Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 6/21/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Three years after starting their Equity Committee, school administrators in town say they’ve made strides rooting out bias through examination of formal data, but they still want to hear more personal stories.
School officials on June 13 heard from the Equity Committee’s professional consultant, Tamika La Salle-Finley, who was a professor at the University of Connecticut when the West Springfield schools began their equity push in 2020 and is now at Georgia State University. La Salle-Finley said one of the best ways individuals can support the committee’s work is to respond to school climate surveys and share their impressions of how well the schools meet their goals of providing a safe and supportive environment for all communities, “raising marginalized voices” and affording equitable access to all.
“We’re looking at student perceptions, parent and family perceptions, and staff perceptions, and being able to say, is there alignment, or are there differences?” she said. She said the Equity Forum series was “successful in the past, but the attendance has been low.”
Vito Perrone, the district’s assistant superintendent, and Jennifer Brennan, the director of social-emotional learning, described how over the past three years, the Equity Committee has gathered existing data on student disciplinary actions, and instituted new reporting procedures, to spot trends. Reports on incidents and punishments are cross-indexed with group identities, including racial minorities, LGBTQ+ students, special needs students, English language learners and others. This enables administrators to see if certain groups are being targeted or treated more harshly than the norm, and take steps to change it. Brennan said the same data can be used to identify teachers, classrooms and individual students who need more support.
The districtwide Equity Committee, which has been meeting weekly, will soon transition to monthly meetings, Brennan said, as much of its work is being taken over by new teams based in each school building.
After the Equity Committee presentation, School Committee members received a more visceral reminder of the problem, as West Springfield High School junior Eleanor Yates described an incident in February when she and another Black student were accosted in the halls by three older students — she described them as “men” — and called a racial slur.
“There’s a lot of work that still can be done,” she said, referring to the persistence of racism in West Springfield. “It’s casual and it’s normalized in the school culture. It’s casual, but that doesn’t make it OK.”
During the meeting and after it, several School Committee members and administrators apologized to Yates, thanked her for sharing her story in a public forum, and promised to work toward racial equity.