By David Tyler
A group of former and current Fayetteville-Manlius students addressed the board of education on Monday, Oct. 5 with a list of demands they feel will make the district a more welcoming place for all students. The presentation was a follow up to a letter that was sent to the district in July and a petition on change.org that has garnered the support of more than 1,600 people.
The presenters included four current students who have created the Instagram account @FMtruths, which features more than 100 anecdotes from students experiencing racist or sexist activities or other bullying behaviors at F-M schools.
The students were joined by Dr. Sharon Dotger, a parent of an F-M student and an associate professor at the Syracuse University School of Education.
The group had a wide-ranging list of demands, including:
– Increasing the diversity of the teaching staff.
– Auditing the district’s curriculum and instructional materials to ensure that they are not only of a high quality, but also avoid framing the learning material in a racist way.
– Detracking the F-M program, particularly at the kindergarten through eighth grade levels. “There is an abundant amount of evidence that tracking has racist outcomes for students,” Dotger said.
– Offering local history as part of the wider curriculum, to include the history of the Onondaga Nation and how redlining and segregation helped form the largely white Syracuse suburbs.
– Expanding the sexual education curriculum to include information for LGBTQ+ students. “There is an abysmal lack of resources available for LGBTQ+ students at F-M when it comes to safe sex options and sexual education,” said F-M senior Avva Boroujerdi.
– Establishing restorative justice policies and peer review boards to handle conflict mediation in the school.
The group made it clear that they had tremendous respect for F-M’s teachers and put the onus on the board to enact these changes from the top down.
“F-M must practice what it preaches and actively be against racism … rather than simply being non-racist,” said Noni Unobagha of the class of 2017. “As seen in recent news, this issue is not resolving itself, but instead, escalating.”
In September, the board created two goals for the 2020-21 school year that focused on these issues. The goals are as follows:
“The board will strive to better educate itself about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the impact of discrimination in the Fayetteville-Manlius School District and engage in a board retreat and other discussions to evaluate how the board may support the administration in further embracing acceptance and action against prejudice and discrimination in all forms.”
“The board will examine ways the board can support the administration in promoting a healthy climate when addressing student discipline and how restorative justice practices can be incorporated into policy and our code of conduct.”
The board will be going on a retreat in November to consider how to advance these goals.
“There’s a lot of work that’s being done, currently, in the district to address these issues,” said board President Marissa Mims. “We know that we can improve in certain areas and we will do that.”
