Diversity initiative debate continues

Speakers urge more inclusion in teaching

EAST ROCKHILL » Response to last month’s vote by the Pennridge School Board to pause the district’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiative and replace the previously existing group with a new committee headed by three board members continued at the board’s Sept. 13 Curriculum Committee meeting with several residents stressing support for including diversity discussions in curriculum.

“We need to be teaching each other better. We need to be teaching each other that there’s nothing to fear from diversity and equity and inclusion or culturally responsive teaching,” said Kevin Leven, of the Bucks County Anti-Racism Coalition.

“We do not want to point fingers and say you are guilty. Guilt is past-focused. We have a responsibility to fix the future,” Leven said. “What does that look like? Well, I can tell you what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like halting a DEI initiative in order to fix it. You don’t need to do away with something in order to make improvements to it.”

“We teach our students civics, we teach our students history. A very important part of civics and history is the diverse fabric that makes up this country, so I stand in strong support of diversity, equity and inclusion being included, not halted,” resident T. C. Cuthbertson said.

As an employer, he has employees of various races, he said.

“My company is better for it because I train my staff on how to engage in the workplace, and if

we’re not training our students on how to engage in the workplace, how to engage in society with others that don’t look like them, what are we really doing to our students? We’re putting them at a disadvantage to compete on a national and global scale,” Cuthbertson said.

Resident Jill Rand suggested alternative books that could be used to replace two others that had been removed from the curriculum resources for a literature class after concerns were raised about the content of the removed books.

“The material they read really matters and if they’re reading something that lifts them up, everybody — Black, white, Asian, gay, straight — everybody, they need to see their potential and not see themselves as a victim,” Rand said. “The materials seem to victimize people of color or minorities and it’s not right.”

“Evaluating your bias is not racism. It’s not sexism. It’s just making sure you’re making decisions based on what you know and not how you feel,” resident Leah Foster Rash said.

“Everyone has biases. It doesn’t mean you’re racist,” Rash said. “Our children are watching us, though. I have friends on all sides of this and I know we’re all really good people. I’d like to see us listening and understanding more.”

Resident Laura Foster said there’s been a lot of misinformation about critical race theory.

“As a scholar of CRT, I’m here to set the record straight. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges the legacy of slavery, segregation and imposition of second class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continues to permeate the social fabric of this nation,” she said.

“We all need inclusivity and diversity. We all need this training, no matter how woke you think you are, this is a part of all our lives,” Foster said, “and we need to support this and have it a part of all of our systems — educators, school board included — starting now.”

Resident Kim Bedillion said when she raised concerns about sensitive content in required or encouraged texts involving a 10th grade literature class, she was told teachers work directly with the students to ensure understanding and the purpose of the text.

“Parents should be primarily responsible for having conversations with their child about sensitive subjects, if appropriate and when appropriate,” she said.

Parents should be given more information beforehand about the curriculum resources being used, she said.

“You can’t unring the bell, so if you have a high school student who doesn’t tell you what they’re seeing, and we’ve had instances brought up here, that’s problematic,” Bedillion said later during the second round of public comment.

The DEI activities that were halted went beyond the scope of what had been authorized by the school board, was not transparent and did not include diversity of thought, she said.

“The process toward the DEI Initiative moved largely behind the scenes. As such, the consent and cooperation of the larger community was not obtained prior to the initiative becoming fully developed and instituting changes,” Bedillion said.

Resident Mary Martin pointed toward the district mission statement saying it strives to provide all students with a well-rounded educational experience where the students can acquire the skills to succeed.

“In the 21st century, our children’s future employers are telling us that the ability to foster inclusivity and equity in a diverse workplace is a necessary skill,” Martin said. “Adding diverse voices to our literary, historical and other aspects of the curriculum is necessary to provide all of our children important context for understanding the 21st century world and all the people that inhabit it.”

Jordan Blomgren, a candidate in this year’s school board election, said she supported halting DEI, which she said had become infused with the curriculum. As a teacher, Blomgren said, she already celebrates diversity and is shocked and insulted that people think that’s not happening.

“Just because somebody doesn’t want a DEI Initiative doesn’t mean that that’s not something that they believe in and doesn’t happen naturally,” Blomgren said.

In the past year, she’s heard students in her classes call each other racist and white supremacist more than ever before, she said.

“That’s not teaching a healthy thing of how we want students to be moving forward into our future and not looking at people with a clear slate and really getting to know them,” Blomgren said.

The meeting also included a report from Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Kathleen Scheid on changes made to curriculum or being proposed following issues raised at previous meetings.

Examples included changing the name of an English class unit from “Dreams and Oppressions” to “Dreams and Challenges,”

along with removing some of the instructional resources and adding others.

In a unit on Justice, the original big idea was changed from “Right and wrong are not always black and white” to “Right and wrong are not always absolute.” In The Faces of America unit, the original big idea was changed from “The individual American experience is impacted by a person’s gender, education, race, familial influences (beliefs, social practices), localities” to “The individual American experience is varied.”

New guidelines were created for social studies students and teachers discussing current events, Scheid said.

There are also new guidelines for using additional curriculum resources that are not on the approved list, she said.

“We do have professionals and we trust them, but we are giving them guidelines to ensure that the proper questions are asked before a resource is chosen,” Scheid said. “So these are the safeguards that we’ve put in place knowing that the world is ever changing and there may be a resource that’s fantastic and teachers should be able to use that, but they need to use it with guidance.”

The approval process for curriculum includes public discussion at both the committee and the school board, she said.

“I do appreciate the effort and I think that’s what the community was kind of getting to. Not that the community expects to write curriculum because we do have professionals to write curriculum,” board member Joan Cullen said, “but the community can give feedback on what’s in that curriculum and I think that’s appropriate. It’s a public school system. Parents should have the ability to see how their children are being taught and give feedback and I think that the way you responded to it, you’ve done it in an appropriate way, in a thoughtful way.”

With students now more likely to be learning on laptops than with textbooks, “I think we do need to figure out a way to have better communication and transparency with parents on the resources,” being used as curriculum, resident Dave Bedillion said.

“Just simply saying, well, we just want our educators to use their best professional judgement, we’ve already seen cases where that hasn’t necessarily met the needs and has resulted in inappropriate content,” Bedillion said.

The approval process also should include more vetting, he said.

“We need to be teaching each other better. We need to be teaching each other that there’s nothing to fear from diversity and equity and inclusion or culturally responsive teaching.” — Kevin Leven, Bucks County Anti-Racism Coalition

“... If we’re not training our students on how to engage in the workplace, how to engage in society with others that don’t look like them, what are we really doing to our students? We’re putting them at a disadvantage to compete on a national and global scale.” — T.C. Cuthbertson