Reported and written by Kayla Shiao, Penelope King, Rosella Graham, Kayla Li and Amanda Hao.
On Dec. 3, the San Mateo Union High School District board of trustees unanimously voted to approve the district’s response to the 2019-2020 grand jury report titled “Hate@Schools — Opportunities Lost,” with the inclusion of a clause about collaboration with partner districts. The grand jury report covered recent history of the SMUHSD’s responses to hate crimes and incidents and existing infrastructure to handle such occurrences.
Prior, the SMUHSD board held a special meeting on Nov. 19 regarding the response and hosted a study session on equity learning facilitated by the National Equity Project. In a general consensus, the board agreed to revisit the response at a later board meeting after the proposal had been updated with a specific way to measure progress and a plan to pilot programs.
The response was written by Superintendent Kevin Skelly; Deputy Superintendent, Business Services Elizabeth McManus; Kirk Black, deputy superintendent, human resources and student services and Julia Kempkey, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Attached to the end of the response is an updated policy bulletin, dated Oct. 1, 2020.
“The district has already begun finding alternative measures to curate an inclusive environment”
As noted by the grand jury report, the 2015 “Responding to and Reporting Hate-motivated Incidents and Crimes” policy poses a variety of limitations to its readers, from including “technical and legal” language largely above the reading proficiency level of seventh to ninth graders to only providing the policy in English.
The majority of the policy, which is intended to be used by teenage students, exceeds the general audience’s reading ability, preventing individuals seeking to address incidents from comprehending the necessary steps to resolve conflict. Furthermore, the grand jury report noted the policy was only available in English, which could prevent access for non-native speakers comprehending and accessing the information outlined in the policy. The former policy covers appropriate responses to crimes and incidents motivated, among other things, by race, religion and gender.
The former policy was dated July 28, 2015 and written by Director of Student Services Don Scatena; then Associate Superintendent, Student Services KindyLee Mackamul and Black, who at the time was Deputy Superintendent, Human Resources and Instruction. The policy lived in the Student Services section of the website, categorized under Policies and Bulletins.
In response to these issues, the grand jury report proposed five suggestions for school districts to incorporate into their own policies and actions next school year.
The first recommendation was a more clear anti-bias policy to protect students on school campuses. The report lists specific examples such as training administrators to efficiently handle such situations as well as having clear definitions on what constitutes hate speech, hate-motivated incidents and hate crimes. The second suggestion was for the district to adjust their policy reading level and lack of language diversity. Another recommendation calls for the distinct to be more proactive in teaching students about hate crimes and anonymous reporting opportunities. The SMUHSD was specifically recommended to also perform a trial run of the Anti-Defamation League’s program, “No Place for Hate.”
The grand jury report also set a specific recommendation for district superintendents and the San Mateo County Office of Education to incorporate or continue specific programs such as Coalition for Safe Schools and Communities, Respect! 24/7 and Camp LEAD.
As outlined in the response, the district has already begun finding alternative measures to curate an inclusive environment. This fall, over 15 district staff members attended the SMCOE’s “Respect! 24/7” conference, and over 25 staff members participated in a restorative practices training program.
For the spring semester, the district intends to create an intervention program for those who were a part of a hate incident off or on campus. Such students will attend four sessions on bullying, hate and biases taught by a mental health training professional.
