Croton-Harmon school district, in anticipation of greater than usual attendance at a meeting considering new DEI policies, moves it to a larger space at the high school.
Tomorrow afternoon's meeting of the Board of Education's Policy Committee will be moved from the district offices to the Croton-Harmon High School Community Room
Note: This post is free to all readers.
As some readers will know, the Croton-Harmon school district has been soliciting email comments on a proposed new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) policy. The deadline for comments closed on March 21, and the Board of Education’s Policy Committee will be taking up the matter at its meeting tomorrow, March 26, at 4 pm.
The meeting, which apparently was not publicly announced but made known only to those who asked to be kept informed about it, was originally to take place at the district offices at 10 Gerstein Street in Croton. The participants will include the three members of the Board who sit on the policy committee—Neal Haber, Joshua Diamond, and Theo Oshiro—along with schools superintendent Stephen Walker and others from the district.
However, the meeting room at the district has less than a dozen seats reserved for the public. After a query from the Chronicle about whether this small number of seats for a topic of great public interest was consistent with New York’s open meetings law, Board vice-president Neal Haber told us that the meeting will be moved to the high school. Haber wrote:
“We have not received any information, other than your email of this morning, that a substantial number of members of the public may desire to attend tomorrow's meeting of the Policy Committee. However, in light of your email message and the possibility that more members of the public will desire to observe the Policy Committee meeting than can comfortably be accommodated in the District Office Board Room, arrangements have been made to relocate the Policy Committee meeting to the Croton-Harmon High School Community Room. Notice of the relocation of the place of this meeting will be sent out--probably later today.”
It does not seem surprising that the district had not received any information that a lot of people might show up, because it has apparently minimized public notice of the meeting. Obviously DEI policies are a political hot potato in Croton and pretty much everywhere else in the United States. For that reason alone, the widest possible discussion should take place to avoid rumors, misconceptions, and other errors of perception about what the Board wants to do.
Yet a careful read of the proposed new DEI policy (Policy 0105) leaves, to us at least, the impression that it is quite vague and open to a lot interpretation. Indeed, we have seen some public comments that anticipate actions on the part of the school district in pursuit of the policy that may or may not be what they have in mind.
We can hope that the Policy Committee in its discussion tomorrow, and the full Board of Education as it continues to consider Policy 0105, will be more specific about what real, on the ground actions might result if the policy is adopted.
We will continue to update this story as necessary.
Thank you for sharing this update. Everything seems to be done in secret or done low key, with little information given at any particular meeting. Annoying but it’s worth the dig, or rather deep dive, to find out what is exactly going on here.
I registered for community information on the CHUFSD.org website, and received notice about the policy committee last Friday. It’s easy to do, and you don’t need to have children in the schools.