DCRSD School Committee Forum

001We're at the Sheppard Hill Regional High School Auditorium. We are live streaming through our Vimeo and it is on our website. Can you hear me? Okay. The first order of business, we're all going to stand to pledge to the flag. Of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. A moment of silence for meditation. Okay. Next on the agenda is the parameters for the meeting. One, all remarks will be addressed through the chair slash moderator. Meeting time, 7 to 9.30. speakers will be allowed up to three minutes to present their questions or concerns and must begin their comments by stating their full name and address and connection to the district we are only allowing those with a connection to

002the district and that means if you've got children in the school or you're a citizen of the town So a connection to the district and our towns to speak. So if you're from Dudley and Charlton, you'll have the right to speak. Topics for comments should be limited to those items concerning equity in our district. Disruptive conduct and or remarks will not be allowed. If an individual continues to engage in disruptive conduct after warning, the presiding chair or moderator has the authority to terminate that individual's privilege of address and order that individual to leave the meeting. If the individual does not leave. authorities may be called citizens forum policy bedh number five as stated the school committee will not hear personal complaints against the school personnel or against any member of the district okay next item

003on the agenda introduction and that's our superintendent mr lamarche thank you madam chair Can everybody hear me? Can you hear me in the back? Great, thank you. I would like to start by thanking the school committee for this opportunity to provide context to the citizens forum from the last school committee meeting. I would also like to welcome parents, caregivers, and community members and those who are here to learn more about the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. Welcome. Before I continue, I want to express to you that the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District has not invested in or endorsed critical race theory. We have not researched critical race theory. We have not asked our educators to research critical race theory. We did not change our curriculum to incorporate critical race theory. And we have no plans to change

004our curriculum to incorporate critical race theory. What we did embark on was equity. It is my hope that I can bring context to the use of the term equity as it applies to public education and to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. To start, the term equity is not a new term in public education. And quite simply, equity is what civil rights and civil liberties is all about. We have a real and sincere responsibility to ensure school committee policies and the civil liberties of our students and staff are whole. We embrace our identity as a public school and we must make certain that we welcome everyone. Collectively, we must maintain equal access and benefit to every student who enters our schools. To be clear, the Dudley Childhood and Regional School District will not discriminate on the

005basis of race, color, sex. gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or homelessness. We are obligated, required, and embrace our responsibility to ensure the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District is in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965, the Section 504 Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the American with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Education Assistance Act of 1987, and all updates, amendments thereof incorporated through regulatory or legislative action. Of particular focus here is the use of the term equity. It is important to note that context is critical to the use of this term, which has been in use and practice for many years, if not

006decades. As required by the United States Education Department, our regulatory authority, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, submitted an equity plan in 2015 for the state of Massachusetts and subsequent updates. What is important here is not the term equity and isolation, but how it is translated in our regulatory requirements. In addition, the state of Massachusetts enacted Mass General Law Chapter 71, Subsection 38, and CMR 35 in 2010, otherwise known as the Education Evaluation System. More specifically, all Massachusetts educators have a professional responsibility to be culturally proficient within that Education Evaluation System and regulatory document. Our educators must actively create and maintain an environment in which students' diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges are respected. We must create an environment that is safe and respectful of all cultures and all backgrounds. You will find cultural

007proficiency requirements throughout all educator evaluation systems to include administrators and superintendent. While the aforementioned builds more context for equity in public education and our responsibility in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District, there is more to the context of equity in DCRSD. Starting in August 2017, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District and a representative group of 43 school and community members initiated a comprehensive effort to develop a strategic plan and identified seven key competencies expected of all graduates graduating from Shepherd Hill. This development effort was throughout one whole school year with multiple meetings, distributed drafts, and then was subsequently approved by the Dudley-Chelton School Committee in May of 2018. The strategic plan is comprehensive and identifies student personal competencies with a focus area titled empathy. Under empathy, the goal was for students to consider the thoughts and the

008feelings of another before speaking or acting. The action steps to help students meet this goal included the following. One, district focus on educating students about peers in protected civil rights categories. And the district will provide equity training for all staff members. In the 2018-2021 strategic plan, it further identifies benchmarks to measure if the goal is being met. A district equity committee will investigate bringing in experts to address students by fall of 2019. And a minimum of two training sessions will be offered for all district employees around equity and diversity by the spring of 2020. As you can see, the timeline to complete the action steps are skewed. from what was planned to when it began in 2018. In addition, not everything listed in the strategic plan has been accomplished, but in large part significant progress

009was made this past school year. As a reminder, my comments are to bring context to you this evening. The aforementioned should lay the foundational efforts strategically required of the educators of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. To add more context, it is important to understand the incorporation of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Equity Committee last summer in 2020. In late May and early June of 2020, our country was literally on fire and filled with unrest. As a result, we had an impassioned group of Charlton and Dudley parents attend school committee meetings at that time in demand to know what the district has planned to do to address the national unrest. Parents demanded to know how our staff would approach inquisitive minds. Therefore, in line with the strategic plan and as a result of listening to impassioned

010parents and caregivers, the time was right to establish the Dudley-Charlton Equity Committee, which began in July 2020. Dr. Ackerman, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Civil Rights Officer, was tasked with facilitating the group. I know that Dr. Ackerman will report out more information on the Equity Committee, but I need to be clear here. Dr. Ackerman provided an Equity Committee update to the Dudley Children's School Committee at the following public meetings. July 22, 2020. August 26, 2020. September 23, 2020. October 14, 2020. October 28, 2020. November 18, 2020. January 27th, 2021. March 10th, 2021. April 14th, 2021. And May 26th, 2021. With the exception of COVID, the Equity Committee update and report to the school committee in public session occurred more than any other agenda item this past school year. With all of that said, and to

011continue my effort and the effort to try and bring more context to the work of equity in the Dudley-Chelton Regional School District, I want to first share what a simplified understanding of equity means. We often hear the term equal, but if equal is left in isolation, we shortchange our students and our staff. How? I would respectfully ask that you see the term equal as an access point, and then equity as an outcome. The visual I want to provide is if you have two children of different heights standing beyond an outfield fence at a ball field that they need to see over to enjoy the game. Equal access identifies the need for something to help them look over the fence. But you cannot give them an equal size box to stand on. To get the desired

012outcome, one child needs a larger box to stand on. This then provides a desired equitable outcome for both children to see the game. We have many students who need a different size box to get the desired equitable outcome in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. Next, I think it is important to share how does the context of our work on equity translate to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. We certainly have students and families of different race attending our schools, but race alone does not address equity in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. Race alone does not complete or fulfill our need for more understanding in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. Our work requires the application of equity in many other areas as a result of equal access. Here are a few examples in the context in which

013we are required to enhance our understanding of equitable outcomes in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District for all students. We must collectively elevate above unintended or intended biases towards students in a single-parent household. For all single-parent households, we must develop an understanding of the complex nature of such an environment from a supportive, empathetic stance, but we must also ensure each child in that household is not only provided equal access, but an equitable outcome without judgment when they enter our schools and subsequently graduate from Shepherd Hill. We must collectively elevate above unintended or intended biases towards the death of a student's parent, caregiver, or family member. This is a tragic, traumatic experience for a student. But do unintended biases impact our efforts to ensure an equitable outcome for that student? Do we provide special treatment that consequentially

014compromises equitable outcomes? We have to ensure our approach meets the needs of the student. We must collectively elevate above unintended or intended biases for students living with parents and caregivers who are parenting for the second time around. This continues to increase across many communities to include ours. Do we understand the biases we may have and present as judgment? If we are not parenting for the second time around, do we understand what the grandparents are going through to apply the right balance of empathy to ensure an equitable outcome for their children? We must collectively elevate above unintended or intended biases for students with same-sex parents. We will provide equal access with an equitable outcome for students who live in a same-sex parenting household. Do we know when our bias has an unintended outcome for such a

015student? Do we guarantee an equitable outcome for that student? We must collectively elevate above unintended or intended biases for students with disabilities. We must rise above providing equal access. Equal access is not enough. We must provide equitable outcomes that are at the highest level of achievement for every student with abilities, not judged by disabilities, or even worse, not overly sympathized to the point of enablement which will significantly compromise an equitable outcome. I want to be clear here. These are examples of our efforts to understand equity at every level and apply it to our district and the education of all of our students. I am not saying that these examples are systemic. throughout Dudley-Charlton. But can we do better? We can always do better. In conclusion, it is important that I brought more context to our

016equity work this past year. And once again, I appreciate the opportunity to do so. I look forward to the rest of this evening and to answer additional questions that may arise. Next item on the agenda, presentation of the timeline of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District Equity Committee. Dr. Ackerman. Thank you. Thank you everybody tonight for taking the time to join us in this conversation. I'm going to go back and review the equity work that we've done this past year. So I want to start with a broad-based timeline of events, as the superintendent said, to provide context for our work. So going back to 2016 and 17, and I will say after I go through this timeline, the subsequent slides will provide more level of detail for each of these steps. Beginning in 2016 and 17,

017the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education issued an audit to all Massachusetts school districts. In the 2017-2018 year, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District began a program review. This review was incorporated in both the design and the approval of the district strategic plan which was approved in May of 2018. In the academic year, 2018-2019, a corrective action plan was drafted but not implemented. Obviously the overarching societal concerns made it much more difficult to continue through with other initiatives. In the 2019-2020 school year, equity work was not formally addressed in the schools. And beginning in 2020 and moving into 2021, the equity committee was reformed beginning in July of 2020. I want to now go a little bit into more detail regarding the specific nature of our work. In 2016, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education,

018as part of a statewide civil rights audit, required all districts to have a mechanism for ensuring that all curricula and programming that is inclusive of sports, music, after school programs, that each of these provided equal access to all students, and that curriculum materials depicted folks from all protected categories, race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or homeless status under civil rights law. in a non-biased or stereotypical manner. Work on this began formally in 2017 and 2018. Monthly meetings with staff and administrators were held to discuss equity. Equity is defined as the assurance that all students receive a first-rate education grounded in understanding, empathy, and knowledge that is respectful and mindful of the variety of lived human experiences. Equity means that all staff have the needed tools to support students throughout their

019pre-k to 12 experience in our district. In 2018, in part due to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education audit, the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District strategic plan specifically calls for the establishment of an equity committee. Specifically, the district will provide equity committee equity training for all staff members and a minimum of two training sessions will be offered to all district employees around equity and diversity by the spring of 2020. I'm going to pull up and provide some context directly from our district strategic plan. On slide 14, if you look at EI number three, the district will provide equity training for all staff members. Under the benchmarks, a minimum of two training sessions will be offered for all district employees around equity and diversity by spring of 2020. How do we make this better for our

020students? Research shows that teachers are the number one in-school factor in student learning. Diverse classrooms must utilize varying means of communication. Cultural backgrounds, gender roles, and religious backgrounds may have a significant impact on the value a child places on learning and his or her teacher. I also wanted to draw to EI 1. The district will focus on educating students about peers in protected categories. Again, looking at the benchmarks, teachers will incorporate learning moments about protected categories into class discussions by September 18, and the district equity will investigate bringing in experts to address students by fall 2019. I say this to provide context and to repeat that we were unable to do work within the timeframe due to the overarching societal considerations. Moving to 2019-2020, due to unforeseen changes and then the COVID-19 pandemic, there were

021no equity committee meetings during the 2019-2020 school year. In response to both the unprecedented events during the spring and summer of 2020, and the need to meet a strategic plan requirement, the Equity Committee was reformed. To meet the strategic plan goal, the Equity Committee met with multiple facilitators via Zoom to find the right provider for our faculty. Dr. Sheldon Akins was the unanimous choice of the Equity Committee to work with us. The Equity Committee consists of district level administrators, building level administrators, teachers, a school committee member, and parents of students in the district. Equity Committee reports were presented regularly at school committee meetings during the 2020-21 school year. Dr. Akins provided our staff with four professional development webinars between September of 2020 and June of 2021. These webinars focused on giving teachers the tools to

022ensure equity for all students, regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or homeless status. I respectfully ask for the chair, Chair O'Coin, would it be okay if I moved into a review of the questions from the form now and into the answers from the questions? Thank you. So a survey was sent to all Dudley-Charlton Regional School District stakeholders at the end of June. This survey sought comments, questions, and feedback from the community. A team consisting of myself, two community members, and I'd like to thank Shawna Peel and Caitlin Seaman for joining us, two school committee members, Mrs. Carmagnani and Ms. Costello for helping to formulate the norms for this meeting, and to review the group and group the questions to establish the framework for this process. During the course

023of reviewing the questions, many duplicate and or substantially similar questions were asked, so the next several slides consist of questions and answers from that survey. Is the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District teaching critical race theory? No. Critical race theory is not part of our curriculum or instructional practices. We are not training our staff in critical race theory. Is the teaching of white privilege part of the DCRSD curriculum? No. Students are not being taught white privilege, nor is this a part of our curriculum. What are the tools being used to drive equity in our schools? Staff will provide it with four webinars from Dr. Sheldon Akins from the Leading Equity Center to discuss how to navigate the complexities of our changing world, how to help facilitate difficult conversations with students, or as importantly, not to facilitate these

024conversations if uncomfortable in a fair and equitable manner. How did the committee decide to work with Dr. Aikens? The committee met with multiple providers of equity professional development. After discussion and review, the team unanimously agreed that Dr. Aikens was the right person to help us build staff capacity to discuss issues of equity for all students. What is your definition of equity? Equity is the assurance that all students receive a first-rate education grounded in understanding, empathy, and knowledge that is respectful and mindful of the variety of lived human experiences. Equity means that all staff have the needed tools to support students throughout their pre-K-12 experience in our district. There are not many children from diverse backgrounds in our schools. Would there be consideration of a school choice lottery so that diverse children from other schools and

025towns could attend? Yes. School choice is currently an option in the Commonwealth. Students from other districts can and do opt to attend DCRSD schools. I want to understand why the hearts and minds of our children need to be changed. When the committee refers to changing hearts and minds, we're not referring to any one group of person or person, children, parents, caregivers, etc. Instead, we are referring to changing hearts and minds to those folks that think our work for equity for all is complete. This is an acknowledgement that significant progress has been made regarding issues of equity for all, but also a reminder that more work can be done. What aspects of the way our schools operate or how individuals within the school district interact with each other indicated that an overt commitment was needed to

026make our schools safe and equitable. An overt commitment to issues of equity came directly from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2016, not just in Dudley-Charlton, but in all Massachusetts public schools. This explicit need is part of our strategic plan from 2018. Additionally, in light of the events during the spring and summer of 2020, there was an additional need to provide teachers with the tools to engage with students when issues of equity would arise. Who are the current members of the Equity Committee? Myself, Principal William Chaplin from Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Ms. Jordan Evans, DCRSD school committee member, Principal Peter Olson, now the principal of Heritage Elementary School, Ms. Grazie Batista, teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School, Ms. Matoaka Hardy-Fletcher, a parent, Mr. Devin Wallace, parent, Ms. Eve Sommer, parent, and

027Ms. Katie Durant, teacher. How were members of the Equity Committee chosen? After collaboration with district office and building level administrators to identify a group of potentially interested members across stakeholder groups, I myself reached out to district teachers and parents. Our parent and teacher representatives were chosen to ensure that diverse voices and lived experiences were included in the composition of the committee. These members have expressed interest in issues of equity. Who was invited to attend Dr. Aiken's professional development sessions? All Dudley-Charlton Regional School District staff members were invited to all or part of Dr. Aiken's session. Not every staff member attended every session due to other required offerings during PD days. For example, if there was a PD offering that was a requirement for a particular job description that was concurrently running with Dr. Eakin's presentation,

028those staff members would attend the PD specific to their job requirement. What expectations were made to those that attended Dr. Eakin's PD? We asked all staff to fill out a brief reflection form and provide feedback from the sessions. Additionally, a section of the survey was allowed for open-ended questions and feedback. Staff were asked to consider if the sessions felt like a productive use of time. What did the Critical Friends group form, or excuse me, why did the Critical Friends group form and what did they do? In June of 2021, a small group of students from A Better Hill A Shepherd Hill Regional High School student group met with Darlene Reyes from the Leading Equity Center via video conference to discuss issues facing high school students. For example, the debate over transgender students participating in sports

029has emerged. Students engaged with Darlene to get a national perspective on this issue. This was a voluntary event held outside of school hours. What is the school district doing to ensure my student graduates as a global citizen? We are providing learning opportunities as specified by the Massachusetts State Frameworks. Our staff will continue to be provided with high-yield professional development opportunities. The district will continue to invest in research-based peer-reviewed instructional materials that receive green ratings from Ed Reports and Curate. What is the main objective of the Equity Committee with regard to my child's education in the classroom? The Equity Committee was formed to ensure that all students receive an equitable educational experience regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national orientation, sexual orientation, disability, or homeless status. Will parents be able to gain be able

030to participate in future workshops to gain them to gain better understanding? Yes, we will take this opportunity for conversation and expand opportunities for community members to participate in district and building based initiatives. Your Equity Committee action items listed on the September 23rd 2020 School Committee meeting notes include letter G, intentional recruitment of educators with diverse backgrounds. Does this not fall under the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Civil Rights Act, excuse me, the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not allow for any sort of discrimination. Our position is to seek out educators with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences to join our already strong teaching staff. We add communication with multiple colleges and universities as a means of seeking teaching candidates at a time when the global teacher pool is sparse. Is the Dudley Charlton Teachers

031Association or any of its members or affiliated in any way with the National Education Association. The DCTA is a member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. The National Education Association, the NEA, is the umbrella organization for the MTA. What are the Dudley Charlton Teachers Association positions, stances, et cetera, on the DCRSD Equity Committee in Critical Race Theory? It would be unfair as a non-member for me to make any statements regarding the positions of the DCTA. With regard to feedback from Dr. Eakins' work with us and the Equity Committee, the next slide shows the composite of Dr. Eakins' work and four sessions with us. So we had 808 total return surveys, and responding to the question, I felt this session was worth my time. 380 folks strongly agreed with that statement. 307 folks somewhat agreed with that

032statement. So in the aggregate, the warm feedback was just about 85%. 89 respondents, or 11%, somewhat disagree with the above statement. And 32 responses, or just about 4%, strongly disagreed with the above statement. So again, to restate, the overall response pattern was approximately 85% in the favorable category. Finally, I just wanted to bring forward a few comments that were made because I know some folks asked questions, others had comments. So I thought I would include a cross-section to illustrate for us kind of what is thematically ingrained throughout the presentation. So I'm just going to read the quotes verbatim. I am not okay with some deciding for my children how equity is defined. That is my job as her parent. I just want to ensure that parental input is taken into consideration and that if CRT

033actually does become something to be introduced, that you do bring parents into that discussion. Public comments continued. It is very important that we work towards equity in every domain of our lives. Thank you for bringing this to our community. To continue, quote, the district should not be pushing political messages in the schools. Professional development should be guided at better instructional methods and materials. No more of the district's money should be wasted on such frivolous presentations when we lack the adequate funding to provide basic educational materials to the students in the district. Next. I would imagine that a smaller population of students would decrease with future DCRSD funding. If parents and caregivers are not happy with the decisions in the school district, many will seek other education options. I am concerned that members of our community

034seem to be against learning about equity, And I believe critical race theory needs to be incorporated into junior and senior high curriculum. I wanted to just say thank you to everybody that responded to the survey. I think as you can see, there's a variety of opinions and positions. And I thought putting that at the end of the presentation would be helpful to adding to the overall context of our meeting. Thank you. Chairperson O'Coin? Now, wait a minute. Next item on the agenda is Dr. Ackerman. He's introducing Dr. Eakins, and we are going to listen to him. If I hear any outbursts, the policemen are in the back, and they will remove you. So you're going to be quiet and listen to them, okay? You'll have your time to speak in the question and answer. Okay,

035Dr. Ackerman. So please take a few moments to listen to Dr. Akin's provide some context for his work with us. Thank you. Hi, good evening everyone. I'm Noreen Johnson-Smith. I'm a resident of Charlton. I'm your town moderator. I'm also a parent of four grown children, so they're out of the schools. So I'm a little older probably than the average audience age here. I was invited to moderate this public forum portion of the meeting and I accepted because I think this is a really important opportunity for the school committee to be able to hear from the parents, for the parents to be able to hear from the school district, and for us to get a better shared understanding of the work of the school district through this forum. So as moderator, you know, I was invited

036because I tend to run a tight meeting. And the reason I run a tight meeting is because it's fair to everyone. So we do have parents who are at home right now who would have trouble hearing if there's a lot of shouting or background noise. I please ask that you stop side conversations. I know it's tempting to reach out if you want to say something in response to a speaker. I encourage you to write down your questions and comments when someone else is talking instead of verbalize them. bring your questions and comments up to the microphone and then we'll proceed with a little bit of decorum not too much fancy stuff for the meeting but when you come up to the microphone you you would say madam moderator and i will say please proceed and

037you'll state your name your address and your relationship to the district because this meeting is for parents of dudley charlton students and members of the school community So please come up, say your name, your address, and what your relationship is to the district. And then I will say, please proceed, and you can ask your question or just make your comment. You'll have three minutes, so when I press my phone, I'm using that as a timer. I'm not recording what you're saying. I'm just pressing that to start my clock ticking so that everyone has a fair amount of time to share their thoughts. If you have a question... You can also share a comment first. If you have a question, you can direct your question to a particular person. So the people who can respond tonight

038are Superintendent LaMarche, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Ackerman, or Dr. Eakins. The school committee is here tonight in listen mode. So they're here to listen to you. They're not here to have a conversation or debate or to engage in dialogue because that's not how the meeting was advertised. That actually would violate open meeting laws. But we do have people here who can respond on behalf of the district to your questions. Okay? So the school committee. Okay, in order to maintain order during the meeting, please do not repeat questions that were already asked. But if you don't understand or didn't necessarily hear the full answer that you were hoping for, feel free to ask for clarification. But let's not get into a circular loop of the same question for the next two hours. I think no one would

039be happy with a meeting that looked like that. Please avoid personalities. This isn't about people. This is about the topic at hand, which is equity. Keep your comments respectful. And I appreciate your efforts tonight to listen. I know it's really hard, especially when you have a lot of passion about something. That's why the pen is very useful. Write down your passionate questions and comments, and then when it's your turn, please come up to the microphone. I'm happy to call on you, happy to hear you, and I know everyone up here is happy to be here also for the same purpose. I think this is a great opportunity to build community. Within the Dudley Charlton school district. So thank you for coming and thanks to the parents at home that are also watching Thank you. We

040also are joined tonight by our state representative Peter Durant Generally, it's an honor to provide our elected officials a first option at the microphone I don't know if Peter is within marching distance here. Come on down And we'll invite representative Durant first and then we'll take comments after that So, Representative Duran, if you would state your name and address and relationship to the district, and we'll proceed from there. Could you speak into the microphone so everyone can hear? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. That's much better. Thank you. Yeah. Representative Duran, I was about to lend you one more minute, please, to conclude your remarks. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us, Representative Duran. Okay, Rich, is there any way to confirm that the microphone for the speakers is being picked up

041by the cable? We'll just take, you know, 30 seconds. I appreciate your patience. I want to make sure people at home can hear. Thank you. So for town meeting, that would be called point of order, and you do get to speak when there's a technical difficulty point of order. I encourage you all to come to your town meeting, by the way. Hope to see you at the next one. From the front. Okay, thank you. I can I can easily hand this to speakers if you have questions and we need to hear from one of the individuals here So once again madam moderator, please proceed and then your name and address and then please proceed and you can then I'll start the clock Okay, could you please offer your name and address? Sorry to interrupt you.

042They can't hear you from home. So I don't know why Okay, so only this is so I'll come out and join you all out front here. Hold on This is going to start to feel like the price is right here. Come on down. Okay. So I'm going to try it here, and we'll see if that's working from home. Do you have a connection who can let us know? Thank you. Should I start again? Well, I'm trying to, but okay. So I don't remember. Huh? Okay. I'll try to go as fast as I can go. I've already... Introduce myself, Carol Sue and John Ream Charlton, 30 years in the Charlton community with graduates of this very school and now grandchildren entering the school district. Can you hear me? All right, awesome, that's great. A second generation,

043which should be exciting, right? In the last six weeks, there has been a surge of awareness from both communities. The school committee, as well as Superintendent Mr. LaMarche and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Ackerman, have been busy fielding concerned questions and statements that were introduced in the June meeting. Topics included upcoming school year's curriculum, as well as contracting a consultant with questionable teachings and ideologies. No transparency to the parents. The concerns were met with alarming outcry for the theme of such teachings, which has changed the hearts and minds of children. Many parents were upset, and rightfully so. What is wrong with my child's heart and mind seemed to be the sentiment. An amazing retired teacher, Doris Dono, spoke to this community, as well as Father Robert Grady-Rowdy, sitting from St. Joseph Church in Charlton, attended with so

044many additional people. All were perplexed. How this district could come to these conclusions? What happened to the loving educators in our school? Sorry, I'm taking time off to turn a page. Hold on. Sorry. This is like... All right, there we go. would seek to implement policies into our curriculum that would harm the hearts and minds of children. After doing research on the consultant Dr. Ackerman hired, as well as the social media research, we came to the conclusion that we felt that the district was being taken over by activists and special groups. The outcry for transparency and the clarification on the repeated contradictory statements and correspondence from the district to parents. led them to this conclusion. We do not need to be lectured on equity and or what CRT is or isn't or any other coined

045phrases since the term in meeting keeps being shifted. Culturally responsive teaching is generally informed by the term critical race theory. The NEA, the largest teachers union, which many teachers of this district are members of, have now omitted CRT on their own website and are now labeling it common history. Regardless of what you call it, it boils down to a framework which seems to actively dismantle systems it deems racially oppressive and on the ways it seeks to do this is through deconstructing language in form of disclosure. Why did this happen? How? One word. Glass lighting. Gas lighting, which is a gradual type of manipulation and hard to detect. The manipulator tries to get someone else or a group to question their own reality, memory, or perceptions. A person using this technique may pretend not to understand

046someone so they do not need to respond to them. Example, I do not know what you're talking about. You're just trying to confuse me. Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or group or entity applies to gain more power and makes an unsuspected victim question their own reality. This is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and activists. Social media and mainstream news outlets have capitalized on gaslighting for which this is their new normal of how they report stories. After the June meeting, which is contrary to Dr. Ackerman's statement tonight, a parent talked to Dr. Ackerman after that meeting and asked the question, were other consultants considered? His answer was no, and he said that he vetted Dr. Eakins by a telephone call. So I respectfully ask the school committee, do you know what

047it means to vet someone? Vetting is the process of performing a background check on a person before offering a contract in employment, which includes, can you yield your time? Can someone yield their time to me? Which includes a fact check intelligence gathering to include references, proven track record, length of expertise in the field, years in business, as well as social media, intelligent, podcasts, et cetera. It is fair to say that Dr. Ackerman's vetting process of merely a telephone call, if that's what it was, was that sufficient? Dr. Aiken's company, Leading Equity Coalition, was registered in the state of Idaho as the Leading Equity LLC and a certification of organization was recorded April 17, 2009. 2019. 2019. Please let me finish. I'm almost done. The training is over and parents' hands are tied on that chapter.

048I will draw your attention to the cover that you received, right? I'm switching, sorry. I'm going fast. I am very well prepared, and that's why I want to make sure I get it all out. It's the humidity. My papers are stuck together. Okay, here we go. Page and a half, guys, left. I'm almost done. The packet that all of you have received. In this June Instagram post from Sheldon Eakins, he lists the dates of the town he is training teachers on CRT. contrary to what he said. Sadly, the district's name is misspelt wrong. But what is more interesting is the hashtag, in particular, hashtag critical race theory. Sheldon Eakins gave a response recent in the Telegram Gazette article. He states, and I quote, the training that I did with the Dudley Charlton District was on

049cultural responsive training teaching CRT and not critical race theory. Yet his own post contradicts that quote. Page two of the packet you received. Eakins pointed out he worked at Wellesley. with Wellesley and in addition, page three, Judicial Watch reported receiving 111 pages of records from the Wellesley public school systems which have confirmed the use of infinity spaces. That divides students and staff based on the race as a priority and objective of the school district, diversity, equity, and inclusion. With that, I will say, where was the equity audit? The Wellesley District also admitted that between September 1st, 2020 and May 17th, 2021, it created five distinct segregated spaces. Is this the road that this district is going down? If you review Aiken's... april 26 instagram video you will get a clear vision on his training titled

050why should i create a student affinity group with sheldon aikens and his quote the bottom line is students need to occupy spaces in which they can be themselves i think we can all agree that that statement alone confirmed confirms division and absolutely bringing no value to children or uniting them in closing the school committee has been voted by the citizens of both towns Dr. Ackerman and Mr. LaMarche, you report directly to all of them. All of them are elected officials and report to the parents. All of the school committee, I applaud you for volunteering. I do. But I ask you this question. We entrusted with our children's best interest. And if this is not rectified to the satisfaction of parents and taxpayers alike, this will lead to the destruction of young hearts and minds. And

051this will be catastrophic in generations to come. Families will pull their children. Do not expose them to this type of indoctrination. May God have mercy on you all. May God have mercy on all of you. And may God have mercy on our children. Okay, could I remind folks, please? First of all, thank you for preparing. It's very helpful to have your remarks in writing. Second, we will never get out of here tonight if we all take that much time. So out of respect for each other in the room and to allow people to have enough time to speak. Please limit your remarks to three minutes. I would like to invite Dr. Ackerman or Mr. LaMarche to respond if you have questions. It sounds like to me, and I'm paraphrasing a very lengthy commentary, but that

052there was some misleading information that you felt was contradictory and therefore difficult to ascertain what was meant by it. and i don't know if the district would like to clarify any of that but i give you that opportunity if you'd like to speak first apparently this mic only works so i'm going to hand you this okay great thank you okay so if you wish to speak during the meeting i am going to have to interject there is a line of people waiting to speak so let's let's allow mr lamarche to complete his statement and then we'll turn back to the parents please Excuse me. I don't want to have to eject you from the meeting, please. Genuinely, I'd like you to stay. Hold on. Let him please complete his thought. People can't hear. Let me

053turn over my mic. Excuse me. Sure. Can everyone hear me? Once again, I can't be any clearer. We haven't changed any of our curriculum. We're not, we follow the Massachusetts state frameworks. We have not interjected anything into our framework. We've not asked our teachers or educators to do the same. We worked on equity this year. That was our role and responsibility. And this is something that's been building for years. We did not change our teaching and learning. We're not asking teachers to change their curriculum and what they're teaching and learning for students. We are not. I would just like to add, I know at the end of the comment, there was a question of affinity spaces. So we have not done any sort of segregation in any of our schools. We have no intention to

054do any sort of segregation in our schools or any intent. To echo the superintendent's remarks, we have not instructed critical race theory at all. We have no intention to do so. And I hope that we were as clear as we could be in our presentations. Thank you very much. Yes, point of order. Yep. Okay, certainly. I came here to listen to you. And so I'm going to ask you to just speak so that we can hear you. And I absolutely appreciate how passionate you were. And thank you for your statements. But it was hard for us to hear you up here. And I would like to hear you all that came here to spend your time tonight. So please know that we're here to listen and we would like to be able to do so.

055Okay. Thank you. That is also an excellent suggestion. that following this meeting, if you have comments that you were not able to offer due to time constraints, you do always have the option to please send your comments directly into the school district. I know they would welcome that. Okay, our next speaker. I'm Mandy Bush, City Depot Road, Charlton. I have some questions for the school committee, and I realize you folks can't respond to that, but I hope you will address it at an upcoming meeting. So I really appreciate everyone for having this meeting tonight. I appreciate Ms. Evans for responding to my email and Dr. Ackerman for being very generous with his time answering my questions. But there was an unelected handpicked group reviewing the entirety of our curricula. But according to Mr. LaMarche on

056June 18th, 16th, excuse me, there's no written process to approve curricula changes. So you can understand why parents are nervous. This there has been books purchased and from what Dr. Ackerman told me it sounds like a wonderful thing but we don't know what they are and there's no process again to approve this. It seems kind of crazy when you think about it. They might be phenomenal but the equity committee doesn't report to you and you folks are our eyes and ears. You're the ones who should be approving any curricula changes. I'm asking you, as our school committee, to make this group and any other group that reviews curricula to be under you, our elected officials. You are our voice. You're our eyes and ears. You have the oversight of the budget. This should absolutely be

057under your purview. But it isn't. I have four things I'm respectfully asking you to address. Have the equity committee under you. The most important stakeholders are here, we're the parents. These are our children. And I'm asking you to think about adding some of these parents who are very nervous onto that equity committee. Maybe they'll love what they see, but they don't know because again, the minutes aren't always published. It's just an update. We didn't know who the members were. Please address the mission statement. Every single parent I've talked to said, They're not supposed to tell your children what to think. They're supposed to tell them how to think critically. I'm losing my space, sorry. Halt any and all curricula changes until there's a written process in place. And also, post publicly any curricula changes that

058were made before there was a written process in place so we know what was going on. All in all, let's teach our children to think critically, to be kind and respectful to all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or ability. My child is one of those protected students, and I'm very concerned. I'm very concerned. We want to re-enroll her in the district, but I don't want her to feel like she is oppressed or beneath anyone. We teach her that her challenges will be her greatest strength. And I thought that this community supported that. Thank you. Thank you very much. So that's what three minutes looks like. You do have time to express yourselves. So please use it wisely. Good evening, Madam Moderator. My name is Mike DeCarolis, 32 Colicum Drive, Charlton. I have one

059daughter in the school district and one on the way. I don't think I need the microphone. Okay. All right. You know, every country on earth or place with a border is defined by their race or ethnicity. except the United States. Because in America, we are not defined by our race, but by our values. And these values are as follows. One, E Pluribus Unum, our national model from 1776, not 1619. It is regarded as out of one people many, but today it's out of one people many backgrounds and beliefs. America and Americans don't care about your national origins or race as evident by the way immigrants assimilate faster when immigrating here than any other country on the planet. Turkey has had a long history of immigrating millions to European countries, yet they are still not considered

060fully German by other Germans, fully Swedish by other Swedes, and they in turn never feel fully German or Swedish themselves. But that same immigrant in the United States will always be regarded as fully American as any other American or any other immigrant that's come to America to become an American. Number two, liberty. It is fundamental to us as Americans and should be taught to our children. We are not the only country to enshrine liberty, but we are the only ones to combine e pluribus unum, liberty, and in God we trust. As history has written about the French Revolution, liberty was a tenant, and so was equality. The revolution, sorry, the problem is that once they introduced equality, they all lost their liberty. It is a basic American value that all humans are created equal, and

061equal in the eyes of the law. which is what happened after the French Revolution and countless other places. America gives liberty to everybody who will lend their hard work and luck to them. Everybody has liberty right now. Everybody can go out and make their own way. That also means unequal. Professional athletes will always make more than doctors or me, a liquor salesman. That's just the way it is. If you want to teach equality, you'll have to tell individuals how much they can earn, essentially degrading their liberty. Number three, in God we trust. This country was founded on God of the Bible and is the source of our moral values. And as we all know from our civics class, the Declaration of Independence explicitly says, our rights are endowed by our creator. If rights were given

062by man, man can take them away. These are the reasons that America remains the freest, most prosperous, and most tolerant country on the planet. But there are many who seek to destroy, in the words of Barack Obama, fundamentally transform this country. Instead of American values, the goal is to replace them with European values, a system of guaranteed outcomes. Expanding the state to erode our freedoms, celebrate ethnic and racial identity, which flies against the teachings of Dr. King and is the opposite of e pluribus unum and the removal of God and morality. So my question is, which set of values does the DCRSD adopt? Thank you. Do you wish to respond? Yeah, my only response to which value, we adopt all values. We value every individual and every child within our school district. Thank you. Madam

063moderator, Alyssa Hanson, Stafford Street, and Charlton. Of course. And I asked for a little bit of leniency with the three minutes. I won't go too far over, but this was the assumption after our last school committee meeting. It wasn't going to be held, so I will try to talk as clearly as possible, but as quickly as possible. I do have two children in the system currently and one more coming through. So I'd like to speak tonight specifically on our curriculum and, more importantly, the incorporation of intersectionality within our curriculum. On Wednesday, June 9th, there was an email from a school committee member that said, and I quote, regarding gender theory and critical race theory, we've been cataloging a living compendium of resources for an anti-bias approach to education. This includes networking with other organizations and

064compiling works which examine race and gender at the intersection and how it impacts the well-being of those students who exist within marginalized communities. The concept of intersectionality has been at the heart of our work and will continue to shape our discussions moving forward. Based on this, I understand that intersectionality is something that we are already discussing and is shaping our work. It seems like there is a possibility that this could be included in curriculum in the future. I know you can't answer now, but I'm asking if that's an accurate statement, if this could be included in our curriculum going forward. If not, if you say no, I would like you to elaborate what it means when a committee member speaks specifically saying, and I quote, intersectionality has been at the heart of our work in

065shaping our discussion. I want to make sure everyone here understands what intersectionality is, and if there's anything I say that is incorrect, please feel free to correct me as I want to ensure everyone here has just the facts. Here's the definition I found. Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and height. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and depressing. I hope that that's an accurate definition from the search that I've done. So based on that definition, can I ask why we think teaching our young children of our community that they

066are either empowered or impressed? Therefore, either empowering or oppressive, purely based on an innate characteristic. Why would this be beneficial to their education? And also, when did this become the school's job to teach our children anything outside of the basic subjects? Should that not be up to the child's family? And I quote Ben Carson here, does it make sense to judge people based on a characteristic they cannot change and they had nothing to do with? Or is it better to judge them on things they have dominion over? And this is where I ask you, the school committee, can you please explain the benefits of interweaving this intersectionality and how this is specifically going to look in our curriculum going further. Also, intersectionality is more of an umbrella term where teachings like CRT, gender theory, et

067cetera, can fall under. We have seen multiple school committee members both agree with and advocate for a new health curriculum, which one member of our school committee actually helped to have this passed in the Worcester public schools. This health curriculum, which is not sex ed, which I'll get into in one brief moment, discusses, so I'll speak for my husband as well, Corey Hanson, 426 Stafford Street. They discuss... They discussed the three R's of rights, respect, responsibility, which sounds beneficial until you hear specific examples, which I'll give you just a few. And keep in mind, I feel very inappropriate, even as a parent in our end saying these things, never mind having them taught to our young children. And again, this passed in Worcester, and a member of our board helped pass that. Grade K, lesson

068two, page two. And I quote, so a person with a vulva has three holes between their legs in a very sensitive little area at the top called a... This is part of the health curriculum. This is part of the health curriculum that just passed in Worcester and our board members helped approve and another one is an advocate for. I specifically commented that as is usual we have an agenda for the evening so if you can keep your comments to the topic at hand which is what's happening in the Dudley Charlton Regional School District so so I'll allow the speaker to address that so we're going to allow you to complete your remarks and then you can speak please So excuse me, I'm moderating. So I do have to ask you to please wait your turn

069and please complete your thought. And then we'll allow the school folks to respond. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know how to put this on. So. Clarifying, we did speak, the committee, the subcommittee after the last meeting spoke with Dr. Ackerman and he specifically said we could discuss this in this meeting because this is one of the bigger deals that parents were worried about. This is currently passed in Worcester. We have board members that agree with it and that helped get it passed in Worcester. That's the correlation. No, it's not currently in our system. Many parents are nervous it will be. Thank you, I'm almost done. One more example, just because this is very inappropriate. Grade two, lesson one. The vagina has great elasticity and can adjust to the size of a penis. This is

070being taught, coming up in Worcester. Keep in mind, this is health curriculum and not sex ed, so parents are not allowed to opt our kids out of it. In closing, is this something we'll be incorporating into our curriculum at any point in time? Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year. At any point in time, is this something we'll be incorporating? And with the lack of transparency recently, how can we trust this won't happen? Myself, as many other parents here in this community, moved here just so our children can take part in this great school system. What will you as a school committee do moving forward to gain trust back and show us transparency? And recently, it has been anything but honest and trustful. Thank you. Thank you. So thank you for your comments. In summary,

071the intersectionality was one of the first questions and whether that's included in the curriculum. And I did hear the question was originally posed to the school committee members so they can take notes and address that in another forum. I will allow Dr. Ackerman and Mr. LaMarche to respond to that specifically. Thank you for your comments. I'm probably going to say the word wrong. Intersectionality, is that what you're saying? Okay, obviously, I have no idea what the term is, never used it. It hasn't been any research. There's no intention here. You know, again, our role is to try to make recommendations to the school committee and to the community, but we've never looked at intersectionality. I've never used it. It's never been part of my dialogue, part of my discussions, so I don't see that. I'm

072just trying to respond to your question there. The other one is on the health curriculum. We follow the health frameworks from 1999. We have not changed them. We have no plans to change them. We're not trying to even research them now. There's no intention to change our health curriculum with our health staff. And if we did, we would certainly have a lot of work to do around that. But there is no intention. There's no goal. It's not on a priority list. It's not on nothing at all. Literacy is our priority right now. Literacy is our priority. We have no intention of changing our health curriculum that's been in place for a very long time in the Dudley-Chelton Regional School District. Zero intention to change it. Thank you. That was very clear. Yep, Dr. Ackerman? With

073regard to the specific question on intersectionality, the equity committees looked at a number of different websites about equity. So they could be a compendium of resources from any and all domains of the Internet. any of those examinations have been only equity committee. We haven't talked about any of that with students, with other teachers. That hasn't been a public endeavor at all. But I do want to be clear that our equity committee has looked. What's available online? What are some other districts doing? But as far as any change to how our students are taught, the answer to that is absolutely no. Thank you very much. All right. Name and address please. My name is Chris Doust. I am a parent and resident of Charlton. I live over on Ram Swan Road. Just a follow-up, Dr. Ackerman,

074to the intersectionality. So a sitting member on the board and the equity committee. stated, you can see in your email, in that email that was there, that intersectionality will be the heart of that. So if it's someone that is on your board, why is it being sent out? Are they speaking on their behalf? Are you speaking on behalf of the whole school committee? It's hard to ignore that when it's been written. Would you like to respond? Thank you. It certainly has come up in our search, but again, we haven't changed anything. We have only looked to see what is written. We've done research. We're trying to be as current with what's happening as we can. I want to restate again, we have changed nothing with regard to our communication to students or to teachers. We've

075only done research to look at, in the contemporary context, what's out there. Thank you. Do you have a follow-up? You did have extra time. Okay, thank you. All right, so I am a mom of three kids. I have one kid going into high school. Lord, help me. I have one going into kindergarten. Again, Lord, help me. And then I have one that is in preschool under a pretty comprehensive IEP program. When my youngest daughter was born, she was very unexpectedly ill. She spent the first five months of her life just fighting to survive. She was born with a rare genetic disorder that affects many components of her system. But she is a fighter. I tell you this not for your sympathy. I don't want your sympathy. I tell you this because I sat by her

076side every day, and I fought with her, and I fought for her. I advocated every day for her health and her well-being, and I will continue to do that for her and all of my children. She will always have to work harder than any of us to do the things that we take for granted. Walking, talking, eating, breathing. She can't do most of these things without assistance. I will continue to advocate for all of them, which is why my husband and I made the decision to pull my middle daughter out of the district and send her to private school. We just don't have the confidence right now in the district to teach them academically. and to be good creative thinkers. When my youngest daughter was a month old, she had open heart surgery. While my

077husband and I were by her side, my eldest went to school. We tried to make it as normal as possible for them. When we called to check in and ask how his day was, he was in tears. While at school, my son shared with his peers about his sister's surgery, and what they said to him shattered my heart. A number of his peers told him that they hoped his sister would die in surgery. No one deserves that. He has been ridiculed for having a sister that is, quote, retarded. I have seen a number of instances of bullying over the years, and I am not going to stand here and say that my kids are perfect because Lord knows that they are not. But if my typical son is being ridiculed, imagine what she will face.

078Sorry. Over the last few years, this district alone has lost several students due to suicide because of bullying or mental health issues. On top of this, we are coming out of a pandemic. Our kids have been secluded for a better part of a year or more in some cases. There have been a number of studies released over the past few months regarding the social, emotional, and academic deterioration of our children. Increased anxiety, increased depression, separation anxiety, and increase in cyberbullying, just to name a few of those things. The social and emotional health of our children is frayed. Add along the educational gap that was created due to COVID-19 and the obvious issues this district has with bullying, I'm left wondering why this district thought that the CRT program, however you want to call it, should

079take precedence over our children's well-being and their academic standings. We have lost children in this district because they felt they had no other choice. We have all failed them. We failed them. Don't cut my time. I'm wondering if social-emotional teachering was considered. In a quick search, I not only found programs right here in Massachusetts, but some of them are free due to current grants. And that's all in your packet. I've included a list of that, blah, blah, blah. Getting on. Social and emotional learning will help us cope, help teach our kids coping and strategize how to help children move forward academically and socially. We need to focus on building a community where our children feel safe and respect each other. In turn, this will create a more stable and productive learning environment. We need to

080get back to teaching human decency and understanding into our children. This surpasses any racial difference to encompass all unique attributes, creating a community and an environment where our children are all accepted and respected. We need to get back to kindness. We need to know that we can trust the folks that are in charge with our children's education. And right now, I personally do not have that. So what is your plan to get back to that? My four questions. Four questions. Why is CRT a priority over addressing the very blatant social and emotional issues and bullying problem that our district has and what propelled this to the front line? Number two. In the packet you received from me, you can see some statistics, blah, blah, blah. Sorry. Okay, can you tell me if you have considered

081social and emotional teaching programs in this district? If not, why? What is the administration's plan to earn the trust back of the parents? I feel as though we have all been duped. There have been a number of lies, and calling them miscommunications does not cover the fact that there have been blatant dishonesties and manipulations around the truth in this whole process. So again, how are we as parents supposed to trust the administration after all of this? And what does that look like to you? An off-the-cuff question, equity. You talk about equity. I'm giving everyone that upbeat. When my daughter came into the district at three years old out of EI, I had to fight to get her into this district. They didn't want her here. And the only reason I won that is because the

082collaborative SWEC lost their accreditation. I fought so hard to get in here to get her the therapies and what she needed. They didn't even want her here. So it's hard for me to believe about equity when my daughter wasn't even accepted. Thank you, so so there are a number of questions in there I think at the core of your questioning is social and emotional learning As a priority for the district and how has the district prioritized culturally responsive teaching? Among the many issues that there are to choose from is is that a very? Sure. Thank you. First of all, I'm not aware of your individual case as to why your daughter may not have been welcomed in the beginning, and I'd love to learn more about that, number one. Number two, we did not prioritize

083SEL over CRT because we're not doing CRT. And SEL has been part of everything we've done all school year. And you bring up a good point. I think what might be helpful is if we put SEL on the next school committee agenda and we present to folks what we're doing around social-emotional learning because it's been part of everything we've done. We've actually used our ESSER money that we received to add additional school adjustment counselors to work with our students because of coming out of the online learning and all the learning models that we've had to try to, and we were one of the earlier adopters to add additional school adjustment counselors. in our district for that very purpose there. But I think it brings up a good point. I'm sorry, I think it brings up

084a very good point. I hope everyone heard. what I was saying. So I think that maybe that's a future agenda item for us to try to present to the community on how we address SEL within our district. Because I know that there are many building principals, staff members that would really love to share that with the community and what they're doing. As far as the last question about building trust, you know, that's, it's a double message. One is, I really need the specificity as to what you think I lied to you about, number one. No, just, no. I'd like to finish my comment if I could. Okay, but the other is just like a meeting like this is for me to work with you and be open to you My office door has always been

085open I've tried to respond to all the emails that I've received in this entire school year Which I can't even begin to tell you how many emails I've received this school year My I'm open to working with anyone. So that's what I would say. Thank you very much. I appreciate that All right, no problem My name is Bob Carlson. I live at to Laurel Lane Dudley bass The letter I'm reading is not from myself. It's from a teacher, actually, who teaches here in Dudley. She was not allowed to be here today due to vacation or something like that. Sorry. Oh, sorry, guys. This letter is from Jennifer Hedgedus. I'm sorry. Yep. Jennifer Loring Hedgedus, fifth grade teacher at Dudley Elementary. Dudley Middle. Tough crowd, all right. I have been a teacher in this district for

08621 years and have always been immensely proud to be part of this community. After all that time, you can imagine that even though I do not live in Dudley, I do feel a very strong connection to the families in it. I have been privileged to teach multiple children and many former students have returned to visit me upon graduation. I also have taught alongside former students. 21 years is a long time. However, never during my tenure here have I ever encountered such a threat to my reputation in the community, or more importantly, such a concern for my students, as I feel today. I will be honest and tell you that I have been doing research on these upcoming ideas, and examples CRT, 1619 Project, and BLM, over the past two years, as I was concerned as

087when these ideas would hit our district. It seems we do not have recordings of this particular, oh, I'm sorry. Then we had professional development with Mr. Eakins, and my fear started to become a reality. It seems we do not have recordings of this particular PD, so let me tell you about my experience with the first one alone on September 9th, 2020. I was sitting in my home office as we were not live in school yet. And it was clear that I was being told that we all have racist tendencies because of the color of our skin. But believe it or not, that's not what bothered me most. My concern grew when the BLM slide popped up on the screen because research can easily confirm the organization was founded by self-proclaimed trained Marxists. Then Mr. Eakins

088proceeded to refer to police negatively. And he understood why people were looting. Maybe they really needed those TVs. Said, I'm sorry, pretty much was a direct quote. And stated that violence had to happen because MLK was too passive and did not go far enough. He also dismissed anything in the chat that went against the narrative. For example, he was fine when people were typing in names of people who were shot by police officers, but when the names of fallen police officers were typed into it, he seemed irritated by it and refused to acknowledge it. This is when my cell phone started blowing up with messages from other teachers who were as appalled as I was. In all my years of teaching, I never taught children that stealing and violence was okay or that police were

089bad and that they should be anything other than proud of their community, I'm sorry, proud of their country and the opportunities it presents to them. I was offended by the fact that he placed our district into this little box of horrible, biased teachers and students because of our demographics. He does not know me personally, nor has he ever spent a second in my classroom. He certainly does not know where I came from, and I can assure you there was no privilege in my childhood. I realized that PD specialists would disagree as he blatantly stated that I have no choice but to be biased because I am white. Yes, he did say that. I guess judging people by the content of their character does not apply here. This Eakins PD certainly has offered me nothing useful

090for teaching and totally went against my core principles and values. In my classroom, as we are concentrating on working hard and putting our best efforts into learning so we can be better learners, we also concentrate on being a community of people who respect each other. His message was clearly counter to that. It was all about making sure we see the differences in each other and focus on the division and disrespecting authority. I cannot imagine that this district wants us to engage in classrooms. However, they did hire him and had to know critical race theory is a link on his website. Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to finish this, please. Thank you. I cannot, I'm sorry, so see, let me lose my spot so I need a little more time. Then this equity committee

091popped up without any updates being provided by teachers. We get updates from committees every year, yet this one seemed to be overlooked. I received the email that stated empathetically that this district is not adopting CRT. However, there are many indications that suggest that is not true with the hiring of Sheldon Eakins. I got a little bit more. Yeah, if you sit down, I'll be able to finish it. Even statements in the equity committee notes like implicit bias. Each of us has a bias in one form or another, and change hearts and minds can be found as direct quotes from CRT handbook, no matter how you call it. Students, especially of middle and high school age, already have a lot of things to worry about and a lot of confusion as they try to make their

092way to adulthood. As a result, many have a lot of anxiety and look to adults to help them find their way. I feel adding that they are biased because of the color of their skin will do nothing more than add that anxiety and change the tone of the classroom within these districts. We should not be making them look for conflict where there is none. That is not our place. It is my job to teach students how to think, not what to think. Along with providing them a safe environment where they can trust the adults in the room. I'm a person who gives the tools and resources to help them learn things they need to carry throughout life and support values that their parents have already provided for them, which is, of course, their job. As

093a testament, the great job their parents are doing, I have to say that in my 21 years I've taught in this district, I have found that my students not to be inherently racist. When we discuss slavery in history, for example, I do not find myself having to explain that it is wrong and why as their reactions to it confirm that they already knew that. My philosophy in teaching children, that they are inherently good. And I am concerned that now we are heading toward the premise because children are inherently racist. We have to fix them. I will close. I'm almost done. I will close making two points very clear. One is that I worked tirelessly in this district for 21 years, and I teach because I enjoy working with children. I enjoy watching those light bulb

094moments when they have been struggling to understand something. I enjoy their conversations when they add thoughts and experiences to the conversation. I feel that I've earned a positive reputation in this community, and I have made connections with students and parents alike. I'm concerned that the district is making it appear that I support these philosophies, which I empathetically do not. More importantly, I'm concerned that our district is ready to influence our children in a non-productive, negative way. This bothers me. Most of all, I have to say that it has kept me awake many nights. I ask that this district research long and hard before implementing such fundamental changes that your educators may not be able to implement as it goes against who we are and what we want for our children. Please do the research I

095have. So thank you for your comments and for sharing that. Again, letters can also be submitted in writing to the school committee and to the district. What I'm hearing in that thread, in all of the thoughts that were shared there, is the notion of divisiveness and that the concern that the teaching of culturally responsive teaching and the work that is being done by the Equity Committee is divisive. And I don't know if you'd like to address that in terms of... you know, fundamentally, what that's about. Sure, really, our purpose is to be inclusive. Equity means equity for all students. Equity means that we're providing a top-rate educational experience for each and every student around a unifying thread. We are looking... We are looking... Yeah, please, we can't have... You're going to have to... Sir, would

096you please sit down? It's very difficult to have a meeting with so many people and have it become like that. Thank you. Everything that we've talked about, we are for, we are not for, we don't and do not endorse any sort of violence. We do not and do not endorse any sort of stealing. I know that that was mentioned. The 1619 Project is not part of our curriculum. Black Lives Matter the movement and all of the surrounding literature is not part of our curriculum. The larger conversations were about what was going on in the country. It was in 2020. It was in the backdrop of all of the societal events that were happening. As an equity committee to not discuss, to not, excuse me, or to have a presenter not discuss what was happening. I

097think would be, wouldn't be providing our folks with enough information. We're not telling people how to think. We're asking people to be open-minded and to think about multiple perspectives and to think about, as reflective practitioners, how do you want to, how can you go into your classrooms in the best position for this year? The only other thing that I'd like to add is I appreciate Ms. Hedgetus coming forward, is that what's really important for you as parents is if you do have questions about the instructional materials that teachers are using, please go to those teachers. Please talk to those teachers. And if you're dissatisfied with the response of those instructional materials, with teachers, because we follow the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, please talk to their principals. Their principals are also welcoming and opening to conversations around

098instructional materials. And I know the sense is very strong here that you're saying that my lie is that we're not incorporating CRT. I can't say it enough emphatically. We're not incorporating CRT into our instructional materials. to be clear we didn't pay him as I said at school committee our contract is completed with dr. Akins he volunteered to be here tonight because a lot of questions were around a lot of questions came up at school committee about what he said and what he talked to us about so that's that's why he came here this evening but again our contract with dr. Akins Excuse me, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to ask you to leave the meeting if you do that again. Please stop, okay? Thank you. I appreciate there's a lot of passion. Please, you've

099been warned. There is a lot of passion around these topics, and I know everyone feels very deeply about what's in the best interest of your children, as does the school district. So I appreciate everyone listening to each other. We're going to continue, and if you'd say your name, address, and then you can proceed. Thank you. My name is Caitlin Seaman. I live on Sunset Drive in Dudley, Massachusetts, and I have a son who is just starting his education in this school district. If you have the handout, I would ask that you refer to pages 11 through 14 for the data that I'm going to be referencing. We're allotted three minutes, and I am respectfully asking for your consideration to grant the additional five minutes so I may share my statement in its entirety. Many are

100here to share thoughts and concerns. I'm here to share information that was received from a public records request. The Equity Committee report dated November 18th, 2020, written by an unidentified individual in reference to Dr. Aikens' professional development webinar states, the most recent webinar from the last week of October generated over 160 responses from our staff. 82.9% of the feedback indicated that the time with Dr. Aikens was of value and helpful. This continues the trend from earlier webinars. In excess of 80% of feedback from Dr. Eakin's webinars with the DCRSD is seen as of some or of high value. Dr. Ackerman, you stated that staff found the time with Dr. Eakin's of value and helpful. Other than handpicking specific comments and statements that suited that narrative, I am wondering how you arrived at that conclusion. Session

101one with Dr. Eakins had 281 responses. The two polled statements put before the staff where I felt this session was worth my time and I am excited to attend Dr. Eakins' follow-up session next week. Statement one received 64.1%. stating strongly agree and the second statement 62.6 with strongly agree only when you add in the somewhat agree responses did either of those two statements elicit an 80 or above there was no question asked if the staff found their time with dr eakins to be helpful or of value Session two had 237 responses, 44 less than session one. Polled statements, I felt this session was worth my time and I look forward to participating in another webinar with Dr. Akins. The first statement received 53.2% indicating strongly agree, while the second statement found that 49.4% of respondents

102fell in the strongly agree category. Once again, only when somewhat agree responses are factored in are you clearing 80%. For session two, again, there was no question directly asking staff if their time with Dr. Eakins was helpful or of value. Session three, 169 responses, 68 less than session two. Statement one read, I felt this session was well worth my time and had 29.6 with strongly agree. Statement two, I look forward to participating in another webinar with Dr. Eakins, only received 33.1% with strongly agree. For session three, only one statement and only when factoring in some would agree, responses received above 80%. Again, no question asking if our educators found their time with Dr. Eakins to be of help or value. Session four, 118 responses, 51 less than session three, 119 less than session two, and

103a remarkable 163 less responses from session one. Statement one read, I felt this session was worth my time. And 20.3% of attendees selected strongly agree. Statement two, I look forward to participating in another webinar, obtained a strongly agree from 21.2% of the respondents. When combining strongly agree with somewhat agree for statement one of session four, we get 72%. When we tally strongly agree with somewhat agree for statement two of session four, I look forward to participating in another webinar, we get 66.1%. For this last session with Dr. Eakins, once again, there was not a direct question asking the staff if they found their time with him to be helpful or of value. There's an astounding 58% decrease in responses when we compare session one to session four. 163 less staff members responded from session four.

104Where were these educators? Was there a faculty skip day? A rating stated that with 62.6 of educators looking forward to attending another webinar with Dr. Agans plummeted to 21.2% by June 2021. After seeing the percentages and numbers of attendees drop, I'm left with the following conclusion. The more time our staff spent in Dr. Eakin's webinars learning, the less they liked and the less they wanted to hear. At no point after any of these four sessions were the staff polled asking if they felt their time with Dr. Eakin was of value or helpful. In fact, many indicated that these trainings were not helpful. One response from September 3rd reads, that felt like propaganda, incredibly one-sided, seems like the definition of indoctrination. And are we supposed to, as educators, bring this into the classroom and share this

105with kids? Another from October 28th. I'm not a fan of Dr. Eakins. Even though he may have had some good points, he fills his webinars with his own hate and feelings for... excuse me, his own hate and feelings way too much. And on June 21st, these sessions have not impacted my teaching or my interactions with my students. I do not feel that I am prejudiced nor racist. Being treated like I am a white supremacist because of the color of my skin is insulting. If as my boss, if as my boss you felt I was racist, I would hope that you would say so to my face. I would have rather spent my time working on my curriculum or working with colleagues crafting better lessons. In closing, to the school committee members as elected officials, you

106must do better. Allowing skew data and metrics to even remotely be used in contemplation of change. Oops, sorry. In closing to the school committee members, as elected officials, you must do better. Allowing skewed data and metrics to even remotely be used in contemplation of changing hearts and minds of students in this district with what was suggested by an ad hoc committee is unfathomable. We demand better of you for our children, our towns, and the future of our communities. If you are no longer able to represent the students in this district, the staff, parents and taxpayers, I implore you to not seek re-election. As is evident by the number of individuals behind me and in front of me, regardless of the skin color, our sexuality, our religion, or our gender, we all have this in common.

107We are paying more attention now than ever to every move, vote, and topic of discussion that is brought forth or made by this school committee. Okay, thank you. That was a comment and just an acknowledgement that your elected officials work very hard. And I just will say, you know, we want to provide some balance here. So would you like to step forward? Thank you. Very close. Okay. Madam moderator. Good evening members of the school committee administration Guests ladies and gentlemen of the audience. My name is Erica Foskett and I reside at Seno Depot Road in Charlton I stand here before you tonight as an attorney as a citizen and as a very concerned parent This may be common knowledge, but I feel the need to reiterate that parents entrust their children's well-being and academic development

108to the district teachers and administration. Our children are very impressionable as they are building their foundation. Introducing critical race theory into the curriculum as required is truly unimaginable. I didn't have time to type it. Critical race theory examines history through the lens of racism and argues that racism is ingrained in U.S. laws and institutions. Critical race theory is racism. It's hate. It will divide our children. We cannot allow critical race theory to permeate classrooms and infect our children's minds with outrageous ideas about our nation's history. Will we allow material to indoctrinate our children with malicious theories that seek to reduce students to their sex or their skin color? I'd like to share a fact. Anti-critical race theory bills banning this teaching have been either introduced or signed into law in 22 states. Let me repeat

109that. Anti-critical race theory bills banning this teaching have been either introduced or signed into law in 22 states. The reality is that our children suffered last year with remote learning. Since there is so much academic ground to make up, why would we endorse introducing a theory into the curriculum? Critical race theory is exactly that, a theory, and theories are completely subjective. I'm here tonight to reinforce that critical race theory should not be part of our children's curriculum. Teachers should focus on the Common Core Standards. The Common Core Standards are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for knowledge and skills that students need in English, language arts, and mathematics. These are the baseline topics to pass MCAS, which translate to the exit standards to receive a diploma. Parents have the right and responsibility to

110raise their children and control their upbringing. I need to reiterate that this is not okay for schools to treat children differently on the basis of race, gender, and to make them say things that they don't agree with. I for one will never endorse critical race theory being taught as part of their free, appropriate public education. It's toxic. It's centered on political thoughts and theories which are not connected to education. Thank you. Thank you. So I won't delay the meeting by seeking comment because I think it was just shared earlier that critical race theory is not part of the curriculum. So I just want to reiterate that. I'm just reiterating what our educational leaders have said. So additional questions and clarification related to that, I encourage you to put your thoughts in writing and share that

111with the district if you'd like also. Yes, your name and address. My name is Marsha Wagner, 27 Hickory Drive in Dudley. The narrative, the national narrative of equity does denote equal... equal outcome and it seems that this committee in front of me agrees with that but education can only offer equal opportunity only hard work dedication and self responsibility can affect outcome something else that kind of shook me when I heard today that the Sheppard Hill not Shepherd Hill, Dudley-Charlton Regional, wants to ensure global, educate or graduate global residents. In his farewell address over 30 years ago, President Reagan conveyed that he felt that America was failing and falling down on the job of developing its young people in an informed patriotism. He emphasized that there needs to be a redouble effort to help the next

112generation understand what it is meant to be an American, not a globalist. Efforts should be underway for the schoolhouse to develop a love of country. I'm not inferring that our school system has this curriculum, but one of the widely used textbooks, A People's History of the U.S. by Howard Zinn, presents only dark sides of America. As Gordon Lloyd, Professor Emeritus at Pepperdine University said, it's hard to love an ugly founding with the new history being taught. Who would there be willing to defend our country, fight and preserve our freedoms that they don't even understand? So I want to see Dudley-Charlton Regional School System focusing on patriotism, not globalism. We gave out a reading list and I gave it to our chairman of the school committee. Most of the authors on the list are of color

113and so the public and those on TV know what's in the list. The first is Under Our Skin, Benjamin Watson, New England Patriot, Tight End. White Guilt, Shelby Steele. Blackout, Candace Owens. America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carlson. The Diversity Delusion, Heather MacDonald. All It Takes is Guts, Dr. Walter E. Williams, one of my favorites. My Grandfather's Son, Justice Clarence Thomas. The Battle for the Soul of Islam, Zutty Jasser. A Critical Response to the 1612 Project, Peter Wolff. What has race got to do with it? Larry Elder. America, imagine the world without her. Dinesh D'Souza. American Marxism. Mark Levin. The Breakdown of Higher Education, John Ellis, and Walking Targets, Beverly Ekman. Beverly Ekman has written a number of books that I would encourage any teacher or school committee member to research. Thank you. All right, thank

114you very much. Sir, name and address. Madam moderator, my name is David Karen. I live on Main Street in Charlton, and I am the father of a soon-to-be second grader. For the duration of my comments, I'm going to accept at face value that what you have said, critical race theory, is not a part of our curriculum and will not be. Now, just for the next three minutes, let's assume this is the truth. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I learned a lot more than curriculum from my teachers. A good teacher teaches a lot more than what's on a syllabus. And I learned strong lessons about life, truth, faith, hope, understanding, all of the good things that make us well-rounded individuals from teachers who taught because that's what they were passionate about. And I look

115at the face of the country back then, through rose-tinted glasses perhaps, as a place that wanted us all to get along and do better. And this lovely young lady gave us a whole bunch of numbers saying how our teachers either felt for or against what they thought Dr. Eakin had to say. And I can't imagine any teachers of mine growing up at all even partially agreeing that their time was of any value spent with a man like this. So my question is, Is the school district going to put any kind of a policy in place regarding what teachers teach between the lines, outside of the curriculums, the attitudes that they bring to the classroom, and the offhanded comments that they make when they're not teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic? Because it seems that you can

116have these hot-button topics not bullet-pointed on a syllabus. but still be brought up in a classroom and discussed in front of children who really shouldn't be thinking about that kind of thing and have their time better spent on other topics. Thank you. Would you care to respond? Thanks. Thank you sir for the and hopefully it's a little bit more than three minutes when I say that we're not teaching critical race theory in our schools But I do want to respond to that because that is a good point You know what's really important here is again? What is the classroom teacher providing your students if you have a question? About what they are teaching or providing for instructional materials or between the lines You have a right to ask them the question If you're dissatisfied with

117their response to that question, you need to seek out a building-level principal for that. You have that right. You have 100% of my support to do that, and we will address those. We want the inside the lines to be about what you just said. I'm a product of the 80s. I was trying to young myself a little bit. Not the right phrase. But yeah, it was all about caring about people. And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about caring about everybody in the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. That's what we're talking about. So again, if you have questions about the, because we do follow the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. The flexibility we have with our instructors is they work collaboratively and together on building instructional materials to meet the standards of instruction that are required

118by the state of Massachusetts. When you have questions about those instructional materials, seek them out. Go to the source. And if you're dissatisfied with that, go to the building principal. They welcome that. Thank you. That's very helpful. Name and address and relation to the district. Hi, I'm. Hi, I'm Rhiannon Manser. I live on Center Depot and I am a senior this year. Hello. Please keep in mind, I am speaking on my own accord and my beliefs are mine alone. I am a student like many of your children. No, I do not think you're racist. You are all passionate and I truly respect your opinions, beliefs, and truisms. I don't think you're bad people. I do not think your children are bad people. But I do hope to highlight some of my time in high school

119in a critical way about both students and teachers. In my first year, my trans friend was pushed out of school, not only by the students but by the teachers as well, calling them countless slurs and refused to make the accommodations necessary for them to keep living in this school. Special shout out to the teacher who called their Latino students Dora and Diego. I watched my friends lose their way and lost interest and passion every year in school because teachers have not allowed them any consideration for their disabilities, even when they are state mandated. I have been called a fag and a dyke. I have been called a whore. Some of your students last week cat-called me and my friends in the street, and when we ignored them, they sent upon a flurry of aggressive taunts

120to us after they realized they just cat-called the girl they'd been calling a fairy for three years before speeding away in their car. I have heard every slur and every threat on earth said within the halls of this district by high school students who some never even knew the damage of said slurs. I know you don't teach critical theory because I have been told multiple times I should have been put in Auschwitz with no repercussions. So in the midst of criticism, I would like to put in a vote of support for the teaching of cultural sensitivity. My question is of the effectiveness of both versions of critical learning in SEL. If the meeting is any indicator, this is not something that is pulling us together, but pulling us further into radicalism with the way we

121are doing it right now, which I don't blame any of you for, anyone here or anyone teaching, and especially not Dr. Sheldon Eakin. I don't know how to fix this. But I don't want a Charlton where my POC friends, all of them, wish they could move to a school like Webster and Worcester because they are harassed every single day by your students, your kids included, and your staff. Thank you, DCRSD, for listening to me as I have listened to you. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's so important to hear from the students. I really appreciate the courage it takes to get up at a young age too and to share your personal journey. Thank you. Yep, my name is Jim Tessier, and I'm at 215 Partridge Hill Road in Charlton, and I have two

122daughters that are currently enrolled in the school, the middle school. I guess I just want to start out by saying I have the utmost respect for the middle school. I thank Principal Packard and your staff, just top notch. All right, I want to make that clear. And I've never really had anything I was upset with until last summer was the first time. when I received an email from Mr. LaMarche trying to tell me how I should be talking to my children about racism and injustice in America based on the injustice that George Floyd had based on race. And bottom line, although I'm not at all going to try to say that that was justified killing, that was awful, that was terrible, but frankly, I'm not, I don't believe it was strictly because it was race.

123I don't think you should be making that assumption as fact, and you should be sticking to school. I really don't need you to tell me how to bring up my children. So I guess that's the first thing. And then honestly, the only other time I've been a little bothered is when all this came up. So as soon as I first heard about this, the first thing I did was I start going onto Twitter and looking at what Sheldon Aiken is all about. And all I keep hearing here is we're not teaching critical race theory. We're not teaching critical race theory. Well then, what the heck did you pay for and what is he trying to tell your teachers to teach my children? The first three slides that I found by him was that said something

124along the lines of, if you're still grading your children, you're doing so with privilege. It said that, so what the heck's that mean? If you get a 40 on a test, you get a 40, period, right? So what does that mean? I'd love to know that. It also talked about, you know, that we need to be hiring teachers based on equity. Again. I want the best teacher who had the best grades and has the best resume to teach for my school, period. All right? So the bottom line is, is we paid $5,000 for his work. You can't tell me that he doesn't have copies of the slides or something that you share with us. You keep telling us what he's not teaching, but... We need to know what he is teaching the teachers. I mean

125come on now. Don't tell me he doesn't have something that can be shared. So I guess bottom line is I'd love to know why you think that you should be telling us your opinion about how to teach my children about race and also why can't you get some more information to share with us. It may be something that would calm us down a lot or frankly probably won't. But I think we need to know. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Just to be clear about last summer, obviously as I said in my introduction that the country was on fire, I also had parents reach out to me and say, how do I talk to my kids about this? And I only provided it as a suggestion. I did not say it's

126a requirement. I did not say you had to read it. I didn't say you had to read it to your kids. That's your decision as a parent. As a parent myself, I would make that decision myself. But I did have a call for people saying, you're the superintendent, what can you give us for resources on how we can talk to our kids? And the email was very suggestive of these are resources that you can use. Nobody mandated that anyone had to use them. Thank you. Comment heard. Thank you. So just a time check, and it is 925 for those of you that have babysitters. The meeting was scheduled to go to 930, but we did lose about 10 minutes during tech issues. So I'd like to extend to 940 if that's acceptable, additional 10 minutes.

127So in light of the number of people here and the notion that at some point we're going to have to put comments in writing, but if we can keep it to three minutes and really try to make your point, that'd be helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Moderator. My name is Kristen Martin. I live on Old Mugget Hill Road in Charlton. I'm going to look around and take a wild guess that almost everybody here is white. Oh, big surprise. Charlton is 98% white. I didn't look up Dudley, forgive me. But it seems like most of the folks are here from Charlton, like I am. 1776, we were founded on freedom, equality, liberty for white males. I'm sorry, I'm going to say it. We, but it was for white males in 1770s. I'm sorry, please be

128kind, please. I'm a mom, I've got two little kids. Some of my parents, some of my kids' friends are here and they've spoken on the other side, and that's okay. I apologize. This is, yikes. All right, so anyway, I do think good teachers should teach more than curriculum. My kids are biracial. So, you know, I'm speaking from some level of experience here, but not, you know, that many others could speak. I'm thankful that you guys are investigating this, adopting it, looking at things other than, you know, very, you know, right-ish, left-ish, whatever, propaganda. You've done the research. You've picked someone that maybe others don't like. And I think that you have made a concerted effort to take that feedback. So I know this is a wildly unpopular opinion in this forum, but I would just

129like to say thank you very, very much. As a parent of kids who are in a very, very small minority in this district, thank you for making an effort. Thank you for volunteering your time. Please don't let this anger stop it. Maybe you need to, you know, realign, reset. But I'm going to stop there and just say thank you very, very much from the bottom of my heart for all of the work that you all are doing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Kelly Zella, part of Chill Road. I didn't bring what I wanted to bring to read, so I'll just go off the cuff here and say a few things. I do have a couple of questions. We actually, my husband and I, both graduated from Shepherd Hill. We

130have four children. We withdrew them from the district last year due to COVID, and it just wasn't the right structure for us. We placed them in private school. One of them will remain in private school. The others will likely be back. So this was concerning to hear. I felt like I really missed something. See, I had been, before I left, president of the PTO, which is the Child and Parent Teacher Organization, for about seven years. I've been very heavily involved, invested a lot of time and energy in trying to bring our community together. I find it very important to do this. In doing this, we ran... different events we were in, different fundraisers, the things that would reach all people, you know, everybody in town, anybody, you know, regardless of economic status. It didn't matter.

131We wanted to include everybody. We had teachers are... They do a great job in Dudley Charlton. We hire some really great teachers. They deserve our respect. They also deserve to be held accountable for what's going on in their classroom. A good teacher will not fear accountability. So I appreciate the job that everybody does do. I know it's hard to get up there. It's not easy to put your time and energy into something when people aren't going to appreciate you. But respect and accountability in our district will go a long way. So I guess after all this time and effort in putting the children first, which we've been doing for years, at least that's the impression that I got, that was the feel that I've got, that I feel like the vibe may have changed. unfortunately

132COVID may have assisted that and I wouldn't have wanted to be in your positions making those decisions so I know that you truly put the hearts and the education of the children I understand a lot of the issues that our district has and that we've had over the years and some of the things that need certain will need assistance and things so I again off the cuff sorry I know this struggles. We struggle in Dudley Charlton. People struggle everywhere. But things are changing, and I would hate for the educational shift to be into a political agenda. I feel like the government is already involved in our lives and is taking a really big hold of everyone's lives, really gotten us... Fired up things are changing and they're they're changing fast. I just hope that Dudley

133Charlene can slow down Put the child first again where they belong make the decisions on behalf of the children I would appreciate it if you would continue to get the teachers input on things so since I last saw you I Did a little researching I guess wanted to find out what's been going on and I'm under the impression that there's been a reading program approved. So I'm also kind of under the impression that maybe the right people weren't really involved in some of these decision makings. So I guess, Dr. Ackerman, if you're here now and you're here to do for curriculum changes, although you say there's no changes in place, we're not going to be teaching critical race theory, I would like to know what your goals are for the next few years. And I'd

134also like to know how you plan to incorporate our teachers' opinions into some of these decisions, what the policy is in place for curriculum changes, and what that looks like going forward in our district. Thank you. So the question about curriculum priorities for the district and changes for the future. So thank you for those questions. Going forward, I'm absolutely going to be working with people at all layers of our organization, teachers, administrators. parents, as we move forward with new initiatives. This has been the most unprecedented year, so things have been a little bit different. We have some work to do in terms of establishing some more codified, formalized processes, but with the return to what we hope will be fully in-person learning next year and a more regular routine that we can earnestly begin more

135traditional work along those lines. To answer your questions about what curriculum is on the horizon, right now it's CKL, it's literacy at the early grades, and I apologize, your comment was maybe not the right people were on there, but there were plenty of people involved in that process, number one. But the next one would be middle school mathematics is what we're looking at at this point in time. There is no other curriculum change or grade span or widespread curriculum adjustments moving forward. Thank you very much. All right, name and address, please. Madam, I already thank you. My yeah, my name is Steve Corona 17 old Worcester Road Charlton I'm speaking as a parent and a taxpayer certainly not any voice from the Charlton Board of Selectmen but um, I guess We've learned tonight about okay.

136It's not critical race theory. I Believe you I also I actually want to commend your group the school committee for what the job you did last year You guys have been taking some heavy bullets through I'd like to commend the school committee for the job they did last year. There was just no correct decision that they could make. And they did. So they've been taking some heavy bullets. Let's give them a little round of applause here. It was a tough year. I was a little bit surprised. I was hoping this year, and now I believe it probably will be, but I was hoping this year would be... Not for the upperclassmen because you're not going to change their hearts and minds, but the little guys, that they would be able to get back to school

137with masks off, smiling in each other's faces, playing, doing things that second and third graders should be doing. And to my dismay, when I saw all this critical race theory thing and all this other stuff come up, it caught my attention because I'm like, that's what you guys were thinking about? But now I'm kind of like backing down off that a little bit, and I hope all that we've learned tonight is true. But I would like to back up as far as the equity committee and the formation of that. I've read that Oxford has a very robust equity committee. That involves, well, we have two different school districts, but two different towns, but involves a town administrator, one selectman, police chief, a truant officer, and there's probably like 13, 14, and like five parents on

138that. So my question is, did we, when we formed the equity committee, I assume it's mandated by DESC. Is it mandated by DESC? I have two questions. And then the second question would be, there was an audit, an equity audit, that was required to be done prior to that. And I had heard and I had read that this district did not do that audit, the equity audit. And my question is, if you don't do the audit, how do you know the urgency, sense the urgency? And then, well, I've got like four questions off of that, but I'll. Thank you. So we are over three minutes, just so you know. So, okay. So when the equity committee was formed was one question and the other was an equity audit. Yep. Just to be clear, you're leading

139us into next steps, which will be the last thing that we do talk about this evening. But I do want to talk about, yeah, districts have spent across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have spent in 30, 40, $50,000 on equity audits. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do an equity audit. But again, the urgency of the equity was not only based off of our strategic plan for the district. And DESE doesn't require an equity committee. They require equity work. And it usually transfers or translates to an equity committee to work on the equity work. But again, I want to bring you back to last summer. The country was on fire. There were impassionate parents like you that came to us last summer and said, what are you going to do? And so

140we're listening to you, we listen to them. So we're gonna give you next steps at the end of this presentation so you have an understanding of where we're going. But yeah, Oxford's a great example as one single town community. But right now there's no recommendation to do an equity audit of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District and spend $30,000 to $50,000 on it. Thank you. So we have time probably for one more comment. But without... Without an audit, how do you know where to start from? And then more importantly, how do you know in two years whether or not it's been effective? You've got no baseline to start from. And if it's $30,000, $50,000, I would suggest pumping the brakes, backing up. The reason we're all here is a little bit of transparency as well. No

141one, if I go on your website, I see the equity mission statement. That's all I see. I see no meetings. I see, I don't know, no one knows what's going on. And this is the result of that, and that's just fine. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. Okay, thanks. I think we have time for one more, and then we're going to go to next step. So, sir, this gentleman has been waiting. Thank you very much. Okay, so for the four people in line, we're going to take all four individuals, okay? So if everyone's all right with that, please stay seated. If you have to go to your babysitter, you can, you know, quietly proceed. Name and address, please. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Honorator. My name is Philip Gillette. I am a resident of Dudley. I

142live on Airport Road. Sorry. My name is Philip Gillette. I live in Dudley on Airport Road. I also like the MADA moderator and the parent of students who are no longer in the system. They've grown out. And yet I'm here. The idea of transparency that was mentioned by the gentleman before me I think is going to go a long way. I'll take you at your word and say CRT is not part of the curriculum, but the concern of the people here is a valid concern because equity is a term that is a key term in CRT. And also from the question and answers earlier this evening, it said that the MTA is under the umbrella of the NEA. And my understanding is that the NEA has come out and said that they are pushing CRT

143in all 50 states and 14,000 school districts. So if MTA is under NEA, how long is it going to be before it's pushed here? Thank you for the other folks who have done more research on Dr. Akins. I also had just found some things. He, we know. Do some more searching for him. I think we're gonna find things that cause us concern. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Name and address? All right. Hello. My name is Ashley Carley. I live at 23 Camelot Circle in Dudley, and I have three children, two that just left kindergarten, they're twins, and a third grader that's going to fourth grade. I'll just start off. I wasn't going to speak tonight. I didn't want to speak tonight. My husband's... very embarrassed I'm speaking tonight. I am super passionate about it.

144I feel like communication is key and sometimes people probably don't have bad intentions or don't go into something thinking it's the worst outcome, but then when you kind of dig into it, you're like, oh crap, we made a mistake. Like we should have backtracked and that's okay. Like that is completely okay. I think if transparency is what we're talking about and I feel like if you just kind of said, hey, Yeah, I mean, we didn't know. We don't want white people being told that they are oppressors and people of color being told they're being oppressed. But that is what critical race theory is. And the more and more I think that you deny that it's happening, the more upset we get. So this is my question for you. I took this from Sheldon Eakin's Instagram,

145and I'm going to show it to you. Over on the left hand side, it shows June and it shows that you guys had a training on the 21st. It says right there, Dudley, it actually says Carlton School District. It also says on the right hand side, and I will show this to you and then I would like an answer. Every time I get to share my experiences and passion for equity to educators, I'm reminded of my own journey. I'm looking forward to my upcoming opportunities to impact the lives of school stakeholders on a global scale. Let's do this. Arms in the air. Amen. Hashtag critical race theory. Okay, so I just... Okay, no, I just wanted to know, maybe you didn't know that this was going to happen. And I don't think that you really,

146I honestly don't. I don't think inherently people are bad, but we kind of found out, ooh, something's not right here. So just coming in clean and just saying, oh, my God, I'm sorry. Look at this community. They're all here. We're all here. We just want the support. I mean, how many people show up to a school committee on a daily basis, on a yearly basis? Never. I'm just saying, like, speaking, that this is what we should be saying. celebrating just come clean move on and just love love this this this town this community that's it so I just just to summarize you know that is why we're all here tonight is to provide an opportunity for clarification for people to hear from the school district and to get clarification on things as well and hopefully

147this dialogue continues name and address and relation Hi, my name is Joellen Burlingame. I live at 155 Saundersdale Road in Charlton. I do have one student who attends the Dudley Charlton schools. I also have experience in a different school community. I am a teacher in Worcester. I was in a culturally responsive professional development training about 10 years ago when I first was presented with the idea that colorblindness is not the absence of racism. Colorblindness doesn't mean that you don't see or acknowledge color. It effectually means that you don't see or acknowledge racism. The choice to be colorblind is usually a reflection of privilege. If your personal culture is the same as mainstream US culture, then trying to find prejudice or racism is like a fish trying to see the water. Although native, natural, and invisible

148to you, the water that you can't see or feel does exist, and it is not comfortable for everyone there. Well-meaning colorblindness would be better replaced with cultural competency and awareness and respect for differences in culture. Different cultures vary in expectations of nonverbal communication, personal space, touch, greetings and gestures, conversational volume. timing of verbal responses, concepts of time, learning styles, and formality. For a teacher to understand, respect, and value strengths of all of their students, they need to be culturally competent. Cultural competency and equity training would benefit all staff members because it would give them the knowledge, strategies, and tools to reach all students across their many varied cultural identities. I support the district in this initiative. Thank you. Thank you. And you get the last word, so name it. My name is Jerry Frank, and

149I live at 13 Causeway Road in Dudley. I have one daughter who went through the school system here. She's long graduated. But anyways, I just, I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, so I didn't have any notes here. But I just want to say that when she was in, you know, in the early grades, I'm not sure if it was part of the curriculum or not, but she was, you know, they took her to the Black Tavern. They told her, you know, on Memorial Day to put flags up in the cemetery. She had a lot of civic lessons that I'm not sure were part of the, the curriculum or not. So when I hear tonight that people are asking that the school teach kids critical thinking as opposed to what to think, something came to mind

150to me and this came to me last week again when I was talking about this issue with people but um I know that one of my civic duties that school is supposed to teach us is to go out and vote and get involved in town politics. And I know that every year in this room, I vote for the school budget, but also the cemetery commission budget. I vote at elections for our cemetery commissioners. And I do this without having been taught to respect. The people who have died in Dudley and are buried in Dudley, for example, you know, 200 years ago maybe, whether nobody knows them or not. However, one thing that's... I feel that even though I'm not a racist person towards Native Americans, I feel that the fact that I've done this without

151any consideration for the Native American burial sites in Dudley, I voted for the budget for our cemeteries and stuff, and this is something that in Dudley we're not taught, but we've built our landfill over a Native American cemetery grounds. The remaining... the only remnants of that that are left is a little hill behind our dog pound, which has a couple of trees on it. There's no markings or anything. Now, I don't think I'm racist towards Native Americans, but I'd like to say that I think that when I vote for the budget and not speak up for this action, that this is a racist action on my part. And I think... This is kind of goes along with you know the teaching and the role of the school department to teach things from a different point

152So that we can all do our civic duty properly. Thank you very much. Thank you That's a nice note to end on in terms of civic duty. And as town moderator, I encourage everyone to please go to your town meetings, participate in local government. It's very important to come. And I'm so glad you were here tonight. We have run for office should you feel so inspired. We do have a couple of closing statements from the school. and I think it's very important. What I'd like to first of all say is that I have appreciated the effort to maintain some decorum and respect for one another and I would appreciate if we could conclude the meeting with that same spirit. So if you could hang in there for a few more minutes and please be respectful,

153thank you. I would like to recognize and thank Charlton Town moderator Noreen Smith for the wonderful job she did this evening. Madam Chair, we're going to, respectfully, can we go into item G, next steps? Okay. So what I would like to do before we, I turn it over to Dr. Ackerman to talk about next steps, is I'd like to try to bring some conclusion. You know, I really look forward to working with you to ensure, because of my words this evening, to ensure that we are not teaching critical race theory in our schools. I look forward to working with you on that. And again, I can't reiterate enough that if you have questions about the instructional materials that are being used to support the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks that your students are getting from their teachers,

154talk to the teachers. And if you're dissatisfied with that, talk to the building principal. But I look forward to working with you to ensure that we are not implementing critical race theory because we're not. It's not part of our plan. It's not part of our curriculum. We haven't made any curriculum changes. We're investing in early literacy. And as I mentioned earlier, the next phase for us is to look at mathematics at the middle school level. That's what we're investing in. One of the critical things that was mentioned tonight, which is really, I agree wholeheartedly, social-emotional learning was a priority all school year, and I look forward to being able to present that. To you as a community in the work we did around that But again, I appreciate your time this evening I appreciate the

155this is the it was it's not an easy topic for anyone but I appreciate you bringing it forward and talking to us about it and giving us an opportunity to again for me to provide some Context to it and for dr. Ackerman to try to provide some context to it But we heard you we heard you so now I'm going to turn it over to dr. Ackerman to talk about next steps I want to, thank you, Mr. LaMarche. I want to reiterate, I want to thank everybody who took the time in this process to ask questions, to offer feedback, to be public. It's all really excellent information upon which to consider next steps. We're really appreciative for the open dialogue that we have. We really welcome it, and we thank you for all of the

156feedback, and I truly mean that. With regard to our next steps, so I'm going to start by saying we collectively remain committed to equity for all students regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or homeless status. As specified by the district strategic plan, an equity committee was formed and professional development around equity was provided to the DCRSD staff. As many of the DSP's goals have been satisfied, the current formal DCRSD equity committee will pause all activities. A relaunch... A relaunch of a DCRSD Equity Committee will take place in the future with more specific processes and procedures regarding formulation and directions of an Equity Committee. This will be presented to the school committee and the DCRSD community prior to said relaunch. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you this evening

157for all your feedback. I mean, we learned a lot from you. And we always, always work for your kids. Always remember, your kids come first with us. Everything we do on this committee is for your kids. Okay, we are going to go to our... Next meeting dates, if you want to hear the dates of the different committees and school committee meeting. That's what we're going to do now. School committee meeting, July 14th, 2021. And that'll be held at the Charlton Middle School. and it will be at 7 p.m. Budget and Finance Committee, that's the subcommittee, and that will be to be determined. Policy Review Subcommittee, Friday, July 16th, and that's 10 a.m., and where is that going to be held? It's not on the agenda. Oh, that's going to be Zoomed. Curriculum Subcommittee for Teaching

158and Learning to be determined. Capital Outlay Safety Committee, Friday, July 16th, 11 a.m. Is that zooming too? Okay. Future Agenda Items, Updates Specialized Program, that will take place in July. Dudley Child and Regional School District Strategic Plan. Progress report, that will be in August. Superintendent's evaluation, July slash August. School committee summer workshop, July slash August. Approval of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District student handbooks, August. Okay, the date of the curriculum subcommittee for teaching and learning is July 26th, and that's 9 a.m. And now I'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn. All in favor? We're adjourned.