Multiculturalism Initiatives At Scarsdale Schools Are Important

Comments were delivered during public comment at the Board of Education, June 1, 2020

In the first couple of Zoom Board meetings, I shared you with my analysis and forecast for the national and NY State economy. Unfortunately, I still not even the beginning of a recovery next year. I also stated that I was and am very concerned about Scarsdale residents’ ability to absorb tax increases. I very much appreciate Messrs. Mattey’s and Martin’s analysis of key stress factors such as very low interest rates, declining sales tax revenue, and the low probability of more state aid. In my professional experience, your stress analysis was sound and detailed. Your process helped me come to support this budget and to vote yes on it. I encourage my fellow residents to please review the incredible amount of material on the website, and if nothing else, please look at the very good tables and graphs in the District’s publication Insight.

For the next budget process, I would encourage the administration and board to detail to the community what the learning objectives are for your established multicultural, diversity, and inclusion initiatives which you have from K-12 and what funding is being allocated to meet those objectives.

Today the Dean of the Wharton School wrote an email to alumni stating “Words cannot express how profoundly saddened I am that African-Americans, and people from other racial, ethnic, and religious groups, are systematically marginalized and routinely subjected to racism, all the more so when this threatens their lives and their livelihoods.”

And you Dr Hagerman, in your holiday greeting letter wrote “We recognize that embracing inclusivity and the diversity within Scarsdale takes a concerted effort. It requires awareness of our similarities and differences, specific and accurate knowledge of others’ values and beliefs, along with the skills to individually negotiate various types of multicultural relationships. There are certainly structural changes that can support that work, and we are committed to doing that. It is important as an institution that we consistently state and model our beliefs.”

I encourage you to let us know what guidance and curricular development you will have for our students to understand, what is a riot? What are the historical, economic, psychological, racial, climate change, or religious causes of riots? How have riots unfolded in Russia and South Africa, as opposed to here in the US? Are the people who participate in riots thugs? Or are the ‘riots the language of the unheard’ as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said in 1968? What should be Scarsdale school’s role in producing future leaders who will be looking for solutions to racism and marginalization, long after we are gone? Good night and be well.

Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez