Pennsbury Equity Work Comes Under Fire During Public Comment

Pennsbury School District officials don’t appear to be backing down on their goal to increase equity and diversity education in the school system, which is among the largest in the state.

At last week’s packed school board meeting in Falls Township, heated community members railed against what they see as the district’s goal to teach critical race theory and called for Dr. Cherrissa Gibson, the district’s first director of equity, diversity, and education, to be fired.

School Board President Christine Toy-Dragoni said during the meeting that there was a “vocal minority” working to misrepresent the issue.

She acknowledged that the district had made “missteps” in how they handled past criticism. As LevittownNow.com reported in June, the school district edited some public comment from board meeting videos, an action that raised questions of whether the government body and district had violated the First Amendment.

“We have made no attempt to stop anyone from criticizing us,” Toy-Dragoni said last week.

The school board leader said personal attacks by the public were not good and have led to threats of violence against her and her family, including threats of murder and rape.

“We will not be bullied away from standing up from our most vulnerable community members,” she said.

New Superintendent Dr. Thomas Smith started his job earlier in the month and attended his first board meeting last week. He said he is “proud to work together with anyone and everyone to move this district forward.”

Gibson presented an equity audit to the school board in May. The review was set to “serve as the foundation of all decision-making to ensure equitable outcomes for every learner.” It called for examining courses and content offered to students to educate them about the wide variety of diverse cultures, something critics have said the mainstream American educational system has failed at over the years.

The audit recommended the district “ensure equitable opportunity and access to resources,” reduce gaps in achievement and opportunity, foster an inclusive environment and school climate, use multiple measures for instruction decision-making, see how the district can hire staff with more diverse background, and have employees undergo professional development in cultural proficiency, cultural responsiveness, implicit bias, explicit bias, anti-racism, diversity and inclusive practices.

Critical race theory, often called CRT, is a loosely defined concept that has quickly become a controversial issue after getting attention among conservative lawmakers, cable TV and radio hosts, and media outlets.

U.S. News & World Report offered the following explanation on critical race theory:

Critical race theory traces its origins to a framework of legal scholarship that gained momentum in the 1980s by challenging conventional thinking about race-based discrimination, which for decades assumed that discrimination on the basis of race could be solved by expanding constitutional rights and then allowing individuals who were discriminated against to seek legal remedies. However, some legal scholars pointed out that such solutions – though well-intentioned – weren’t effective because, they argued, racism is pervasive and baked into the foundation of the U.S. legal system and society as a whole.

Today, critical race theory is used by academic scholars – and not just in law schools – to describe how racism is embedded in all aspects of American life, from health care to housing, economics to education, clean water to the criminal justice system and more. Those systems, they argue, have been constructed and protected over generations in ways that give white people advantages – sometimes in ways that are not obvious or deliberately insidious but nonetheless result in compounding disadvantages for Black people and other racial and ethnic minorities.

Many Americans, especially white people, believe racism is the product of intentionally bad and biased individuals, but critical race theory purports that racism is systemic and is inherent in much of the American way of life, no matter how far removed we are today from its origins.

Critical race theory was mentioned by numerous public comment speakers during last week’s meeting.

Joanne Mastriana, a resident Lower Makefield Township, was upset about released emails that showed Gibson and others talking about responding to criticism of their efforts. She also said families should be teaching “moral, social, and political issues,” not the school district. Further more, she said the “radical ideologies of this program should never reach our children.”

Mastriana called on Smith to review the equity audit finished earlier this year and make changes to remove what she considered critical race theory elements from curriculum. She said community members should be more involved in crafting what students learn.

One man, a Lower Makefield Township resident, said critical race theory is bad and it should not be taught in schools. He said that while slavery is disturbing to modern-day people, it was not uncommon hundreds of years ago across the globe. He stated Western culture helped end slavery.

“Thank God for the enlightened Americans, the abolitionist, who put an end to slavery,” he said.

The man said American is the “best creation” of mankind and the district should “try teaching that.”

An Pennsbury High School sophomore, who is on the football team, addressed Gibson and said implementation of critical race theory would create strife where there is not any.

“I’m on the football team at Pennsbury. I don’t care what color you are. Nobody does,” he said. “There is no mention of race. We’re all one unit on a team, and that’s how it is.”

Lower Makefield Township resident Robert Abrams raised concern that Gibson had consulted for other school systems on diversity and inclusion while working for Pennsbury.

Tim Daly, who has released internal district emails regarding equity education on social media recently, called out the board for what he framed as attacks on him and others who oppose them. He raised the issue of Right To Know disputes and told the public he is appealing record denials.

Daly further stated Gibson’s work was flawed and that she used district data to create her university dissertation.

“In that dissertation, it concludes that Pennsbury is a racist school district with racist administrators and racist teachers carrying out the orders of the oppressors,” Daly shouted toward the school district.

He also lobbed comments at the solicitor and claimed the attorney was in over his head.

Simon Campbell, a Lower Makefield Township resident and former school board member, called the district’s equity program part of a effort by “far-left extremist” and Gibson. He then read part of the kids’ book “Something Happened In Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice,” which he said was in a Pennsbury classroom.

Campbell said the book for elementary-aged kids was “vile” and taught kids to be racist.

“This is government-promoted filth of innocent young minds,” he said.

Campbell also chided the board for trying to stop some people’s public comments.

“You’ve tried to silence speakers at public comment. Let’s get this straight: you broke the law,” he yelled.

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