Submitted by Bedford School Superintendent Jon Sills
We would like to update you regarding the antisemitic incidents and the work being done to address them.
Following a number of days of discovering swastika graffiti at Bedford High School, last week was devoid of any new incidents. Having closed all but one or two bathrooms to restrict the offender(s)’ opportunities, Principal Turner decided last week to open them all and to enlist the support of the student population to play a more active role in preventing further incidents. Students are organizing a committee/club to work not only on the issue of antisemitism but on respecting differences more generally, and several students have shared information that has proved valuable.
Working with the police department, the high school administration has identified and appropriately addressed several students, but ethics and privacy protections prohibit our discussing any details. Unfortunately, it appears that there is more than one student committing these acts, but we are less clear about each student’s motivation. It appears that there are many rumors circulating about who the students are and what measures the school has taken, and we would caution everyone to be wary of assuming that they are accurate.
The police department has continued to work closely with the district attorney’s office and with the ADL to ensure the safety of all members of our community. Chief Bongiorno is arranging an ADL sponsored training for the force, and as a result of the public forum, the police have issued a press release identifying three methods for submitting anonymous tips to the police department: the police department website (bedfordpd.org), the BPD facebook page, and a MyPD app that can be downloaded for Smartphones or Androids. The high school is sharing this information its students, and our SROS and school staff will continue to build the relationships with students that are the best contributors to school safety.
Rick Reed and I signed a letter (thanks to Sue Baldauf of Bedford Youth and Family Services) to the [Boston] Globe editor in response to a Globe editorial that misrepresented the proactive steps the town has taken in the past and in the present to address hate incidents.
The Schools
In the meantime, the school district’s leadership team’s weekly meetings have focused on addressing the specific challenge of educating around antisemitism and the broader challenge of embedding an anti-bias orientation into our K-12 curriculum–one that effectively nurtures a curiosity about, and a respect for, differences. We have, in the past two weeks met at length with both Facing History and Ourselves and with the ADL. We have agreed that while we have excellent co-curricular programs that address diversity and that we have strong examples of specific courses and individual teachers that focus on these issues, we have important work to do to infuse our curriculum with the content and our instruction with the lenses required to better realize our deep-seated core values. This work coincides with our Equity and Diversity Committee’s priorities, with our district-wide work on cultural proficiency, and with several curriculum inquiries that were begun last year. And while the behaviors that have called forth our incredulity conjure up a new sense of urgency, it is critical that we move forward responsively rather than reactively. While creating culturally proficient classrooms is already a strategic priority for the school district, our thinking about recent events has deepened our understanding of what that entails, pushing us to review how our curriculum and instruction engage students’ thinking about these issues.
Therefore, this is long-term work that we have embarked upon. Because it is so integral and important, it must be done deliberately, it must tap into our teachers’ creativity and expertise and complement the higher order thinking-based instruction that we so strongly believe in. We have the expertise within our faculty to grow the kinds of curriculum and instruction that will invigorate these core values, and we are committed to the professional development that will be needed for effective implementation. At the same time, it needs to take into account the fullness of our plates.
But there are short term steps that we need to take that we will share in the coming weeks. These are areas that we can impact more readily, and we will do so not only because we are committed to this work, but because we are committed to rebuilding trust where that trust has been shaken. This means finding a voice for parents as well, and so, at our school/community meeting we recognized the importance of several aspects of parent involvement in this process:
- as partners in our children’s education, which means more and better communication between the schools and home, so that parents can more effectively extend the learning that is taking place in the classrooms
- as a subcommittee of the school/community task force that will generate ideas about the kinds of elements that a curriculum that teaches respect for differences should contain: e.g., how language is used, the importance of learning about different culture’s contributions (agency) instead of focusing only on their oppression (objectification), etc.
- as a sounding board for our work moving forward
School/Community Task Force
We are in search of a name, but we have met twice since the large public forum. Approximately 45 folks met two weeks ago to get down to work, and last week we divided into subcommittees to begin to do the actual fleshing out of proposals and planning for their implementation. Some of these include an annual town-wide multicultural event, a speaker series, extending and deepening the Love Your Neighbor campaign, looking at how we calendar school and town events to be more inclusive, and supporting the schools’ work (described above). Attending both sessions were Rick Reed, our Town Manager, Chief Bongiorno of the Bedford Police Department, various clergy, selectmen and school committee members, interested citizens, school personnel and several students.
It will truly strengthen this committee’s work if it could bring together a more representative group of citizens in terms of ethnic, racial and religious diversity. The date for the next meeting is not yet set, but we will send out a notice for sometime soon after April vacation. We hope to see some of you at that meeting.
Jon
Jon Sills
Superintendent
Bedford Public Schools
781-275-7588
[email protected]
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