 2018 memorandum from Cicely Powell, then the school corporation’s director of school culture and student services, outlined some of the steps reportedly taken to resolve the needs outlined in the memorandum. Two of the needs, including improving disciplinary measures and addressing tardiness among Black students, were reported as, “Data needed to support this item.”
The alliance, Allen-Abulhassan said, was not satisfied with all of Powell’s responses, and felt that only some of the needs were partially or fully met.
“I don’t think they took it seriously,” she said.
Local attorney Ivan Bodensteiner signed the memorandum as chair of the Human Relations Council at the time and served as co-mediator, along with the DOJ’s Community Relations Service, between the alliance and another community group, United for a Purpose, which has since dissolved.
He agreed that the needs outlined in the memorandum were not fully satisfied.
“I think pretty clearly not all were addressed and how clearly any of them were met is a matter of opinion,” he said.
The Human Rights Council, said its current chair, Roxanne Johnson, serves as a platform for community members to come forward and share what’s on their minds. That platform recently has been used by current and former VHS students and their parents, as well as people who attended the high school in the 1980s and 1990s and were motivated to speak because the “hurtful things” they faced when they were in school are still going on and not being addressed satisfactorily.
“The best part of the Human Relations Council is we provide a platform for anyone who feels they’ve been discriminated against and they can be heard, and then there’s awareness and things can be done,” Johnson said.
Those involved with the memorandum met quarterly for five years, but that process wrapped up a year ago, Allen-Abulhassan said. At the time, she said, the memorandum wasn’t renewed because school officials and the community organizations involved couldn’t agree on who should be on the committee.
Nothing, as far as she knows, was accomplished after the memorandum came to an end and nothing has evolved since. School officials rejected participating in a free student-led program sponsored by the DOJ called Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together, or SPIRIT.
“They said they didn’t need it and we’re still hearing these horror stories of minority students being picked on,” Allen-Abulhassan said.
But Allison Hadley, spokeswoman for the Valparaiso Community Schools, provided an email with a list highlighting the initiatives taking place at the high school. Those include: ▪ An established mediation process to support restorative practice measures. This includes the use of a peer mediation conflict form to support these procedures.
▪ A curriculum review conducted to ensure that all students have access to the same educational experience. Administrators have identified areas within course offerings to expand opportunities for all students to enter the honors track or areas of advanced study by removing potential barriers such as prerequisites of previous honors course work.
▪ In March of 2020, the VHS Muslim Student Association and VHS Unified Sports were each awarded the Urban League of Northwest Indiana Diversity and Inclusion Youth Award for their efforts to this end.
▪ Before the return to inperson school on Aug. 12, teachers were provided with resources and prompts on the topics of empathy and discussion to facilitate conversations with and among students on a variety of topics.
▪ At the district level, VCS continues to take steps to implement initiatives that support inclusion and equality for all students. “We know that our work in this area is ongoing but we are committed to being part of the change in the greater Valparaiso community,” Hadley said in her email.
Still, in late February, Allies Against Racism collected stories from five VHS students about personal experiences of racism in the schools and presented that testimony to the Human Relations Council at a meeting in late July.
The students, whose identities were not divulged for their protection, noted prejudice directed against peers who are Black, Asian American, Muslim and Jewish.
Terrell, wit h Allie s Against Racism, said the point isn’t to say those perpetuating prejudice are bad people, but rather to get them to apologize, think about how to act and pledge to do better.
More than 20% of the students in the Valparaiso schools are minorities, Terrell said, and his group and others would like to see school officials recognize there’s a problem and report publicly on the problem.
“We don’t want that old MOU put back in place. We want a full-throated approach that will benefit all the students and the community,” he said.