Gateway School District officials to continue with equity director search

An effort to postpone the hiring of an equity director for Gateway School District until after the November election has failed.

School board vice president Valerie Warning had hoped to have the personnel move be decided by the next school board.

Her resolution failed 4-5 with only Warning, John Ritter, Mary Beth Cirucci and Scott Williams in favor. Board president Brian Goppman, Richard McIntyre, Scott Gallagher, Susan DeLaney and Robin Mungo dissented.

Six candidates will challenge for four spots in the general election, including Mungo and Williams.

McIntyre questioned why anyone would bring up the election when it comes to the position.

“The nine of us are duly elected officials,” he said. “We are allowed to make the votes as we see fit. When this resolution came up to start the process to hire a full-time equity director it was brought up at a study session. It was discussed at several meetings and it came up to a vote at a following meeting. We were completely transparent through the entire process. We’ve had several opportunities to debate this resolution. It passed. We moved on.”

Warning said she was concerned about the “bad press” surrounding the position.

“It’s not to get rid of the position, it’s just to let it die down and let the new board vote on it,” Warning said of her resolution.

The board voted 5-4 May 19 to create the full-time position. DeLaney, Gallagher, Goppman, McIntyre and Mungo voted in favor.

Superintendent William Short said the administration was still vetting candidates and going through applications. He did not specify how many people applied for the job.

“We are currently going through all those applications ensuring that every candidate has met the requirements that we were looking for in order to stage the interviews,” Short said. “That is where we are in the process. … At this point, we’re trying to ensure that we have staff in place.”

It is unclear when the position might be filled.

Even though postponing the equity director hiring was a new item added to the agenda, the issue was not open to public comment prior to the vote.

“This is not the time for public debate,” district Solicitor Bruce Dice said as an audience member was attempting to chime in. “This is a board action matter now. It’s appropriate to vote on it.”

The district has been seeking solutions to close the achievement, or opportunity, gap between white and black students for many years. They hired a part-time equity director in 2017, created equity teams within schools and formed an equity committee.

Phillip Woods received a two-year contract for a $30,000 yearly salary. Woods’ job, the district said at the time, was “to sustain the district’s efforts to create a culture of support and improvement,” meaning his goal was to find ways to shrink the achievement gap between white and black students.

Ritter said that there were multiple conversations about the new full-time position and it was determined there was no “achievement gap” but an “opportunity gap.”

He also said there was language surrounding the position that indicates the administration would hire the equity director when it should be the school board that does the hiring.

“This is an ill-formed construct right here.” Ritter said.

The board did approve a resolution stating critical race theory was not a part of district curriculums.

Warning said the superintendent stated that fact several times, and she wanted to have a resolution on record backing it up. It passed 7-0-2 with McIntyre and Goppman abstaining. McIntyre said the resolution was not necessary and Warning should have to explain what is CRT.

He likened the resolution to saying pole dancing is not part of the third grade curriculum.

“Why are we banning something nobody has any intention of putting in?” McIntyre said. “It’s not part of the curriculum.”

McIntyre’s comments resulted in several outbursts from the crowd including someone calling him a pervert.

According to an AP report, CRT is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

The resolution, which also was not on the agenda, was open to public comment prior to a vote.

Resident Doug Webster was allowed to speak. He said the board meeting was like an episode of the “Twilight Zone.”