Riverhead school district will establish new committee to review and implement DEI plan

The Riverhead Central School District will establish a committee to review and help implement its diversity, equity and inclusion plan. The announcement comes after pressure from prominent Black community members and two high-profile bias incidents on school grounds. 

The new committee will be “conducting a deep and comprehensive review” of the district’s DEI plan, according to Acting Superintendent William Galati. The committee’s review will be presented to the school board in the spring, he said. 

“It will be important for the committee to use our current plan as a framework to assess how as a district we have met — or not met — essential goals in the plan,” Galati said in a statement read aloud during last week’s Riverhead school board meeting. “We will also be looking to this committee to outline our priority needs for professional development and reflection that will help ensure we meet desired DEI goals with fidelity and achieve outcomes that are positive, culturally sensitive and meaningful for our students and district stakeholders.”

Galati invited community members to participate in the committee. Community members interested can email the district’s director of social emotional learning, English as a new language, special programs and community outreach, Emily Sanz.

School district officials have been criticized by the Eastern Long Island NAACP for its handling of a Sept. 9 incident at a Blue Waves football game where three teenagers — including two district students — were involved in an incident in which racial slurs were hurled at young Black children and an adult, according to family members of the children involved. Weeks later, district officials said they were investigating swastikas drawn on desks in a Riverhead High School classroom. 

Eastern Long Island NAACP President Lawrence Street, who was on the task force that helped write the DEI plan, said on Sept. 26 that the incidents could have been avoided if the school district had implemented the plan. He also accused the district of neglecting the plan and dissolving the task force that created it.

Street had more criticism for the school board on Tuesday. 

“Why did it take an incident like this… to reinvent the wheel about DEI?” Street said. “When it was in place, we had a cross cultural committee made up of black, white, purple, green — you name it — and it was great. We got things done. Why now is it being [revived]? Did you drop the ball on it? Because we’re in our second year — and those things that happened could have been avoided.”

A Diversity and Cross-Cultural Task Force in the school district was formed in 2020 to discuss how curriculum in the school district could be more diverse and equitable. In 2021, its members, which included students, faculty, administrators and community members, led the creation of the district’s DEI plan. The DEI plan, which is called the “Equity in Education Plan,” was adopted by the school board in June 2022.

MORE COVERAGE: ‘Equity in Education Plan’ adopted by Riverhead school board

School Board President Colin Palmer said the previous group was “just a task force” that was established “with a specific end.”

“That was why it was put into existence,” Palmer said. “So it was kind of — not doomed from the start — but it served that function.”

Palmer said in a previous meeting that the task might have stopped after the administrator who was leading the meetings, Christine Tona, left the district.

Palmer said he shares Street’s frustration with the district’s lack of attention to the DEI plan. A permanent committee will help solve that problem, he said. 

Galati told Street that the district has done several things in accordance with the DEI plan, including the implementation of restorative practices, hosting programs and celebrations on different cultures, professional development related to helping English language learners, recruiting bilingual staff, and offering new electives and clubs on diverse subjects.

“These are just simply some examples. Does more work need to be done? Certainly. And that is the conversation that we had this afternoon,” Galati said. “And I invite you, who has a history within this district, to help us shepherd this good message.”

Tijuana Fulford, the founder of the RIverhead-based Butterfly Effect Project, said throughout her remarks to the board that the district has to reckon with the diversity of the district and the prejudice that some students face. The school district needs to actively combat students’ bad behavior, including racist incidents against minorities. 

The school’s DEI plan, Fulford said, needs to be a “living document.”

“I believe that each school should sit down as an assembly and let the children decide what is offensive to them. How can they move better, and then what are the consequences,” Fulford said. “And the consequences have to be united across the front. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first time or your 15th time. If you use a word, or you do something that is offensive to someone, these are the actions. So when you have the conversation with the parents, you can say: this is what took place, this is the consequence,” she said.

“We are supposed to be producing incredible young people here,” Fulford said. “I’m a Blue Wave to the day I die. But this right here is an embarrassment. Not just to the school, but to the community — and it should be to each and every single one of you.

“It should be all of us, we should all be included,” Fulford said. “And if you cannot do that, please help us find someone who can, or asking the district to stop being so closed-minded and allow other people to come sit at that table. Because one of the issues are, a lot of us don’t get the opportunity to sit at your table. And if you do not invite us we will start to create our own.”

Robert Brown, a Riverside resident who grew up in Riverhead and works on programs celebrating Black history within the school district, said he has not heard back from district administrators about bringing professionals who are minorities into the schools, a program he has done since 2007. Brown, who is the great grandfather of the children who were called the racial slur on Sept. 9, also cautioned the school district in working with the Riverhead Town Anti-Bias Task Force because of the way the group was appointed by the Riverhead Town Board.