After over five hours of questions, public comments and tearful testimonies from Southlake Carroll students and alumni, the CISD board of trustees voted to receive the Cultural Competence Action Plan and authorize the administration to hold a series of workshops on it.
The Cultural Competence Action Plan is the byproduct of the District Diversity Council, a 63-member CISD committee that formed in December 2018 to address ongoing issues of racism and prejudice in the district. According to the board agenda, the five-year action plan proposed several solutions such as requiring diversity training for teachers and staff, establishing a discrimination reporting process and designating mentors to implement inclusion practices on campuses.
The plan was met with mixed reception from members of the community. During the public comments portion of the meeting, 66 speakers voiced their support of the plan while 30 speakers spoke against it. Alumna Avery Mason says adopting the plan is necessary because most, if not all minority students, have a story to tell.
“Mine dates back to 2005 when I was a fifth grader at Eubanks,” Avery testifies. “I was in science class and was excited that I got to wear goggles that day when my classmates told me I had to take them off because they weren't made for Asian eyes.”
Some parents like Elisa O’Callaghan, meanwhile, have witnessed their own children suffer from prejudice.
“As a parent, the pain of your child is worst than the pain of your own,” Elisa expresses while crying. “My child was one of 300-plus children that were discriminated against. In kindergarten, my little girl was pushed, shoved, told she was dirty. This is not a safe place, and it harms a child emotionally and physically.”
Some residents argued that it is the parent’s job to instill wholesome values in their children at home — not the teacher's at school.
“How is this stuff even remotely appropriate for public education and not the job of the parents?” resident Adam Butcher asks. “Who gets to decide who has what bias, what to do about that bias, who’s advantaged, who’s oppressed and how all of this is taught to our children?”
While resident Chelsea Salomone says the plan is well-intentioned, she says the resources set aside for some of the plan’s action items could be utilized to support teachers at other capacities.
“TEA’s list of demands placed upon teachers is only growing longer each year,” Chelsea says. “Teachers do not need to add another thing on their plates — especially during this time.”
After the public comments portion of the meeting concluded after 7 p.m., the District Diversity Council presented the draft plan to the board of trustees, recommending that they receive the plan and authorize implementation under the oversight of the council and the 2021 Strategic Planning Committee.
Janet McDade, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services, stated that individual action items would have to be brought back to the board for approval due to policy and procurement laws. Despite this, many trustees were hesitant to fully authorize and implement the plan, saying that it needed more conversations and community feedback before it could be finalized.
“I just don’t know that it's ready for implementation,” Board Vice President Todd Carlton says. “There’s so much that I just don’t understand as a trustee, and anything that I’m going to turn over for implementation, I feel like I really want to understand to know. It’s something we absolutely have to get right, and I don’t feel like... it’s ready to go to the administration.”
The board of trustees voted 5-2 to receive the action plan and hold a series of workshops, with trustees Eric Lannen and Matt Bryant voting against the motion. While he wished the board authorized the plan as recommended, District Diversity Council co-chair Eric Ransom says he’s grateful that there was so much outpouring support for the plan and looks forward to working with the board of trustees on future amendments to it.
“The reason we don’t get anywhere in this world is because we hold grudges against one another when we should be working together regardless if we’re on opposite sides,” Eric says. “Change can put fear in us when we don’t know what the change is. It’s our responsibility to educate people and find ways to move forward and work together."
Eric says he hopes to schedule at least one board workshop by the end of the year. To stay up to date on the District Diversity Council and the Cultural Competence Action Plan, visit SouthlakeCarroll.edu.