During the beginning of the nation-wide and local protests in Beacon and the Hudson Valley of Black, white and people of color Marching for Black lives to matter, the Beacon Board of Education (BOE) voted on and issued a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement at a June 17, 2020 meeting.

Of the 9 Board members, one person voted against it: then Board President Anthony White, as first reported by Jeff Simms at the Highlands Current. At that meeting, Anthony stated: “that while he recognizes the district has work to do, he felt ‘the statement does not acknowledge the work that the district has already engaged in to address inequities,’” according to the article.

At the BOE’s July 1st re-organizational meeting, Anthony stepped aside as the President, a position he won re-election for a month prior. Former Vice President Meredith Heur was elected President, and Elissa Betterbid, a board member since 2018, was elected to succeed Meredith. Also at that meeting, Board member Michael Rutkoske resigned.

The Board Of Education’s Letter In Support Of Black Lives

The letter has been republished in full here for easy reading. Also find it here for original link. Signed by an 8-1 majority vote, the letter was authored by Board member James Case-Leal, who resigned this week “in order to open an additional space for John Galloway Jr. and Jasmine Johnson, two well-qualified candidates of color, to both be appointed,” according to his resignation letter.

June 17, 2020

Dear Beacon City School District Community:

The BCSD Board of Education adopted this statement at this evening's meeting.

We the Board of Education for the Beacon City School District are deeply moved by the protests and major shifts in the national conversation around race and racism in our public institutions in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all other victims of institutional violence and discrimination.

We want to take this moment to reiterate our collective commitment to equity in our schools while also recognizing that we still have much to learn and change in order to fully address racism in our own institutions. We recognize that our schools have not always succeeded at this and apologize to those we have failed to serve.

We thank the many members of our community for their work helping to push this to the forefront of our attention. It is an emergency that we plan to address with the utmost urgency

We are scheduling a workshop on June 22 to discuss these issues and develop strategies in the near and long term to ensure that our schools live up to the promise of providing an exemplary education to ALL students. We welcome any input from our communities about how we can best accomplish this goal.

We stand in solidarity. Black Lives Matter.

Beacon’s Superintendent Matthew Landahl’s Response

After the meeting, Beacon’s Superintendent Matthew Landahl issued a statement to the Beacon community via his blog. This email was issued during the summer graduation of Beacon’s 2020 senrior class, and early days of how the district would reopen (has since reopened, and is one of the only districts to attempt the Hybrid in-person learning model).

The full letter from Dr. Landahl is below:

Dear Beacon City School District Community:

I wanted to take a moment to share a summary of my comments at the Board of Education meeting last night.

We Americans have all been witness again to the horror of racism in this country and its deadly impact on Black Americans. As the Superintendent of the Beacon City School District, I will work to put every ounce of my leadership efforts to fulfill the Board of Education’s goal to eliminate race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability as a predictor of student success and to create a stronger Culture of Care for all of our students.

This is hard, tough work and actions are more important than words. There is much work to be done in our community, our country, and our school district to achieve these goals. I especially have much work to do as a leader.

Yesterday morning, I stood on the BHS athletic field and watched and clapped for many of our seniors as they walked across the stage. It was a profound moment because it was amazing to see their families celebrate their achievement but it also brought home to me once again how much we miss being with all of our students, especially now during such a challenging time in our country.

Our first action is to work to reopen our schools when it can be done in a safe and healthy manner. The reopening work needs to focus on the health of our students and staff but also needs to focus on establishing an even stronger Culture of Care for our students and community, so we can all feel welcomed, included, empowered, and engaged. I look forward to future conversations and actions and to work with the community on making us all stronger.

Matt Landahl

When the Board of Education’s letter was adopted, Dr. Landahl issued a list of “restorative practices” that the district could do, according to reporting by Jeff Simms of the Highlands Current.

• Working with the Mediation Center of Dutchess County to create either socially distanced or virtual “talking circles” for students and possibly parents to discuss race and other issues.

• Adding students to the Equity Leadership Teams at district schools.

• Issuing an equity report card by July 31 with statistics on the demographics of students, administration and staff.

• Adjusting curriculum to make it “more affirming” and “more reflective of diversity” and social-justice issues.

This week, A Little Beacon Blog reached out to Dr. Landahl for comment about what has been done since declaring those directives, as well as to curriculum with Thanksgiving approaching. His full response is below:

“We worked with Dutchess Mediation, teachers, administrators, and groups of students from BHS and Rombout in a talking circle format this summer. They developed a plan to continue talking circle format this school year with more students and staff to discuss COVID-19, racial injustice, and finding more ways to be heard and involved in school. This work will be ongoing and continue throughout the school year. Dutchess Mediation also provides us with support and training in implementing restorative practices in our secondary schools as well and that will continue this year as well. In addition to this, we had an additional group of 25 elementary teachers from Beacon get trained in the Responsive Classroom model this year which helps teachers develop strategies on community and relationship building in the classroom.

”Working with Dutchess BOCES, we are working with Dr. Jevon Hunter from SUNY Buffalo to focus on curriculum development. He will work with ELA and social studies teachers at Rombout and Beacon High School to create a more diverse curriculum and to create projects that focus on social justice issues. He will also work with teachers to audit the overall curriculum later in the school year.

”We hit a technical snag with our equity report card this summer and we hope to have it up on the website very soon in the next week or two.

”Our school equity leadership teams will be incorporating some student representatives as they begin their work this year.”