JAMESVILLE-DEWITT CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT – A series of incident reports concerning the Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District have been addressed by Superintendent Peter Smith.
The reports were published through a transparency website run by the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR), self-described as a nonpartisan organization dedicated to the advancement of civil liberties and the promotion of fairness, understanding and humanity.
Several of these posts refer to a meeting held at Jamesville-DeWitt High School on Oct. 17, 2019 to hear out “parents of color” only. When a white parent tried to attend the two-hour forum, he purportedly was refused admission, sources wrote on the transparency site.
A shared yellow informational flyer for the meeting announces that the forum would shape equity policy during the district’s strategic planning process.
The handout also claims that the elementary schools in the district had not recognized or celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Black History Month up to that point but had dressed children in Native American headdresses and pilgrim bonnets at Thanksgiving time—assertions labeled as “blatant lies” by one submitter to the FAIR website.
A recent letter from Letitia Kim, the managing director of FAIR’s legal network, states that the district may have violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution if the accounts of the meeting’s racial ban are true.
A different incident report attached a “get to know you” form distributed by an unnamed French teacher that allegedly asked middle school students as young as 12 years old to circle their preferred pronouns.
Another report appears to show that the middle school’s principal, Andy Eldridge, had messaged the teacher recommending that all staff members use the questionnaire.
The form, however, does not indicate whether any of the questions are optional to answer.
In Kim’s letter, she contends that such compelled speech is prohibited under the First Amendment.
“Requiring students to choose their pronouns is effectively demanding that they affirm a particular set of ideological beliefs about sex and gender, which many do not share,” the letter states. “While teachers should permit students to declare their pronouns if they so choose, they may not require them to do so.”
Two complaints submitted a month apart link to copies of a “Family-Inclusive Language” guide supplied by a Moses DeWitt Elementary counselor.
The guide instructs the school’s teachers to avoid using words like “parents,” “mom” and “dad” and to instead say “adult” or “caregiver.” It also encourages the use of the word “children” in favor of “sons” or “daughters” so as to not assume the gender of a child or their relation to the grown-ups that care for them.
In addition, the guide tells teachers to keep to themselves any thoughts about a child’s familial resemblance to one of their caregivers.
Multiple submissions point to “anti-white” messaging in books available in the high school’s library, such as “We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide” by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden and Frederick Joseph’s “The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person,” while one post details “pornographic” passages contained in offered books like Elana K. Arnold’s “What Girls Are Made Of” and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”
A further report mentions the creation of a task force that the district explicitly said would give “elevated consideration” to the perspectives of students of color in the decision to keep a student resource officer position.
Dr. Smith said through an email exchange that the district reviewed and investigated the statements on the FAIR website to the best of its ability after receiving Kim’s letter in October.
Despite this, he said it has been a challenge to discover more about the submitted reports due to FAIR Transparency’s user confidentiality policy.
“Because the posts are anonymous, we can’t reach out to the individuals to gather more information or have a conversation about their concerns,” Smith said.
The superintendent added that he encourages anyone with questions, concerns, or a wish for action to be taken with regard to classroom occurrences or district-wide initiatives to use the tip line form on jamesvilledewitt.org, that is, if they feel uncomfortable directly reaching out to him or another school administrator.
“People’s feelings are always valid,” Smith said. “Understanding why they feel a certain way and ensuring that we all have a true understanding of the facts is critical to developing a relationship built on trust between the district and its many stakeholders. We don’t want anyone to feel excluded or ignored.”
FAIR Transparency is a website made available to the public to report incidents that have occurred anywhere, including K-12 public and private schools, universities, and workplace settings.
