By Cynthia Cumming
Special Correspondent
WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange School District is moving forward in its commitment to diversity, equity and access. The district’s current demographic is: 36 percent black, 5 percent Asian, 33 percent Hispanic, 7 percent multiracial and 19 percent white.
The demographic estimates for West Orange as of July 2019 are: 42 percent white, 28 percent black, 0.01 percent American Indian and Alaska native, 7.5 percent Asian, 4.5 percent two or more races, and 19.9 percent Hispanic or Latino.
Two district goals for 2021 are: “to engage in auditing our school culture and curriculum for equity, diversity and inclusion in order to provide an equitable school community which respects and values diversity by partnering with an outside organization which addresses racial equity through an inclusion lens and provide a needs assessment to create cultural sustainability within our district” and “to analyze data regarding the schools where there is a significant disproportionality in regard to diversity between the percentages of students compared to the percentages of staff; (and) to implement a recruitment action plan, monitor the number of diverse candidates hired for the 2020-2021 school year and compare on an annual basis with the goal of closing disparities.”
This may be a daunting task but the establishment of the Diversity, Equity and Access Committee in 2019 has begun to lay the groundwork for strengthening the way West Orange schools address these issues.
First, what exactly do these words mean? The University of California, Berkeley Center for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity and the University of Houston’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion helped with these definitions:
Diversity includes but is not limited to race, color, ethnicity, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, veteran status, education, marital status, language, age, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical ability, genetic information, and learning styles.
In the past, diversity was primarily equated to racial and ethnic minorities. With its broadened definition, diversity now becomes an even more important consideration when addressing a person’s identity.
Equity is the guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all while striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is needed to assist equality in the provision of effective opportunities to all groups.
Inclusion is authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities and decision/policy making in a way that shares power and ensures equal access to opportunities and resources.
Access is the commitment to foster attitudes, behaviors and procedures to facilitate access that promotes equity and diversity, fosters inclusion and allows people to maximize their contribution to our association and communities that our members serve.
Access is a broader stroke of inclusion because it is more than just “inviting everyone to the table.” It is working to address people’s attitudes, behaviors and ways of doing things of which they may not even be aware.
The mission statement of the West Orange Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee is: “to through its effort validate and celebrate the school district’s diversity in all its forms. As importantly through feedback sharing, critical and civil discourse, data collection and analysis identify focal points for improvement, further study, and/or information sharing relating to equity and access. The work and findings of the committee therefore help to inform Board of Education priorities and organizational goal setting.”
The team is chaired by Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Eveny de Mendez and consists of more than 30 members representing district administrators, faculty and volunteer community members.
Current members include Superintendent of Schools J. Scott Cascone, Executive Director of Personnel and Special Projects Joseph Vespignani, District Director of School Counseling Cheryl Butler, Roosevelt Middle School Principal Lionel Hush, Redwood and Washington Elementary Assistant Principal Kimya S. Jackson, social studies supervisor Michael Figuereido, and Roosevelt Middle School science teacher Hillary Rubenstein.
The team is subdivided into the following subcommittees: Hiring Procedures and Practices, Curriculum and Instructional Materials, Diversity and Cultural Competency, and Affirmative Action and Equity Planning.
There has been diversity training held during the past several years in the WOSD as a result of the New Jersey Amistad Law, which requires New Jersey schools to incorporate African-American history into their social studies curriculum. This legislation also created the Amistad Commission, a 23-member body charged with ensuring that African-American history, contributions and experiences are adequately taught in the state’s classrooms. However, this is only the beginning of what is needed to address diversity, equity and access issues. This has been underscored by the Black Lives Matter movement and protests following the deaths of black people attributed to police, such as Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Rayshard Brooks, Walter Wallace Jr., Jonathan Price and Elijah McClain, to name a few.
Beginning in the fall of 2020, professional development seminars began for staff and administration, researched and orchestrated by the committee following survey responses from staff on topics they felt were important.
Here are the professional development topics currently approved and underway: Garden State Equality cultural competency for faculty and students; American history through a different lens; equity leadership group on implicit bias; NJ Bar training on talking about race; LGBTQIA+ mandate training; New Jersey Education Association conversations on race; opportunity gaps in science – data analysis and inclusivity; opt-in diversity book clubs and a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Culture Committee.
In 2019, New Jersey State Legislature passed S1569, requiring that the boards of education for middle and high schools ensure that instructional materials, such as textbooks, include accurate portrayals of the contributions made by LGBTQIA+ people and those with disabilities beginning in the 2020-2021 school. The district has been in partnership with Garden State Equality to facilitate training of staff and students.
In October of 2020, Cascone formed the Superintendent Equity Student Advisory Council consisting of West Orange High School student advocates.
Underscoring the move toward a more balanced diversity, equity and access environment, implicit bias is a critical factor in reprogramming people’s thought processes.
The Perception Institute describes implicit bias as “thoughts and feelings are ‘implicit’ if we are unaware of them or mistaken about their nature. We have a bias when, rather than being neutral, we have a preference for — or aversion to — a person or group of people. Thus, we use the term ‘implicit bias’ to describe when we have attitudes towards people or associate stereotypes with them without our conscious knowledge. A fairly commonplace example of this is seen in studies that show that white people will frequently associate criminality with black people without even realizing they’re doing it.
“The mind sciences have found that most of our actions occur without our conscious thoughts, allowing us to function in our extraordinarily complex world,” the institute continued. “This means, however, that our implicit biases often predict how we’ll behave more accurately than our conscious values. Multiple studies have also found that those with higher implicit bias levels against black people are more likely to categorize non-weapons as weapons — such as a phone for a gun, or a comb for a knife — and in computer simulations are more likely to shoot an unarmed person. Similarly, white physicians who implicitly associated black patients with being ‘less cooperative’ were less likely to refer black patients with acute coronary symptoms for thrombolysis for specific medical care.”
To address implicit bias, the Perception Institute concludes that “social scientists are in the early stages of determining how to ‘debias.’ It is clear that media and culture makers have a role to play by ceasing to perpetuate stereotypes in news and popular culture. In the meantime, institutions and individuals can identify risk areas where our implicit biases may affect our behaviors and judgments. Instituting specific procedures of decision-making and encouraging people to be mindful of the risks of implicit bias can help us avoid acting according to biases that are contrary to our conscious values and beliefs.”
The above describes the foundation-laying efforts of the West Orange Diversity, Equity and Access Committee.
“People need to want to change,” said Jackson, the committee’s co-chairperson. “Imagine being in a situation from which you are unable to leave. Change must be brought about by internal and external factors.”
Teacher and anti-racist activist Jane Elliott performed a well-known experiment on her students in the 1960s with “Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes.” Students with brown eyes were told they were superior to students with blue eyes. Students with blue eyes had to wear armbands and brown-eyed students had the support of their teacher. It soon became apparent that discrimination was developing purely over eye color. Blue-eyed students were treated as inferior by brown-eyed students and felt discriminated against. Elliott then switched eye colors the next day. The results were the same.
In an educational setting, an important way to address implicit bias is to normalize differences, integrate students to work toward a common goal, and make sure the teacher is a mediator and not an instigator.
What can families do at home to enhance the work in the school district? Jackson recommended that families and groups of friends start book clubs so that the issues can be discussed. In September 2020, the committee held an event at Redwood School on “culturally responsive education,” opening the door for a continued series of workshops and seminars.
Another important tool is Harvard University’s “Project Implicit,” which delivers a series of implicit bias tests to determine what biases the test-taker may have.
During his confirmation hearing for attorney general on Feb. 23, Merrick Garland said, “Implicit bias just means that every human being has biases. That’s part of what it means to be a human being. And, the point of examining our implicit biases is to bring our conscious mind up to our unconscious mind and to know when we’re behaving in a stereotyped way.”
The following books are recommended by the DEA Committee: “Intersectionality,” “Cultivating Genius,” “Me and White Supremacy,” “So You Want to Talk About Race?” and “Courageous Conversations About Race.” Amazon offers a wide selection of books for children; go here to view options.
In sum, Cascone said, “It is not that the district has been indifferent to matters of diversity, equity, inclusion and access in the past. However, what has been missing, and that to which we have now pledged fealty, is a long-term commitment, inclusive and strategic effort to address inequities where they exist within the school system.”
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