DEI: An Opportunity to Improve Our Schools and Our Strategic Plan

In November of 2021, I met with Dr. Varley and a School Administrator in connection to DEI. I explained that part of the community push-back on DEI connects to a lack of clarity on goals and activities. That the District, community and the initiative would be better served by providing clarity on DEI. After that meeting, the Administrator emailed me with the following:

“We will be compiling a list of DEI activities at each level and be putting them out at the mid-year mark or so.”

I emailed the Administrator and Dr. Varley at the mid year mark (6/2022) and both indicated that they did not have a list: “Building Principals at each level have updated their communities as to their building DEI activities. This process was on-going from the mid-year forward. We have kept to the agreement. If you have not received something from your building principal please let me know.

” In other words, “what we meant by “list” is that principles will tell parents about it”.

So I then submitted an OPRA request requesting this information (updates from principles) from each school and received this response: https://bit.ly/3wgog6R

It is important to remember that in the meeting before DEI was approved, Dr. Varley and several BOE Members were under the impression that the plan had already been approved. Ms. Akiri’s and Dr. Foregger pointed out that it wasn’t. The District spent money on attorneys to determine what should have been known to the very people who claimed to be champions of DEI – that the plan had never been formally included into the Strategic Plan.

The next meeting, Ms. Akiri asked for goals and objectives connected to DEI and received the following response from Dr. Varley: https://youtu.be/4TMMLNfBlJE

The six BOE Members who approved DEI’s introduction into the Strategic plan spun Dr. Foreggers “No” vote and Ms. Akiris abstention as being anti-Dei when they were the only reason the plan got a vote in the first place. The very things Ms. Akiri and Dr. Foregger were asking for would’ve strengthened the plan and provided an opportunity to introduce an initiative into the District the right way finally.

As it stands, the strategic plan is a heap of nice words with little to no accountability or reporting mechanism- DEI was an opportunity to do one thing right- however, Dr. Varely and six BOE members turned it into a political football.

Things may have changed in the past month or so, but as of my last communication with the District, DEI still had no concrete goals and no evidence of even existing. But that’s not a DEI problem- you can say that about pretty much any initiative within the Strategic Plan – a fact both sides of the debate are losing focus on. DEI means what our community wants it to mean but both sides are debating ideology- not an actual plan. Both sides are fighting national issues vs. sitting down and discussing what a community based plan can look like. That’s a failure of leadership on the part of our District.

If you can’t give the public a list of activities in connection to an initiative, aren’t able to articulate what it would look like if successful or how to measure that success- what is the point?

It’s almost unfortunate that the push for goals, objectives and reporting in connection to the Strategic Plan started with DEI- because, understandably, it creates the impression of “different rules just for DEI”. In some ways though, DEI was the ideal candidate because of the buttons it pushes within a pluralistic community – it is the kind of thing where buy-in and clarity can deliver a great product if done correctly.

I attempted to provide the District with further support on this prior to my June email and attended a BOE Meeting in May: https://youtu.be/Wx5KudCSa3o

To this date, I have not had any further communication with the District and have not observed any updates in connection to DEI.

Other material I posted on DEI:

June 9th Post on DEI and Police in Schools: https://bit.ly/3Ck8Kux

May 29th TAPInto Article on Substance Use Policy and DEI: https://bit.ly/3QwKcDd

May 27, 2022 Update after BOE Meeting: https://bit.ly/3QFjAj5

March 10, 2022 Post on DEI in Connection to Substance Use Policy: https://bit.ly/3A84KuB

November 2021 Update after Meeting with Superintendent, School Administrator and Students: https://bit.ly/3c8xk73