The policy committee is chaired by Board Member Josie Barnhart and also includes board members Pat Bradford and Stephanie Kraybill. It's designed to workshop policies before they're sent to the full board. On Tuesday, the committee reviewed several contentious policies, including one on professional standards.
Superintendent Foust pushed committee members on what's known as section 'Z' of the proposed policy, which would ban educators from teaching ideas like — members of a given race or sex are responsible, or should feel guilty, for the actions of members of their group in the past.
Foust said the section didn’t come from his office and asked why it was included. He called the section "offensive" and "appalling," adding that no other profession treats their employees this way.
Critics of the section have been less concerned with the actual language and more concerned that it will be used unfairly against teachers. Several teachers have expressed concern to WHQR that the policy's prohibitions — while reasonable on the surface — could be used to punish teachers for teaching some of the uglier chapters of racial, gender, and other injustices in the history of the United States, for example.
Board Member Pat Bradford defended the need for the policy, arguing that instead of teaching about historical inequities, teachers might try to impose modern-day ones.
“On the chance that it is happening, that you have a rogue person teaching that one race or sex is inherently superior to the other, or an individual solely by the virtue of his race, sex is inherently racist or sexist, or that the United States government should be violently overthrown; if we're not doing it, it has no effect. But it sets out what we don't want taught. All Americans were created equal. It’s in our Constitution,” she said.
Bradford was referring to the policy’s ban on teaching that Americans weren’t created equal.
But Foust interjected, “[the] Constitution was not written with me in mind. [...] This hurts my heart when people say exactly that. It was written for them. What is it, three-fifths is what they thought of me.”
Foust went on to say that he would have been a slave at the time of the Constitution's writing, saying, “it would have been illegal for me to read.”
And it got even more personal for him.
“But for people to sit around who don't look like me, have not been through what my parents went through. [...] There were times where my parents couldn't vote. There were times where my parents had to go in through the backdoor," Foust said.
Foust added that he believed no one sitting on the dais was racist or sexist — but told the members that in three years, he has received no concrete evidence about biased teaching through the official grievance process. But, he added, if these came to his office, he would investigate them.
Foust also addressed by analogy concerns that people's subjective reactions to educational material might vary, setting up situations where teachers could be accused of teaching upsetting material. He gave an example of the interpretative experience of how people watch movies.
“Your reaction may be different. Some may cry. Some may laugh. I have no control over how you feel because the story was told. That’s your feeling. So what I’m saying is when people are teaching, someone may get upset. I got upset, oftentimes, in analytical geometry, but I didn't say that the teacher couldn't teach it,” he said.
He then circled back to Wilmington’s own racially fraught past,
“Then why did we even give Williston High School a graduation [in 2023], why? If we say that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race, they close that school, and in the next week, didn’t tell them. We recognize that they were wrong," Foust said.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Patrice Faison also interjected saying that the teachers are “scared to do anything wrong.” And that the board and the district should “trust them” to teach accurately about facts about the country’s founding. Earlier in the meeting, Assistant Superintendent Julie Varnam said that the counselors and social workers she spoke to said they were worried that they'd be accused of indoctrination when they are just being themselves, or that those same accusations would come if those mental health workers were to treat students equitably, honoring who they are, then that, too, would be considered indoctrination.
Board Member Stephanie Kraybill said that teachers have to discuss issues that might make students feel “uncomfortable.”
Bradford said that she agreed, but brought the issue back to a disconnect between concerns about teaching about past inequities and teaching that reinforces current inequities. Bradford said the type of concerns Foust raised were the “past and not the present.”
Bradford responded that she upholds the Constitution and reminded Foust, a Black man, that her “ancestors [White women] got the right to vote after you" (although she didn't note that in the 1920s south, Jim Crow laws and voter suppression meant that the right to vote didn't always equate to access to the polls).
After the discussion, Barnhart, who chairs the committee, said that she would keep the policy in committee and not move it to a full board vote in December.
Other policies
However, other controversial policies are moving forward to the board’s December 5 meeting.
Before the professional conduct policy, the committee members discussed 4300, which concerns student behavior policies.
Barnhart and Bradford moved the policy forward despite objections from Foust, Varnam, and Kraybill. What was been concerning to them was the elimination of the phrase that behavior policies would “ensure the equitable treatment of all students.”
Barnhart said that the recent data reported by the district concerning the disproportionality of suspending Black students with disabilities, mainly those with IEPs (individualized education plans) “doesn’t mean we’re not doing the right thing.”
This finding meant the district lost out on $4.5 million in federal funding for students with disabilities.
Bradford asked Varnam how many students in the district have IEPs. She responded that they have around 12.5%.
Barnhart then said that, in terms of behavior, these students still have the same expectations.
Foust said that the elimination of this policy line would open up the district to having parents go to the parent grievance policy more because their students were not treated “equitably.” He also gave an example that teachers don’t teach all their students the same, but differentiate instruction based on their needs.
He also reminded Barnhart that equity isn’t always about race — that it is taking into consideration the student's environment, situation, or disability when giving consequences.
“These are human beings. All of us have a bad day, and kids don’t always have executive functioning,” Foust said.
Kraybill added that the three committee members, which include herself, Bradford, and Barnhart, needed to have compassion and empathy and honor the expertise of the district’s principals. And that taking out this line would not “help us with the sanctions we’ve had.”
Bradford then asked Castle Hayne Principal Christianne May, who was also sitting on the dais, what she thought about taking out the section.
“I don’t think it will change how I do my job. I’m going to treat every student exactly the same whether it’s in policy or not," May said.
As the discussion was coming to a close, Kraybill said that the committee needed to hear from others before this policy was sent to the board for approval.
Kraybill said, “We sit here up on high, donning our royal apparel —," she was then called ‘out of order’ by Barnhart.
The committee later went on to discuss 3540 which outlines the district's comprehensive health and safety education programs.
With prompting by Kraybill, it was revealed that Bradford had inserted language in the policy mandating that middle school [she had originally written high school] parents had to be notified that their child will automatically be assigned to the sex, “gender, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ Inclusive Language” education portion of the health curriculum.
Faison said this instruction is a small part of the Stepping Stones curriculum and that parents do have to ‘opt-in.’ She added that the district is not “hiding anything.”
Bradford countered that parents don’t know this is being taught.
She also said she took issue with the phrase, “Instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality will not be included in the health education program in kindergarten through fourth grade.”
Bradford added she wanted this line to say through fifth grade, “Let our children have puberty before we just go and teach them, let them have their innocence. Let them have a life before we dump all this on them.”
Foust said he needed to step in because there are some fourth-grade females who are starting their menstrual periods.
“So you can't just say that it's going to start at this time. The goal is to help educate them," he said.
Faison, too, said she needed to consult on the state guidelines for this age distinction.
“To change that on [the] fly, I would ask that we step back," she said.
The committee ultimately dropped Bradford's change, but did added a line that middle school curriculum includes, “gender, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ Inclusive Language.”
Kraybill dissented.
Kraybill also lost on moving forward with an open invocation policy adding the line, “In the event no invocational speaker is signed up for a particular meeting, a moment of silence will be observed.”
Bradford complained that they had reviewed this policy too many times and that she was a “strong constitutionalist” and “I don’t believe in the separation of church and state.” And that adding that line would “restrict [her] freedom of speech as an elected official,” referencing that she could give an invocation if no one was selected.
Kraybill reiterated that the line was necessary. But Barnhart moved the policy to a vote, to which she responded, “I’m tired of being silenced, and we’re opening ourselves up to legal actions.”
Barnhart said Kraybill would lose her speaking privileges if she did not stop.
Other policies the board passed unanimously to send to the full board were ones on student surveys. Most are opt-in except for the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, which is opt-out.
They also sent the Discrimination and Harassment in the Workplace policy to the next meeting.
Bradford asked Assistant Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes about the line, “A single incident of harassment, if physically threatening or humiliating, can create a hostile work environment. The complaining individual need not be the target of the harassment.”
She wanted to know if the word, “humiliating” was subjective.
He responded, “What would a normal, objective person consider that? So certain individual instances can rise to the level of risk of retaliation or hostile work environment, considering the severity of it.”
Additionally, at the outset of the meeting, Bradford had wanted to talk about the implementation of the Parents Bill of Rights. She said that the district was not in compliance with the rules and had nothing to show on its website for parents.
Foust asked her who her authoritative source was, as he had received directives from the state superintendent that the rules had to be in place by January 1, and that there were still issues to be worked out with the bill’s language and implementation.
Bradford responded that she was concerned that the board couldn’t approve the changes in time for January 1. Foust said they could hold a special meeting at any time in December to vote on these.
The next policy committee is scheduled for Tuesday, December 12 at 1 p.m.
Policy Scrib Nov 2023 by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
