Friday, March 27, 2015

EQUITY UPDATE

- As noted in the previous post, one of my requests made at the last public meeting of the Gresham-Barlow School District Board of Directors was for copies of materials presented by the Oregon Center for Educational Equity to teachers and administrators from our district.  I continue to contend that the public has a compelling interest to know what is being taught to those who are teaching our children.

I would like to thank the administration of the district for responding quickly to this request.  On Monday, March 9, two of our top administrators took time out of their many duties to spend more than an hour with me going over the materials from the Center for Educational Equity.  Both administrators, (James Hui and Janell Black) have attended the week-long seminar put on by the Center (at a cost of $1,550 per individual), and shared with me their thoughts and impressions of the materials, and...they provided me with my own copy of the syllabus given to participants at the seminar.

I should note that our teachers and administrators have funds dedicated for their continuing training and education and the seminar put on the the Center for Educational Equity (CFEE) is an option they may choose for the use of those funds.  I am not aware of any district staff being required to attend.  ALSO...two of our board members (Kris Howatt and State Rep. Carla Piluso) also attended the seminar at the expense of the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) which is funded by taxpayer dollars at the discretion of local school boards.

My conversation with Mr. Hui and Ms. Black was productive, open and frank.  While I find much of what is being taught to our educators by the Center for Educational Equity (CFEE) to be disturbing at best and repugnant at worst, I should note that I firmly believe that Mr. Hiu, Ms. Black and, indeed, all of our staff and administrators genuinely desire the very best for our students and community.  I simply disagree (strongly) that the baseless concepts being taught by CFEE to our educators are of any substantive value to our students and, rather than being the very best we can offer, are in actuality, the very worst we can offer.

I will detail some of the details of CFEE seminar materials in my next post. -

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