School District Cancels Workshop on Racial Equity after Residents Complain

Written by Lanning Taliaferro

A possible workshop on racial equity drew fire from three Bedford school district residents at a recent Bedford Board of Education meeting.

They were complaining about a planned workshop that was to have been held on Nov. 3 -4, run by Educational Equity Consultants.

At the meeting, Bedford Hills parent Sal Di Carlo quoted extensively from the EEC website, calling a EEC a “race agitating consulting group.”

“An entire webpage on their site describes white privilege,” he said. “White privilege’ is not a topic, ‘white privilege’ is hate speech.”

He asked the trustees why the superintendent was allowed to “spray-paint the political term ‘social justice’ all over this school district?”

Pound Ridge resident Joe Malichio also complained. ”I feel that our superintendent sees way too many things through the prism of race,” he said. He quoted tweets from Hochman about racism after the summer incident in Furguson, MO, and said school trustees needed to look into the superintendent’s motives.

Malichio asked what were the reasons for planning the workshop. “We’re already a diverse community,” he said, taking a guess that the real motive was the illegal immigrant demographic in the district.

People don’t care about race in the Bedford schools, they care about illegal immigrants, he said. But most people won’t talk about it for fear of being branded racist by the superintendent.

“We actually do have an equity problem,” he said. “We should look at things that we’re doing for one demographic in the district that goes beyond what we’re mandated to do.”

He cited the pre-kindergarten program, the parent-child center at Bedford Hills Elementary School, per-pupil spending for English language learners compared to spending on special-education, the free and reduced price lunch program, the dual-language program at Mount Kisco Elementary School.

“Those are the types of things that upset people,” he said. ”It has nothing to do with racism....we embrace diversity, we live here for a reason...the school board has to take control, once and for all.”

Martha Henning drove to the meeting after watching the beginning on TV. She said academic skill acquisition and mastery is where the district should be focusing. “I’m very fearful that diverting energy and resources into social action is not the right path.”

The workshop will not take place. Bedford Central Schools Superintendent Jere Hochman told reporter Tom Auchterlonie of the Daily Voice that he realized there were too many questions to be answered.

The EEC website says this about white privilege:

The unquestioned, unlearned and most often unconscious, advantages, entitlements, benefits, choices, assumptions and expectations bestowed on white people based solely on membership in the culturally dominant, white group.

The term ‘white privilege’ was created by Wellesley College professor 25 years ago, according to a recent article in The New Yorker.

PHOTO: screenshot from Bedford school board meeting