Evolving CFED group welcomes civil rights expert

This coming Wednesday, October 22, the question of whether the Canton school community is truly a welcoming and inclusive one — a sensitive and highly charged topic that lies somewhere at the intersection of race, class, and identity — will once again take center stage when noted civil rights expert Dr. Richard Cole returns to Canton for a presentation and follow-up discussion in the CHS Distance Learning Lab.

A decorated and experienced litigator and former Civil Rights Division chief in the state Attorney General’s Office, Cole will present a series of findings — including both commendations and recommendations — from his “school climate needs assessment” that he performed last fall at the request of the Canton Public Schools. It will be the third such visit for Cole in the last month and a half, following presentations to the Canton School Committee in August and at a district-wide faculty meeting earlier this month.

This latest appearance, which starts at 7 p.m. and is open to the public, will be geared primarily toward parents and guardians of Canton schoolchildren and is being hosted by the newly formed advocacy group Canton Families Embracing Diversity (CFED).

Consisting of Canton parents and family members of diverse backgrounds and races, CFED, according to its website, is an organization whose aim is to support the Canton school system and to “enhance the educational experiences for all students by promoting diverse academic and enrichment programs.”

Established in December 2013, CFED had originally evolved from one of the focus groups convened by Cole as part of his information gathering process. Participants in that early focus group, which consisted entirely of parents of students of color, recalled feeling an energy in the room and a desire to keep the conversation alive beyond that one session. As a result, a group of seven convened in the library, and out of that meeting sprung the fledgling group Canton Parents of Color.

At the time, members did not fully consider the implications of the name or the reactions it might elicit, but a single email blast in February sparked an avalanche of criticism.

“There was an outcry about [the name] from black and white alike and everyone in between,” recalled Faith Eutsay, one of the original members and a leader of CFED. “Clearly, this is a chord that we struck at different places in people’s lives.”

One of the more outspoken critics of the original name was Cynthia Holcombe, a mother of two who has since become an active member of CFED. Holcombe felt the name was too exclusive and conjured up the 1920s, when African Americans “went from Negroes to being colored people.”

Holcombe was among dozens of parents who turned out at the group’s February 2014 meeting, and she decided to return the following month to take part in a brainstorming session for a new name.

“I was very passionate about that,” said Holcombe of the name change. “I hadn’t even thought of the idea of it being exclusive. I was under the assumption that it was just about diversity, and I went in with that sort of open-mindedness.”

For Eutsay’s part, the controversy surrounding the name led her to reassess the group’s identity and its overall goals.

“I think that when people hear the word ‘diversity,’ they hone in on African Americans, but that simply is not the case,” she said. “And going through that process helped us to more accurately convey who and what we are and who we want to attract, and ultimately more people started to plug in and gain interest.”

Eutsay said the CFED membership has evolved along with the name change and is now far more representative of the Canton population as a whole. In terms of socioeconomic diversity, she said they have had varying degrees of success to this point, although she is proud to say they have representation from all family types and each of the Canton Public Schools.

“Ultimately, that’s our goal — to have each school represented at the table,” she said. “And we’ve been successful in that regard. We have a diversity ambassador for each school who communicates between the CAPTs and CFED and the principals. We’re trying to put feet on the ground and eyes in each school.”

Both Holcombe and Eutsay agreed that one of CFED’s top priorities, besides growing its membership and bringing more diverse programming to the schools, is to diversify the staff itself so that it becomes more reflective of the students they serve.

“That is very important to me,” noted Holcombe, who grew up in a primarily black neighborhood in Boston but made the conscious decision to raise her two boys in a more diverse community.

She said it recently dawned on her that her youngest son has never had an African American teacher, and she “immediately went into blame mode and felt horrible.”

Eutsay also stressed the importance of having staff members of color in each of the school buildings, adding that there are steps that the school system can take — including using CFED members as a resource — to attract more minority candidates.

“We have a thriving population of professional people [of color] who have tremendous networks if you just leverage us,” she said.

As for Dr. Cole’s study and the questions about Canton’s track record in the areas of race relations and inclusion, Eutsay said there are signs of improvement; however, she feels that the town, and by extension the school system, is still years away from achieving most of its diversity goals.

For instance, one of the first questions Dr. Cole asked the focus group last fall was whether they felt welcomed in Canton, and Eutsay and her husband, Levence, could not honestly answer in the affirmative.

“Canton came recommended to us, and when we moved here I had an expectation that it would be very welcoming,” said Eutsay, who grew up in a primarily white suburb in the Midwest. “But I learned quickly, unfortunately, that there were lots of silos and niches and cliques, and it’s taken about six years to really break in — to penetrate the gate so to speak.”

What ultimately changed, she said, is that both she and her husband became the “squeaky wheel” following a pair of racially motivated incidents involving their eldest child. They ended up reaching out to the school administration, most notably Superintendent Jeff Granatino, and from there, countless “doors just flew open.”

Eutsay said that Granatino, and the administration as a whole, has been very supportive to her family and to CFED over the past two years, and they are starting to feel as if they can truly call this town home.

“It’s a top-down thing,” she said, “and I believe that in Canton the school system, in particular the leadership under [Granatino], I feel is authentically interested in [diversity] as a topic and the need for change, and I feel very good about that.”

“I’d say we’re about ten years out,” added Eutsay, “from being representative of the people who live here and truly welcoming to the people who continue to come to live here. But it’s trending in the right direction.”

To learn more about Canton Families Embracing Diversity, go to www.cantonma.org/pages/cantonpublicschools/community/cfed.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Oct 16 2014. Filed under News, Schools. Both comments and pings are currently closed.