'Keywords' And Views On Critical Race Theory Addressed At Long Valley School Board Meeting

LONG VALLEY, NJ — A discussion sparked at the recent Washington Township Schools Board of Education meeting among attendees, with differing views on the topic of Critical Race Theory.

Resident Paul Hamilton, a longtime resident and substitute teacher within the district, told the Board of Education he was disturbed by an article that he’d read in Patch following the previous board meeting on Aug. 18 that Critical Race Theory was not part of the school district’s curriculum.

Hamilton compared that to a time the Township Committee supported a blue line painted around the police station years ago, which he inferred gave solidarity to the movement for Blue Lives Matter, while canceling out Black Lives Matter movement.

He called the CRT pushback a rhetorical riposte of the widespread use of “systemic racism,” after the death of George Floyd.

“It is a crusade if you count the members of the audience referring to the ‘evil’ of CRT,” Hamilton added. “Not the evil of white supremacy or 400 years of death, misery and abuse, but the evil of teaching and an academic approach to answering a question.”

He suggested that one prevalent belief is those who support CRT have an agenda, while those against it do not.

“I think it would be naive not to acknowledge that the crusade against critical race thinking is just a part of a larger propaganda war that includes the perpetuation of the great lie that the 2020 election was stolen, that includes the Jan. 6 ‘stop the steal’ insurrection and that includes a nationwide campaign to curtail access to voting,” Hamilton said.

He said Boards of Education are on the front line, stating that the Washington Township Schools needs to “acknowledge its responsibility to all of its children,” by articulating the district’s policies and rationale for them.

Hamilton turned to Board Member Carmine Capogrosso, who first spoke on the subject at the Aug. 18 meeting, to ask if the guidelines for CRT were brought up, with most not understanding the definition of it.

Board President Jessica DeCicco answered, first clarifying for Hamilton about his comments on the blue line. She said as law enforcement family, the blue line represents “integrity and protecting the ‘good’ against the ‘evil,’” but said what he was speaking of - Blue Lives Matter is different than what Hamilton referred to with the blue line drawn around the township’s police station.

She said most law enforcement families do not like being grouped in with Blue Lives Matter, because of Hamilton’s concerns. He later responded that he too is a law enforcement family member, his father-in-law having served with the NYPD. He said he is also friendly with several officers who work in Washington Township and their well-being matters to him.

Hamilton additionally said two of his children are black calling Long Valley “a wonderful town, but if your assumption is that racism is not alive and kicking in town, then you don’t know the town as well as families of black children do.”

In reference to CRT, she said the district follows the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, with CRT not being taught in New Jersey at all in the K-8 schools.

“There’s no material for it,” DeCicco added, but it is instead being taught at high school and college levels.

He said that race is an important subject matter in school and CRT has been “highly politicized.”

Robin Gibbon, another resident came up and said, “Critical Race Theory promotes intolerance, hate, harassment, retaliation, segregation, discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice and Marxism.”

She said at the last meeting when Capograsso was applauded after stating CRT was not in the curriculum and she had spoken, about six parents came up to her following the meeting who expressed they have seen CRT-infused keywords in their children’s school work.

Gibbon read the words she said these parents gave her, among them: oppressed, oppressor, social injustice, white supremacy, equity versus equality, institutional racism, identity politics, wealth disparities, decolonize, white privilege, white fragility, critical consciousness and systemic power.

She asked for a copy of anything that referenced these CRT words and if the teachers have had professional development on CRT. Gibbon also wanted to know that teachers were not indoctrinating children with “their political or personal feelings on the issue and words that clearly are critical race theory keywords."

Interim Superintendent Laura Morana echoed DeCicco’s comments about the Student Learning Standards but asked where the words came from that Gibbon read, considering at that point the district was only seven days into the school year.

Morana asked that any parent with a question or concern about the curriculum to contact their child’s principal or Deborah Russo, the District Coordinator of Teaching, Learning and Intervention/Support Services.

RELATED: Critical Race Theory Questions Clarified For Long Valley Schools

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.