Two Seniors Recognized by TEAM for Diversity Efforts

 

Michael C. Juliano

Date: July 12, 2006
Source: Westport News

 

Lauren Kritzer and Marissa Millman, two seniors at Staples High School, have been awarded the TEAM Westport Staples Scholarship Award.

Kritzer and Millman have received the distinction "in recognition of their efforts to achieve, extend and celebrate a more welcoming, multicultural community," according to a TEAM (Together Effectively Achieving Multiculturalism) Westport Committee press release.

Kritzer helped launch Shaping New Horizons, a club through which Staple residents mentor students weekly at Bridgeport's Classical Studies Academy. The academy, a division of Brown University's Education Alliance, provides innovative learning opportunities for students in low-performing schools.

Under Kritzer's guidance, Staples volunteers helped in teaching arts, history and literacy.

"I've always loved kids and thought it'd be a great way to bring communities closer together," she said, adding she has sought sponsorship from local companies. "I'd like to see it brought to other towns."

Kritzer said she has passed the reins onto Caitlyn Frank, a junior at Staples, with the hopes that Shaping New Horizons will become a national program one day.

As a leader of Staples' Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), Millman helped organize a Day of Silence to raise awareness of sexual minority youth. She was also a driving force behind the GSA's participation in the True Colors Conference at Central Connecticut State University, the largest workshop of its kind in the country.

"I think after coming out myself in the beginning of the year, I felt there was no better way to help myself in the process by sharing my experience and helping other people," Millman said. "I was surprised about receiving the award, but it's nice to know people are noticing what I've done for the school and the kids in my club."

Harold Bailey, TEAM Westport's president, said the two scholars were given the award because their initiatives "fit directly" into TEAM Westport's goal of extending diversity into the community.

"We felt both are doing this because they believe what they're doing is genuinely making a difference," he said.

Cheryl Scott-Daniels, a spokeswoman for TEAM Westport, said Kritzer and Millman acted as "role models for Westport's children, motivating them to learn and grow."

Kritzer and Millman received $500 scholarships as part of the award. Kritzer will attend Simmons College in Boston while Millman is headed to Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

TEAM Westport, a 20-member committee appointed by former First Selectwoman Diane Farrell, works to raise awareness of the vibrant, multicultural activities and opportunities in Westport.

Scott-Daniels said TEAM Westport originated in 2003 out of a project at the Westport Public Library celebrating Black History Month. "We realized from that project there was a need for a greater understanding of people of differences in Westport," she said.

Bailey said the committee is working on creating a Friends of TEAM Westport to foster greater involvement with the community on issues concerning diversity.

TEAM Westport's next meeting is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. in Room 102 of Town Hall, 115 Myrtle Ave.

Students See Special Performance of "Thurgood"

Date: May 6, 2006

Source: Westport News (CT)

  

 

Students from Westport’s Staples High School as well as students from Norwalk’s Brien McMahon High School and Bridgeport’s Central High School and Thurgood Marshall Middle School attended this week’s student matinee of “Thurgood” starring James Earl Jones at the Westport Country Playhouse. All attendees received a 12-page study guide prepared by the Playhouse education department to take their theater experience back to the classroom for discussion.

 
TEAM Westport Launches New Staples Civil Rights Program

Date: May 3, 2006

Source: Westport News (CT)

TEAM Westport, the town’s diversity committee, has joined with four other organizations in a unique effort to promote teachings about civil rights issues to students at Staples High School.

 

Among those attending today’s performance of “Thurgood” at the Westport Country Playhouse were (l-r) Staples Principal John Dodig; Westport Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon; Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Lynn Shain, and TEAM Chair Harold Bailey.  Contributed photo

Harold Bailey, TEAM Westport’s chair, said the Westport Public Library, Westport Country Playhouse, Westport Arts Center and the town’s Department of Human Services have collaborated with the committee on an innovative three-week series of panel discussions, plays, art exhibits, music and cooking.

Today the Staples sophomore class traveled to the Westport Country Playhouse for a performance of the world premiere of “Thurgood,” the drama about legendary black attorney and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, starring James Earl Jones.

On Thursday, the entire school will feast on a variety of Southern dishes, prepared

 

by the Staples culinary staff.

TEAM Westport Mulls Graffiti

Date: February 24, 2006

Source: Westport News (CT)

by Frank Luongo

 

The defacing of public or private property with symbols and words that convey cultural hatred toward individuals and groups should receive full town attention that should extend beyond the results of police investigations, according to members of TEAM Westport, the town's multiculturalism committee.

 

That was the point of view expressed at a TEAM meeting Wednesday that focused on media accounts and pictures of the recent spray-painting of swastikas and the word "fag" on mail boxes, trees and streets signs in the vicinity of Sylvan Road North and Cranbury and Stonybrook Roads in Westport.

 

TEAM Chairman Harold Bailey said that the only notice he had received about the incident had come from a call from the Westport News.  He said that TEAM, as an official town body, should be in a position to develop a response to such incidents as soon as the police make them public and to explore and communicate with the community on the issues raised by such incidents.

 

Bailey said that he would be in touch with First Selectman Gordon Joseloff and Police Chief Al Fiore about setting up procedures that would enable TEAM to be part of the response to such incidents in the future.

 

Glenn Lau-Kee, TEAM secretary, said that it would be important for the committee in the future to have a "formal role, interfacing with the police and acting as an intermediary for the community."

 

He said that the role of the committee should include a follow up on the issue and a full exploration of its implications.  "This is a conscience and educational issue for the community," Lau-Kee said.

 

As part of that ongoing role, committee member Stuart Losen, who is a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Westport, said that there needs to be discussion about "what goes on in people's minds that engage in such behavior, what is behind such behavior, any behavior that is extremist, fascistic or anti-gay."

 

Committee member Barbara Butler, who is director of the Westport Human Services Department, said that Losen's recommendation would "take the issue to a higher level" for community dialogue, but committee member Stephen Daniels warned that the committee should not lose sight of the specific incidents as it promotes more general discussion in town.

 

"This is an unusual conversation.  Westport has a tendency to bury such incidents.  We are in the position of unburying them," Daniels said.

 

He indicated that the committee would not be doing its job if it moved toward the general educational process before giving full attention to the specific instances.  To accomplish this, Daniels said, the committee would have to keep the spray-painting issue alive in public awareness.

 

Daniels is a 21-year Westport resident and is past president of the United Way of Westport/Weston.  He said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the United Way experience had included many examples of the burying of such incidents.

 

"How many cases of rape or child abuse have you seen reported in Westport?" Daniels asked.  "We had a number of requests for funding from support groups for women and children who were dealing with cases in Westport that were not reported."

 

He said that he understood the privacy issues involved in such cases and that the police have to protect the victims of such crimes, but he said that the goal of maintaining a community's good image of itself also figures into the underreporting.

 

According to Daniels, this tendency makes it all the more necessary for such groups as TEAM Westport to keep public attention focused on such specific instances of hate-expression as the paint-spraying vandalism in Westport.

 

 

OPINION – The More Things Change

Diversity in Westport: Still Only A Dream

Date: January 25, 2006

Source: Westport News (CT)

 

By Woody Klein

 

Diversity in Westport has long been an elusive goal which, nonetheless, continues to be pursued in incremental steps. The most recent sign of progress is taking place between youngsters at Westport's Long Lots School and Bridgeport's Elias Howe Elementary School, who participate in joint activities to promote multi-cultural and multi-racial understanding.

Under a $64,000 grant from the Connecticut State Department of Education, children of both schools are brought together to participate in a variety of activities as part of a statewide program to improve literacy. This Friday, each Westport child will be paired with a Bridgeport counterpart, to watch a Bedford Middle School performance of a condensed version of Bedford's Just So, based on Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.

The spark that brought about this latest attempt to emphasize diversity in Westport is the brainchild of Westport resident Joan Hass, a literary coach at Elias Howe, and Long Lots Vice Principal Mary Misevich, who joined together in a collaborative effort that will result in bringing children from both schools together this year. Training sessions were held earlier this month to get the project off the ground. It's a natural fit, and both schools have an evaluation component that uses pre- and post-tests of reading fluency in English and Spanish.

To their credit, Long Lots teachers and students have a long-standing interest in promoting diversity. For the past few years, the school has participated in "Diversity Awareness Book Clubs" in order to sensitize and accept the differences in children of other cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Long Lots second grade teachers Cecile Schachte and Jennifer Ackerman, and third-grade teachers Keri Tighe and Elizabeth Messler, who work with their counterparts at Elias Howe, are to he commended.

The youngsters were first introduced to one another last September when they met at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, where they interviewed each other to find their similarities and differences and then decorated pictures and picture frames based on what they had learned about each other. A second meeting took place in October when the children came together to hear the Connecticut Story Tellers.

The presence of blacks in Westport has a long history, dating back to the 1930s when a ramshackle tenement at 22-1/2 Main Street was inhabited by blacks who worked in the homes of white, middle-class Westport residents. Tragically, the squalid tenement was destroyed by fire in 1950 and the black tenants were forced to leave town.

Westport's social conscience was tested again in the 1960s.The issue of racial equality was literally brought home to Westport when The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Temple Israel on May 22, 1964 before a packed audience of enthusiastic townspeople. There was yet another turnout of more than 1,000 Westporters who, after a rancorous debate, established the Westport Summer School and Beach School program for a group of 40 Hispanic and black children, under the auspices of the Action for Bridgeport Community Development. An integrated, intercommunity camp of Norwalk, Westport and Bridgeport in May 1967 blossomed here for 10 years under the leadership of the late June Sugarman, wife of artist/writer and civil rights crusader Tracy Sugarman.

Then came Project Concern launched in 1971 by the courageous Board of Education Chairman Joan Schine who, despite threats of removing her through a recall petition, successfully began busing minority students from Bridgeport to Westport schools, but not until a bipartisan group called Democracy on Trial - co-chaired by Allen Raymond, a Republican, and Jim O'Connell, a liberal Democrat - emerged to beat back heavy opposition. The program petered out in 1982, however, when the Bridgeport schools could no longer afford to bus children to Westport.

In the 1990s, the drumbeat for diversity here continued in low-key. In 1993, the state legislature passed a law to improve educational quality and diversity, signed by former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. It divided the state into 11 planning regions and required communities to enhance diversity. The Westport Board of Education responded that same year by appointing an Advisory Committee for Enhanced Quality and Diversity in Public Schools, headed by attorney Gene Cederbaum. As things turned out, eight of the 11 regional planning groups rejected the law and the plan went back to the courts.

Interestingly, the committee conducted a community-wide survey, which asked for citizen input on the issue. The Committee's report stated: "Only about one-third agreed that exposing students to people of other cultures, different economic groups, races and ethnic groups will meaningfully improve the overall quality of education in Westport." More recently, yet another sensitivity training diversity program, "A World of Difference," sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, was adopted here, led by Westporter Harold Levine. It was well publicized and had some impact during its brief application, but has since become part of our rocky road towards integration.

Finally, under the leadership of former First Selectwoman Diane Farrell, TEAM Westport was established headed by Harold Bailey. It has made some progress, but our community has yet to take any major steps to achieve the goal of real integration.

Last week, we recalled the memorable words of Dr. King, whose unforgettable, "I Have A Dream" speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on Aug. 28, 1963, profoundly moved the entire nation. In it, he said: "I have a dream that one day . . . little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."

In terms of racial and ethnic integration, Westport has made progress in fits and starts in the past four decades, but we still remain an essentially all-white enclave. Will there ever come a time when we are an integrated community? Not at the rate we are going - unfortunately, once again proving the old adage that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Woody Klein, a regular Westport News columnist, is author of Westport, Connecticut, The Story of a New England Town's Rise to Prominence, sponsored by The Westport Historical Society.

 

© Westport News 2006

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