board to board
September - October 2021
News from the Board of NWESD
A Note From Our Superintendent During the last couple months of the 2020-21 school year, I could begin to feel a welcomed easing of the continual stressors and tensions school leaders have faced since the start of the pandemic. Students were back in school, new routines were emerging, the public health situation was improving, and many were looking towards a positive end to the school year, a well-needed summer rejuvenation, and a return to more normal school operations in the fall. Unfortunately, for many across our region those brighter days were short-lived. The emergence of organized opposition to continued mask mandates, accusations of indoctrinating students in something called Critical Race Theory (CRT), and more recently the public health setbacks resulting from the Delta variant and required staff vaccinations have combined to place school leaders in the crosshairs of a pandemic-fueled culture war they didn’t start and don’t control. Opposition to mask and vaccination mandates seem to center primarily around assertions of personal liberty and perceptions of government overreach. For district leaders, their priorities are protecting student and staff safety and being responsible stewards of the public’s resources. Whether an individual board member or superintendent believes mask and vaccination mandates are legally valid or medically necessary, when a district’s legal counsel, insurance carrier, and state regulatory agency all advise adherence to these policies, responsible school leaders can’t ignore such directions. Doing so could leave the district exposed to potential liability claims, forfeited insurance coverage, and loss of state funding. The fiduciary obligation of board members and superintendents does not allow them to take such a risk when the potential consequences of those actions may be borne by the district’s taxpayers. And let’s not forget that the purpose of masks and vaccinations is to protect students and staff from contracting and spreading a virus that has already killed 625,000 Americans and counting. Similarly, CRT has become another flash point of controversy between school leaders and some vocal community opponents. I am not a CRT expert, but I’ve learned enough over recent months to believe that labeling all district equity initiatives as CRT is misguided. From my learning, CRT is the stuff of graduate level academia unfamiliar to the vast majority of K-12 educators. In my experience, districts’ equity work is much less lofty and driven by local circumstances, particularly a district’s data about which students are persistently not experiencing success and opportunity. If a district knows that some group of students (e.g. poverty, special needs, native language, race, homeless) persistently achieve at a lower level than their peers, I believe that educators and district leaders feel a moral obligation to ask why that is and to take steps to narrow those gaps. Further, I believe the taxpaying public should expect that of their schools. That is the equity work I’m familiar with, not indoctrination of students as the oppressed or oppressors or guilty or victimized by the circumstances of their birth. I share these thoughts because I am deeply empathetic to the pressures and criticisms directed at district leaders in recent months. We have so much important work before us as we continue to emerge from the disruptions of a global pandemic that has touched the life of every student, staff member, family, and community across our region, state, nation, and world. Talking over and around each other about mask and vaccination mandates districts don’t control and a supposedly divisive racial indoctrination curriculum districts don’t teach seem like unhelpful Larry Francois sideshows to the priorities of recovery, reconnection, and NWESD Superintendent renewal we should all share. Let’s stay laser focused on the kids who need us now more than ever.