The debate and discussion over the teaching of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, DEI, in Westchester public schools continues. Last year a Somers High school teacher was suspended, for having her students read the book Me and White Supremacy, by Layla Saad, and have her students explore their own white privilege and fragility.
The 10th grade English teacher, Allison Ferrier, was briefly suspended for using an unauthorized book in class. But after a few days, Ferrier was brought back after Somers Superintendent Raymond Blanche said that the book was not banned to be used in the classroom. A school board meeting during Ferrier’s suspension had parents and students coming out in support of her return.
Now the national Conservative group Turning Point USA has created a School Board Watchlist of districts that are “teaching racialization in the classroom.” On their list are nine Westchester school districts, including Somers, and Croton, Irvington, Mamaroneck, Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains, Yonkers, and Yorktown.
Turning Point explains that the “School Board Watchlist (SBWL) is America’s only national grassroots initiative dedicated to protecting our children by exposing radical and false ideologies endorsed by school boards and pushed in the classroom. SBWL finds and exposes school board leadership that supports anti-American, radical, hateful, immoral, and racist teachings in their districts, such as Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, sexual/gender ideology, and more. SBWL also provides information on how parents and students can get involved in their local school board and put an end to the racialization of the classroom. It’s time for millions of Americans to stand up and take back our schools, demanding an end to the radical indoctrination of our children in the classroom.”
Turning Points website /www.schoolboardwatchlist.org, lists each of the nine Westchester school boards, and the reason for being on their list.
Croton-Harmon Union Free School District (UFSD) came under fire after a controversial sex ed lesson was taught at the high school. The district said it developed “a discussion about consent, (where) students are asked to anonymously generate words or phrases they have heard…some of which depict potentially unhealthy dynamics about sex.”
Residents in the Irvington Union Free School District were upset after a high school football team carried an allegedly politically motivated flag (Blue Lives Matter) onto the field before a September 10, 2022 game.
The Mamaroneck Public Schools recently settled a lawsuit that accused the district of alleged racial discrimination against students. In 2020, The Loop reported, “A federal civil rights lawsuit [was] filed on behalf of a 15-year-old African-American teenager, and his 14-year-old-sister, against the Mamaroneck Union Free School District and Mamaroneck High School ‘for their indifference to years of racial harassment.’”
Somers Central School District (SCSD) banned the book “Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor” by Layla F. Saad from its curriculum after students and parents pushed back against racist language in the text.
Yorktown School District -Holly Davis — Chair of Moms for Liberty Westchester County — contacted Turning Point USA’s Schoolboard Watchlist to bring awareness to her organization’s battle against the ideologies of Daks Armstrong. “In 2020, Armstrong attended a BLM rally where he declared the responsibility to reform neighborhoods, communities and school districts “belongs to white people.”
Also for Yorktown, “Complaints about several books in the school libraries were brought to the Board of Education by parents in fall 2021. The Board of Education formed a Book Review Committee to investigate the complaints. There were 69 people who expressed interest in being on the committee and 8 were chosen using a random number generator…Superintendent Ron Hattar recently announced that 4 of the books in question had been reviewed and that they would remain in the school libraries. The four books in question were: Gender Queer, Lawn Boy, The Hate U Give, and Looking For Alaska.
Yonkers City School District is facing challenges in student safety but school policies don’t reflect an immediate resolution.
No information was provided on Turning Point’s website as to why the White Plains, Mt. Vernon and New Rochelle school districts were placed on the list.
On Jan. 17, Carmel resident Tatiana Ibrahim, who has been an outspoken critic of diversity education in her daughter’s Carmel High School and in Yorktown, posted, “TURNING POINT USA HAS A SCHOOL WATCHLIST .. LINK BELOW … CRIMES OF ATROCITIES AGAINST OUR CHILDREN!!! If your school has committed any crime of indoctrination, sexual perversion or any unconstitutional act against your children and you as parents Contact them … Yorktown School district in Yorktown NY Westchester County has made the list … Time to expose everyone who has committed crimes against our children. Thank You to Yorktown Parents who made this happen!” Ibrahim has also recently appeared on the Greg Kelly show on WABC 770 AM and on Newsmax.
Several community organizations in support of DEI, including Lakeland Rise, Somers Residents in Support of DEI and Yorktown for Justice, recently penned a letter to the media, portions of which are printed here. “Yes, the movement was accelerated following the murder of George Floyd. But DEI is absolutely about all students. The NY State Education Department’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) framework specifically states that the work includes multiple expressions of diversity including race, social class, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion and ability. The slow crawl of DEI in K-12 education is the biggest barrier to building robust, all-inclusive programs in our schools. Many districts across the region remain at a standstill because of the immense disinformation campaign linking DEI to critical race theory, which has created fear and impeded progress.
“In a cursory search, we found Ms. Ferrier’s statement about the lesson on Facebook. She asked her honor students to read two chapters as part of a larger lesson around the classic play, “A Raisin in the Sun.” Per Ms. Ferrier’s post, students were “given the option to reply to one of the journal prompts in their notebooks, if they chose to, knowing that those personal reflections would not be shared.” How is it possible that the students couldn’t disagree with the author in their own optional, personal and private reflections?” end of letter.
Two of Ms. Ferrier’s students shared the optional questions that she offered for their journal entrees.
1-How does your white fragility show up during conversations about race? Do you fight, freeze, or flee?
2-Decribe your most visceral memory of experiencing white fragility. How old where you? Where were you? What was the conversation about? Why did it bring up white fragility in you?
3-How do you feel when you hear the words white people? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?
4-How has your white fragility prevented you, through fear and discomfort, from doing meaningful work around your own personal anti-racism to date?
One parent said, “it made students feel bad about themselves.”
