“Love” Sought In Demands For Change

Almost two weeks after her daughter had been cast as a slave in a class play, Carmen Parker stood with 100 other people to demand, among other fixes, a student to teacher pipeline and a central reporting system.

Parker is the mother of a fifth-grader at the West Woods School in Hamden. Two weeks ago, her daughter came home from school and told her that her class was going to put on a play. It was about slavery, and she had been cast as Enslaved African 2.

The story has prompted soul-searching in a town with changing racial demographics in its schools. The story has also now been reported in both national and international news publications.

Monday night, Parker and about 100 Hamden residents and Yale students showed up for a public input session at Hamden’s Legislative Council. They presented demands to the council:

• Hire more minority teachers, specifically using a pipeline program that would put minority high school students on track to become teachers in the Hamden school district.

• Create a central reporting system where residents can report problems which the town or Board of Education addresses immediately.

• Fire West Woods Principal Dan Levy.

• Pass a resolution explicitly denouncing racism in Hamden and acknowledging Parker and the work she has done to bring attention to the issue.

• Create a better system of checks and balances to hold people accountable for what they do.

• Make an explicitly anti-racist curriculum.

While a Black Lives Matter flag hung between the navy and air force flags in the rotunda of town hall, Parker held a press conference before the meeting outside on the steps of the building. She and the other people who had shown up to support her then filed into the building for the 7 p.m. meeting.

As Hamden residents and a solid row of Yale students sitting in the front of the room watched with rapt attention, Parker, standing with her husband Josh, implored the council and the audience to operate out of love.

“What does love look like from those who make mistakes, big and small?” she asked, rhetorically. ​“Love looks like accountability and willingness to drop defensiveness when we have wronged someone else.”

Earlier that day, she and her husband had met with their daughter’s teacher, who returned to her class Monday after being placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

Teacher, Family Work Together

“She looked us in the eye. She owned her mistake without excuse. She apologized for every wrongdoing without reference to whether or not it was intentional. She looked me in the eye and said, ​‘I’m sorry. I love your daughter. I will do everything in my power to make this right.’ She brainstorms ideas with my daughter of ways to make sure my child could let her know if she was still getting bullied,” Parker said.

“For the first time, I feel safe with my daughter back in that classroom because that teacher, through love, is willing to learn and grow.”

The teacher was the only person in the system who looked out for her daughter, Parker said.

Last week, her daughter came home and broke into tears because she had been bullied by other students who supposedly told her that her parents had gotten their teacher fired. After the play was introduced to students Jan. 21, the class was told the next day that it was no longer going to happen because a parent had complained. After that, the class did not receive any more explanation about the play until Jan. 30, when district administrators explained to the class why the play was wrong and what was happening with their teacher.

Next, Parker turned her question around. She asked what love looks like on the part of the victim.

“Love the teacher who made a mistake,” she said. ​“If you see her on the street don’t harass her. If you see her in the classroom, don’t harass her. Show her the beauty of minority cultures by exposing her to the most powerful thing we have to unite people against discrimination, and that is love.”

Calling The Cops

When Parker arrived at West Woods this past Thursday morning for a meeting with Superintendent Jody Goeler, she was greeted by police. Goeler later said he had requested one or two police officers because people were planning to show up outside the school, and he wanted to make sure school grounds were secure.

“To Jody Goeler and the local mother who posted on Facebook that she called the cops too, shame on you for failing to support love in front of the whole world,” Parker continued. ​“The point is that nothing beyond a single phone call to leadership should ever have been necessary as the best and only way to protect a minority child from your irresponsibility and protect our children from white supremacist indoctrination.”

Still, she said, ​“Who are we as minority mothers? We are strong, we are proud. We have withstood having our children sold as slaves from beneath us. We have had our families detained at border stations without us. We have had our sons and daughters murdered by police without due cause because they fear us, and yet I still dare you to love each other, Hamden.”

Earlier on Monday, Parker appeared on WNHH Radio’s Urban Talk Radio with host Shafiq Abdussabur to talk about her background, and about why she had decided to move to Hamden and send her daughter to public school. Parker is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale.

Hamden Action Now activist Rhonda Caldwell delivered the list of demands Monday night once Parker and another Hamden parent had spoken.

Other parents, former Hamden students, and a teacher also spoke. Hamden High School chemistry Teacher Kat Bower-Phipps told the council that teachers need the support of Hamden’s elected leaders. She said the district has focused on diversity training in its professional development in the last year, but that the trainings need to be more sustained, and need to happen in smaller groups, to be successful.

“We need to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable,” she said of the difficult conversations teachers need to have regularly. ​“Because if we’re not uncomfortable, change will not happen.”

Council President Mick McGarry said that some of the demands the council might be able to assist in. He said he likes the idea of a reporting system, and he said it might be possible to create one for the whole town, and not just for the Board of Education. A council resolution, however, might be tricky, he said. He said the council is not supposed to impinge on the business of the Board of Education.

Hamden Public Schools Human Resource Director Gary Highsmith has been working on a program that would groom Hamden high school students to become teachers. The program would work with Southern Connecticut State University to provide students a way of learning about teaching careers so that, presumably, they will return to teach in the district once they graduate from college.

About an hour and a half before the meeting, Mayor Curt Leng released a statement announcing the creation of a ​“Hamden Equity and Inclusivity Taskforce.”

Hamden is very diverse, the statement begins, but that doesn’t mean Hamden ​“is mystically shielded from the institutional and implicit bias that is a very real issue which exists across our state and across our country.”

“I have deep compassion for any resident that experiences any occurrence that is hurtful in any way,” the statement said. I am even more deeply concerned when any such issue involves children.”

“We will work, not just talk, to address issues of bias, racism, inequity, inclusivity and related challenges,” the statement read. In order to do so, the statement announced the creation of a task force that will include representation from a number of local organizations, as well as from the community.

Read the full statement below.

A Statement and Announcement from Mayor Leng:

Hamden is a diverse, inclusive community. It’s a strength of our hometown and has been for many years. It is a core reason that so many residents choose Hamden to live and raise their families, and I hear this consistently across our community. This, unfortunately, does not shield or exempt Hamden from experiencing hurtful incidents, making serious mistakes, or dealing with the consequences.

It also does not mean that Hamden is mystically shielded from the institutional and implicit bias that is a very real issue which exists across our State and across our Country.

I have deep compassion for any resident that experiences any occurrence that is hurtful of harmful in any way. I am even more deeply concerned when any such issue involves our children.

When hurtful incidents occur, communities and residents have choices. Among them, some choose to turn a blind eye and wish it goes away. Others choose to make their voices heard, and create a dialogue with elected leaders about their concerns and experiences. Some, still, will choose to seize these moments to pursue an agenda, regardless of the consequences to our communities and Town. The best amongst us will choose dialogue and action, to make horrific incidents into teachable moments, and to work to the best of our abilities to stop such things from happening in the future. This will not be last time Hamden experiences a racial or equity related incident, although it is our intention to address each and every incident with vigor and focus.

Hamden will choose this latter approach, the bold approach.

We will work, not just talk, to address issues of bias, racism, inequity, inclusivity and related challenges. We will develop a roadmap that can deliver real community dialogue, research, professional input and review; in an effort to implement programs, efforts and systemic changes that will improve our community. This will not be last time Hamden experiences a racial or equity related incident, although it is our intention to address each and every incident with vigor and focus.

The Hamden Board of Education, for numerous years, has been actively working on such efforts to improve the opportunity gap, to correct racial balance issues within many of our schools, to further diversify our educators, and more — with real results. The Town of Hamden and Board of Education have been active participants in welcoming Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) Committee, which now has an active committee in Hamden. (the first CT Town to have one). These are just some examples of the efforts that have been taken, and efforts that are being taken. There is an unquestionably strong commitment to equality from leaders throughout our government and community.

Now, we know there is much more that needs to be done. I am fully committed to this effort and know with confidence that elected and appointed leaders throughout our government share this strong position. I am particularly proud that our leaders from the Board of Education and Legislative Council are not shying away from any of these difficult issues, but are fully committed to working to improve upon them. Frankly, this is not the case in every Town.

We are going to continue to address these difficult issues with the help of experienced professionals, major community institutions and stakeholders; all committed to the goals we are striving to achieve. I am honored that the following institutions, organizations, commissions, non-profits and more have committed to being community stakeholders and partners, working to address the issues we’ve discussed and others that arise from the discussions to come.

Committed Partners:
· Quinnipiac University
· Anti-Defamation League
· Albertus Magnus College
· Greater New Haven NAACP
· Hamden Human Rights & Relations Commission
· Mothers Demand Action Against Gun Violence
· Action Together Connecticut
· Racial & Ethnic Disparities Committee (RED)
· CONECT (Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut)
· Hamden Mayor’s Office, and representatives from the Legislative Council & Board of Education

….and most importantly, our Hamden community resident stakeholders.

This task force is charged with fully examining the issues discussed above (as well as those related and intersecting), listening to the community on ideas and issues that have affected them, and then working to develop a roadmap for how Hamden can best move forward to address issues of equity, justice and inclusivity, including how these recommendations will ultimately be implemented.

I am asking the strongest, most professional and deeply experienced group of individuals and organizations that Hamden has ever been able to assemble together, to develop a true equity roadmap, one that we know can deliver real change and not just another plan that will collect dust on a shelf.

I trust that this effort is one that we can proudly work on together, knowing that bold, difficult, meaningful, and essential work we accomplish will build an even more inclusive and just Hamden, CT. These efforts began this today with a meeting held late this afternoon with our community partners from Quinnipiac University, and will continue actively in the coming weeks with meetings and efforts to be announced by the Town, the BOE, and the Human Rights and Relations Commission, in conjunction with our partners.

The first such public session will be a Community Input Conversation to be held on Thursday, February 13th at 6pm at the Hamden Middle School. I sincerely hope that the members of our communities join in attendance at this event. All residents are welcome.