This afternoon, superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice sent this message to the Westport community:
When I arrived almost 4 years ago as superintendent, Westport’s decades-long commitment to diversity and inclusion could be seen across the community and within the schools.
Over these 4 years, the school district has continued to build on the work of the community in many ways, including our Equity Study, our district Strategic Plan, curriculum revisions, and advanced teacher training to name just a few initiatives.
In a recent conversation with our district-wide PTA presidents, it became clear to me that I have more work to do to keep the school community informed about our progress by actively sharing our work.
While my focus recently has been on offering purposeful updates on timely topics, I have been remiss in not sharing some of our proactive and preventive student programs, ongoing teacher training/professional development initiatives, and curriculum efforts, all of which enable and inform our continuous evolution as a place founded in academic excellence and belonging.
Last Wednesday night, about 1/3 of the district’s administrators and I joined local clergy and community leaders at Temple Israel to share details about our framework for preventing and responding to identity-based bullying in our schools.
Superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice, Staples High School principal Stafford Thomas and grades 6-12 social studies coordinator Lauren Francese, at last week’s Temple Israel forum. (Photo/Dan Woog)
The information we shared demonstrated how our programs follow every Westport learner’s journey from pre-k through graduation, and we hope, beyond.
The presentation’s content was guided by the questions and feedback we’ve received from the community over the last few weeks. A copy of the presentation is attached to this message and the recording is available here.
Even with a broad prevention strategy, there is the likelihood that we will experience bias incidents. For this reason, we have also worked to develop an effective response protocol across all of our schools.
Over the past 2 months the district has worked to engage with the community, educators and students to update our student “Code of Conduct.”
A critical and unique input to this work has been the solicitation of ongoing feedback from the community, including multiple public readings of the student discipline policy at Board of Education meetings over the past few months.
This work will lay the foundation for transparency, common language, mutual understanding, and consistent processes. But it’s only the beginning, and it requires a collaborative partnership with the community, including a continuous flow of information.
To that end, I’m pleased to share that we launched the district’s DEIB website (westportdeib.org) last week as the source of truth regarding the work, progress, and dialogue happening in, and for, our schools. Here you’ll find sample learning experiences, curriculum highlights, school policies and protocols, and current news and events. In the coming weeks, answers to frequently asked questions will be added.
I always appreciate the community’s candor, dialogue, and shared vision for our schools. Together, we can continue to exemplify the values of the town where we live or work, grounded in caring and understanding.
Click here for a PDF of the Temple Israel Community Forum.
I doubt that all the good efforts of Scarice et al to reach a few hundred followers with DEI news and the results of DEI efforts can possibly overcome the next President’s message of hate, violence and retribution received by a 100 million the day before yesterday; with more to come. Good luck with that.
I’ve been commenting exactly that on 06880 for several years. His rhetoric is growing even more violent and antisemitic. The Jewish leaders are silent as Trump says Jews who vote Democratic hate their religion abd hate Israel. As everyone in 06880 knows he refused to call out white supremacy groups. He gas lights racists and jog it’s all over the USA and world that it is acceptable to act out Good luck schools.
if 40 per cent of 06880 support the loudest voice on hate bigotry violence and anti semitism what can our schools do ?
I watched the community forum the Superintendent and staff gave last week. I realize it was held in Temple Israel, however it was billed as a “community forum on preventing and responding to identity-based bullying”. A lot of great info and I applaud the efforts and leadership of Mr. Scarice. That said, I couldn’t help noticing that the majority of the presentation was geared to and about antisemitism specifically. Perhaps this was because it was held at a Jewish temple or maybe the tone of the presentation was garnered from the questions from the community beforehand? That could explain the outcome. All I know is I felt an uncomfortable feeling watching that these folks had no idea how tone deaf the presentation appeared to other members of our community. I understand recent events have raised the spectre of antisemitism to a higher degree however I believe until we stop dividing people by groups, either intentionally or unintentionally, the issues will never change and only get worse. Does it matter if the incident of bullying or hate was against, or perpetrated, by a particular ethnic group? I don’t believe so. Wrong is wrong, period. So my hope is the result of the programs and initiatives the school undertakes will be ethnically (or any other category) neutral. That in and of itself will send the proper message to all Westport and set the standard for all students and faculty.
Once again I also have to call out that the worst cases of bias and bullying my kids experienced (and I witnessed personally) at Staples was within the athletic programs, allowed and encouraged by coaches. So let’s make sure even volunteer folks involved in athletics are trained properly.
all clergy from all denominations should have attended.
regarding tone deaf I would urge you to research the anti defamation league statistics on the amount of threats to Jews in USA and world. I support anti bullying and supportive of all ethnic groups facing bullying and racist and violence. 06880 and the USA need to stand together on all aspects of bullying I have witnessed multiple examples of bullying on this blog. The Jewish people have been facing voluminous frequent racist and violent threats. I’m not sure who is tone deaf here. I remind you of the Holocaust and how Trump told his chief of staff General John Kelly that Hitler did many good things.
That the “forum” was not held at town hall is a real oversight;
That it was held at a house of religion is a travesty and unimaginably thoughtless.