EASTHAMPTON — The city’s public schools are fulfilling their pledge to address issues of bias and racism in the schools, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office said this month.
Two years ago, the attorney general’s office found in a civil rights investigation at Easthampton High School that black and Hispanic students were disciplined more harshly than white students. The report came after racist incidents in the school, including a white student yelling “white power” and waving a Confederate flag. In March 2017, students staged a walkout to protest the way the school handled racist incidents after three students of color were arrested for punching a white student who used a racial slur on social media.
In August 2017, the district voluntarily entered into a multi-year memorandum of agreement with the attorney general’s office to address civil rights complaints.
This year, the state said in a Sept. 3 letter that the school is “successfully and properly implementing” the terms of the agreement. The district has “demonstrated a strong commitment to creating an environment at EPSD schools that is positive, welcoming, and inclusive for all students,” according to the letter.
The state’s letter from last summer said the school did not comply with several parts of the agreement, including getting preapproval from the attorney general’s office before implementing revised harassment policies, but recognized the district was working on it.
Requirements in the seven-page agreement include better documentation of discipline, updates to the harassment policies, the appointment of a diversity and inclusion officer, and professional development on addressing bullying and improving the school’s “racial climate.”
Over the past two years, many trainings have been held, including one this summer led by Smith College professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor on racism and curriculum and how to handle the N-word in classroom literature, Superintendent Allison LeClair said.
Julie Anne Levin, diversity coordinator and director of curriculum and grants, said the district has partnered with National Conference for Community and Justice for assemblies and put on a workshop with the Anti-Defamation League. They created a diversity and inclusion center, “an established safe space in the school to promote events and activities,” Levin said, adding that it’s also a place where students and staff can have conversations about race and diversity.
Policies were also changed, per the agreement with the state. With help from the attorney general’s office, LeClair said, the district created a policy for expectations about police, “what their role is in the school … and what teachers’ responsibilities are and what school administrators’ are. There are different lines in the sand for each,” she said.
The agreement requires an annual audit of discipline data. An audit from the Collaborative for Educational Services found “no disproportionality in the discipline rates between students of color and white students,” said Levin, who monitored the discipline data throughout the year.
The district also formed two Equity Steering Committees — one at the high school and the other at the middle school and elementary level — made up of students, administrators, parents and community members, LeClair said.
Alice Wanamaker, a junior at the high school and a founding member of the Equity Steering Committee, has noticed changes in the school’s climate.
“I think the most important advance we’ve made is that people are recognizing and talking about issues more,” she wrote in an email to the Gazette. “The students who participated in the walkout that sparked this work were the real instigators, but the Equity Steering Commission, the new Diversity and Inclusion Center, and the student body as a whole have all worked to make sure that things did not just revert back to the way they were.”’
Another change Wanamaker sees is an awareness of the issue. “Our faculty and student body now recognize in large part that this work needs to be done,” she wrote. Still, “equity work is a never-ending process,” she wrote. “We can always do more, and we can always do better.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.