LOWELL — Lowell Public Schools have been working on a plan to unify and strengthen culturally and linguistically sustaining practices (CLSP) within the district, but some of the components may be a tough hurdle for some school officials.
Committee member Mike Dillon blasted the efforts as “Marxist” and not having enough “diversity of thought or politics.”
Chief Equity & Engagement Officer Latifah Phillips presented the plans to the School Committee Wednesday night, which include a proposal to hire a CLSP coordinator at an estimated $100,000 salary in the next school year to support the initiatives.
In outlining the three-step process of building a CLSP continuum, Phillips said it starts with understanding one’s own culture, lens of viewing of world and personal biases. Next comes trust and relationship building, followed by developing cultural proficiency and practices that empower students, she said.
Phillips said goals include finding an understanding of the power dynamics of language and teaching students in a culturally validating and affirming way.
“We make decisions based on our culture, our way of being. Now we have to reflect on, is this the best way of building relationships with our students,” Phillips said. “We have to think about the curriculum resources we’re choosing, the instructional methods that we’re using and are they getting the best out of all of our students.”
She said some of these practices already exist separately in such pockets as social-emotional learning, universal design for learning and critical consciousness and social justice initiatives, but greater work is needed.
Of more than 2,600 staff members in the district, over 2,000 identify as white, compared to the school population, which consists of 75% students of color and 24% of students are English language learners.
Prior to the pandemic and remote learning, Phillips said administrators reviewed discipline and suspension data and found 50% of suspensions were among Hispanic students — a disproportionality that requires further investigation.
“We really need to look to our families and understand how they and their children are experiencing our system, and what are some ways we can improve on student outcomes by listening to their experience,” she said.
As a former teacher, committee member Andre Descoteaux said he’s spent enough time “in the trenches” to know suspensions aren’t handed out “willy-nilly” and administrators need to be able to discipline students when it’s warranted regardless of the student’s background.
During a discussion on the 2021-2022 budget — which will be discussed at a public hearing Monday — before the presentation, Dillon had asked whether the CLSP coordinator position was necessary.
“This is blatant Marxist ideology that we’re trying to put into our curriculum,” he said after the presentation. “There’s no two ways about it, and I think we need to have long talks about it.”
Dillon said the district is trying to push “dangerous” political ideology and ideas of oppression onto students and “focusing too much on the color of our skin and not enough on diversity of thought.”
Superintendent Joel Boyd said the “era of colorblindness” only exacerbated gaps among different groups, and the district can’t shy away from difficult conversations about race.
“Shy away from? It’s all we talk about,” Dillon said.
He said “nobody” from the team working on CLSP is from the city or knows its dynamics, and suggested people would be “furious that we are pushing curriculum in that is this radically, politically motivated.”
Committee member Hilary Clark, who is part of the CLSP planning team, said she thinks the work is “critically important” to the district and residents. She said understanding oneself is key to building relationships with one another to create a space where everyone can learn and grow.
“I see this work as something that lifts all of us up,” Clark said, noting she approves of “the idea of ongoing support and training and bringing people in and addressing some of the inequities that exist.”
Committee member Jackie Doherty said she supports the efforts but needs more information about the coordinator role before she can support funding it.
The committee sent the matter to the Equity Subcommittee for further discussion.
