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Guilford Schools Promise to Continue Racial Justice Work Despite Pandemic

Even as Guilford Public Schools navigates a school year that, from a practical and safety standpoint, has no parallel in modern history, officials are vowing to continue and even amplify their focus on racial justice issues, both inside and outside the classroom, with a curriculum audit going forward now and with plans engage students and faculty in many other ways throughout the year.

In a Board of Education (BOE) meeting last week, board members and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Freeman discussed the district’s high-level priorities and initiatives and how they might be adapted to the pandemic, with social justice and inequity a large part of the discussion.

Efforts to address injustice and equity, which predated both the pandemic and the national conversation around these issues that arose over the summer, will not be shunted aside even under these new circumstances, Freeman said.

Most recently, Freeman wrote to the community in a newsletter to address the district’s commitment to teaching “hard history,” an approach that “inspires deep thought and critical analysis of reliable sources and information, predicated on a mindset of inquiry.”

“This is work we’ve been engaging in for two, three years now,” Freeman told the Courier. “But the approach to history isn’t new. It’s not something we are launching this September out of whole cloth. It’s in alignment with Connecticut standards, and all of this is something we’ve been working on.”

Exposing students to a vibrant and broad swath of perspectives and giving them space to work through critical nuances of historical figures and events is emblematic of this approach, Freeman wrote.

He also noted that the reality of American history includes racism and injustice, and that “acknowledging those negatives...is good, and it is honest; it does not mean that we throw away great moments and great achievements from our history, but it does mean that we consider our whole history.”

The curriculum audit, which began last year and is currently focused on the social studies and English departments (but is not limited to those), is part of what Freeman characterized as the district responding to what the community expressed back in June following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis.

“We heard really clearly from our community that this was work that was supported in the community. And if anything, the community was a little impatient that the work was moving so slowly,” Freeman said.

Whether it is what is being taught or how it’s taught, Freeman promised “a strong focus” going forward, as the schools are assisted by University of St. Joseph education professor Dr. Don Siler, who has worked with other school districts on these same curriculum issues, according to Freeman, using a self-evaluation tool developed at New York University.

“It helps you self-evaluate whether your curriculum is a curriculum that would invite students of all demographics to feel included and feel supported and feel invited into the work,” Freeman said.

But the district’s work will not be limited to just a curriculum overview, Freeman promised. Dr. Glenn Mitoma, who joined the district’s conversations around the high school mascot over the summer, will continue to work with the district, Freeman said,

Siler will also be conducting what Freeman called “empathy interviews,” sitting down and listening to students of color at Guilford to learn on a more personal, more qualitative level what their experiences are like, in and out of the classroom. Those interviews will be shared anonymously with administration, according to Freeman.

Many community members also pushed the district to reexamine its hiring practices to bring in a more diverse faculty and staff. Freeman said that he didn’t have any immediate answers for that problem. He said there was a lack of people of color in the hiring pool across the state, which makes the issue a “long-term” problem at this point.

Though the “Indians” high school moniker, which was officially dropped by the district over the summer, drew some of the most intense scrutiny and focus over the past few months, Freeman said he viewed that issue as helping open up all the more structural and nuanced conversation around systemic racism. He cited the virtual public hearings and meetings, which drew a huge response and brought school alumni and hundreds of community members into the discussion, as a positive representation of Guilford’s ability to coalesce and communicate around these subjects.

“I thought that we did a really good job of balancing Zoom and invitations for people to reach out to us through meetings and phone calls,” Freeman said. He also did not rule out having some kind of in-person community gathering later in the year to allow people to hear from experts and share experiences. Such an event was planned for last March before being canceled by the pandemic. “If we can get to fully open and if we can get all those foundational pieces in place, we may very well reschedule that broader conversation,” Freeman said. Freeman’s letter can be viewed on the district website at www.guilfordps.org.