Outcry of ‘Indoctrination’ as School District Dips Toe into Equity Work
A group calling itself Warwick Parents for Common Sense took out an inflammatory ad in The Warwick Advertiser in March after the Warwick Valley School District announced it would adopt a “culturally responsive“ curriculum that supports inclusivity. The full page ad assailed the “Woke mob.”
On a tip, a phone call made to the supposed sponsor of the ad, Maurice Luftig, revealed the author’s real identity was Warwick resident Jason Wendell.
The ad has re-exposed the anger and division in the predominantly white town of Warwick.
The Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework the school was developed by New York State in 2018 as part of a nationwide zeitgeist that essentially seeks to turn diversity into an asset and teaching tool rather than seeing it as an obstacle.
As first steps, the Warwick Valley School District plans to survey families about school climate and form a committee, as early as June, including parents, administrators, board members and teachers and “representatives of all voices in the school community,” said Schools Superintendent Dr. David Leach.
The Warwick Parents for Common Sense ad attacked the “Black Lives Matter/Woke mob” for “labeling the citizens of this town as ‘racists’ and ‘White supremacists’” and attempting to “brainwash” students into “angry, radicalized allies of Leftism for the future, while shaming and silencing those who disagree.” It argues that the classroom should be free of political agendas and focus on “real-life skills in reading, writing and problem-solving.”
As for the true identity of the ad’s author, a call to the phone number Maurice Luftig provided as his number was answered by Jason Wendell. The father of three and New York City firefighter made a name for himself in 2016 when he stood up and read a statement denouncing “the Black Lives Matter lie” at a packed Warwick Town Hall meeting over the controversial blue line painted down Railroad Avenue. Wendell took aim at the “radicals (who) sit nice and comfortably in Warwick and make lazy, ill-informed condemnations of our police force... It’s time to confront you and shut you down. You have incited a war against our police.”
The Warwick Parents for Common Sense ad set up a similar dichotomy, pitting “Woke antagonists” against the fire department, the nuclear family and Western civilization. Wendell said he was busy when he picked up a call from this reporter in late March. By press time, numerous attempts to reach him had gone unanswered.
“I was a little surprised with the reaction,” said School Board President Sharon Davis of the backlash. Davis read aloud the 11 public comments – seven in favor of the equity work, four against, including one from Wendell – to cap off the March 4 school board meeting where the education equity work was discussed. That meeting had eight times more views than the previous school board meeting. “Because you know, if you’re student focused and you believe in meeting the needs of all students, you really shouldn’t be scared of something like the CR-S framework.”
Superintendent Leach describes the CR-S framework as one of many resources that the district’s hundreds of teachers will draw on to develop the rich curricula that Warwick is known for. Teachers are “empowered” to design and teach a curriculum, he explained, in which all students see themselves reflected. The mission is not only fulfilling state standards but also meeting children’s needs in a rapidly changing society.
The CR-S framework is written broadly, so that it can be employed to address not only issues like race-based achievement gaps, but also things like why girls still do not get through high school physics and computer science at the same rate as boys. The 64-page document calls out a “system of inequity — which routinely confers advantage and disadvantage based on linguistic background, gender, skin color, and other characteristics.”
All nine school board members are in support of the equity work, said Davis. “You have to have be living under a rock somewhere to not have experienced something that’s making you self-reflect and be more introspective,” she said. “Who is not looking at themselves differently, with everything we’ve experienced this year?”
The rift, in black and white
After the Warwick Parents for Common Sense ad ran, heated letters started coming into the paper on both sides. Most of the 18 letters intended for publication condemned the ad as a “misleading, racist rant,” a “rehash of right wing talking points” and a “provocative attempt to divide our town.” Several readers took the newspaper to task “for allowing this garbage to be published.”
Six of the letters to the editor expressed full-throated support for the ad. “There are many of us who agree,” said Marjory Fisher of Warwick. “I know of no family that wants their children to be taught such a far left ideology.”
“We will teach compassion and connection at home, let the school teach reading, writing, math etc.,” said James McGoewn of Warwick. “Thank you to the common sense parents for saying what the majority of our community sees as the attempt to infiltrate our schools with social engineering and indoctrination.”
A newcomer to Warwick, Kristin Dwyer was perplexed at the “vicious anger” expressed in the ad. “These neighbors are just furious that Black Lives Matter activists are disturbing the peaceful, idyllic image of Warwick they hold in their hearts by pointing out that racism exists, still now, even here, and suggesting we should do something about it,” she said.
“I think it runs deep,” said Greg Galluccio, of the rift that is once again being laid bare in Warwick. A Democratic candidate who is running for the all-Republican Warwick Town Board, Galluccio made a video condemning the Warwick Parents for Common Sense ad as a “horrific display of cowardice and unconcealed bigotry.”
Later the day we spoke, Galluccio attended a Warwick Town Board meeting whose agenda was another lightning rod with race at its core: a vote on the town’s plan for state-mandated police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s death. In February, Galluccio had been among a group of 50 signers of an open letter critiquing the local police reform efforts. That letter also made its public appearance as a full-page ad in this newspaper.
“I’m leaving a little shaken,” Galluccio said after the March 25 meeting where the town’s police reform plan – which he calls a “litany of platitudes” – was ratified. “I think I may have been the only Democrat in the room, and the crowd was loud and fired up about anyone who might have anything to say about Warwick law enforcement other than they are 100 percent perfect at what they do. It was disconcerting to hear some of the language being used to disparage anyone who may think differently. So you asked if there is a schism in this town, hell yes there is.”
Warwick is not unique, except perhaps in its appetite for good old letter writing. This tension has begun playing out around the country as education standards shift with the times. In Illinois, where state lawmakers voted to require culturally responsive teaching guidelines to be universal by 2025, similar objections surfaced: the new standards embed politics into teacher training, impose an ideological litmus test on educators, and prioritize social activism at a time when students are underperforming on tests.
Within the county, Warwick is looking to Valley Central School District in Montgomery, N.Y. as a forerunner. Valley Central formed a Racial & Social Equity Committee last summer, in the wake of the death of George Floyd. It was the first of a handful of districts across the region to hire facilitator Dr. Gess LeBlanc, a psychologist and Hunter College professor whom Warwick has also tapped to work with the district through June…