The Amity Regional School District is pushing back on claims that it should not hire a diversity, equity and inclusion coach – a matter which may have helped sink the budget in two failed referendums.
While it is not clear how many voters in the three towns covered by the district – Bethany, Woodbridge and Orange – voted against the budget because of the DEI coach position, the position was removed from the regular budget and funded instead with grant money after the first referendum failed in May.
Emails have been circulating between some groups claiming the position is a front for indoctrinating students.
One such email obtained by the Milford-Orange Times was sent by Woodbridge resident Reena Levine Seltzer and claimed that “DEI is antisemitic and will continue to fuel the problems Amity is having. It basically lumps all Jews as privileged whites, despite the facts that Jews live all over the world (as a result of being kicked out from other countries) and come in multiple colors.”
The messages also contained links to material from places like the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a conservative nonprofit advocacy firm, on how to combat what it considers “critical race theory” – a legal theory that is not part of most schools’ curricula, including Amity’s.
“Let us be clear: The goal at Amity is not to teach students that people are oppressors or oppressed. It is not to create a permanent class of victims who will be trained to hate their oppressors. Our curriculum and teachers can encourage each student and teach diverse experiences without casting blame on anyone,” members of the Amity Board of Education wrote in a letter to the community last week.
The board pointed out that state and federal laws require that the district develop certain curricula that address the needs of minorities and other groups, “to increase access to advanced classes for minoritized students; to develop curricula that cover Holocaust and genocide education, African American and Black Studies, Puerto Rican and Latino studies, and integrate Native American studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, LGBTQ studies, Military Service, the experiences of veterans, social-emotional learning, and racism. We are required to create a minority teacher certification, retention, and residency program. We must review implicit bias and anti-bias training for all staff involved in hiring. In 2022, new laws require us to hold suitable educational programs for Juneteenth, if school is open that day. We must celebrate Children’s Mental Health Day. We must include disability in our educational anti-discrimination practices.”
All of this work – and it’s a lot of work – MUST be done by the schools, MUST be overseen by the Board,” the letter said. “Having one of our own teachers act as a DEI instructional coach to help their peers adjust to these requirements is not merely cost-effective. Because it is home-grown and customized to our needs, it will help our teachers teach our children better.”
The Anti-Defamation League, which advocates in particular for the Jewish community, will be at Amity Middle School Bethany at 10:30 a.m. on June 14 – the date of the third referendum – to present the three schools in the Amity Regional School District with their banners designating them as a “No Place for Hate” school.
Read the full letter from the Amity Board of Education here.