By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT -– A line of speakers came out to the Board of Education meeting Monday in support of the district’s equity study.

Nine of 10 speakers who managed to reach the microphone before a 15-minute time limit on public comment expired sought to distance themselves from an anonymous group that claims the district is wrong to focus on assertions of racism in town schools.

The group, which calls itself WP06880, has a website and this week began putting signs up around town stating “Wake up Westport! CRT is here!” in reference to Critical Race Theory.

The anonymous website urges parents to seek access to curriculum and demand that the schools focus on academics and not racism. It identifies Critical Race Theory (CRT) as “a Marxist based ideology.”

On Sunday, Candice Savin, school board chair and candidate for the Board of Selectmen, vehemently denied that the schools are incorporating CRT into the curriculum.

Speaking at a political event, she said, “We do not teach the CRT … It is not part of our curriculum.”

As a member of the group working on the equity study, she said it was “disappointing … that these sort of culture wars have come to Westport.”

Parent Catherine Lewis, mother of a seventh grader at Bedford Middle School, spoke in support of the work the district is doing.

“I welcome a commitment to create a more equitable school system where every student feels a sense of belonging,” she said.

Having heard from students of color who say they have been on the receiving end of racial insults during their time in Westport Public Schools, Lewis said she believes them.

“As a community we can do better,” she said, adding that she is troubled by the reaction to the district’s ongoing equity study by a “small but vocal group” that she said is trying to provoke fear and resistance among Westport’s largely white population.

As part of an ongoing strategic plan, the district embarked on an equity study with the help of the New York University Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of School.

In-person meetings of the group wrapped up last week, according to Schools Superintendent Thomas Scarice. The equity report, he added, is expected in a month.

Scarice called it a moral imperative that the work be part of the district’s larger strategic plan.

In September, when the year-long strategic plan was discussed, parent Anne Alcyone told the board that a district goal of combating systematic and institutional racism did not have the support of the entire community.

“Many community members do not agree institutional systemic racism is a significant problem in our community,” Alcyone told the board at the time.

The board heard the opposite from most speakers Monday night.

“It is an unfortunate fact that racism is as American as apple pie,” said parent Jonathan Alloy.

“It is as systematic as the genocide we perpetrated on Native Americans … It is woven into the fabric of America,” he said. “Those are facts, not opinions. To deny them is racist. To prevent teaching of them is systemically racist”.

Alloy said kids need to know the reality of our society so they can improve it in ways the current generation has been unable to do.

 Jill Nadell, another parent, said the study is not out to take anything away from anyone but to make schools more inclusive, “to serve all students.”

She added that the study was planned before Scarice came to the district and before buzzwords like Critical Race Theory started being thrown around to try and scare parents.

Nadell said the graduate-level curriculum is not being taught in Westport schools.

“The first part of education is feeling comfortable and accepted,” said Erika Brunwasser, a parent who for several years was a school guidance counselor in New York City.

Meanwhile parent Camilo Riano, who has four children in the schools, said he is deeply concerned with the study and the direction the district is headed.

“I believe in education, not indoctrination,” he said. “I believe in a color-blind society, not an anti-racist society. I believe in American values, not socialist experiments.”

He criticized the futurists Scarice has lined up over the next month to help the district’s strategic planning work, saying “their ideology is clear.”

One of those, Mitchell Weiss of Harvard Business School, will lead a community forum on Oct. 20.

The other, Chris Bishop, a former IBM employee who helps plan for jobs that don’t yet exist, will hold a “fireside chat” on Nov. 10.

After the public comments, board member Liz Heyer tried to question the strategic plan timeline, but Savin cut her off, noting that the board can’t address non-agenda items during the meeting.