By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — As the Board of Education inches toward adopting a new student discipline and Code of Conduct policy to address identity-based harassment, parents — and their children — are keeping up pressure for impactful change.

“I know you are on your own timeline to get this done,” said Diana Capellan, parent of a kindergartner at Kings Highway Elementary School. “But there is a public outcry about this … We owe this to them.”

For the third consecutive meeting, the school board on Thursday heard how the current system of handling disciplinary matters is failing students, giving some nightmares.

“I don’t feel safe at school,” said Leo, a former Coleytown Middle School student, who told the board he sleeps at night with the lights on, not only as the result of being bullied by other students, but by how school officials handled the situation.

Students who defend themselves against derogatory remarks are often the ones who are punished or face being chaperoned in the hallways by school staff, said Dawn Vazquez as her daughter Maya, an eighth grader at Bedford Middle School, stood by her side.

In February, a Black couple — Dr. Carol Felder and Richard Anderson — came forward to describe a series of racial slurs directed at their daughters at town schools and their inability to get officials to effectively address the problem.

Since then, other parents have shared similar experiences of their children being targeted with biased taunts bullying at school. 

They organized a rally outside Staples, and vowed to keep up pressure on officials to upgrade school district disciplinary policies on bias and hate offenses, with tougher consequences for students who violate those rules.

A group of 30 parents signed a letter suggesting changes to the district’s disciplinary process that would block offenders from sports and other school leadership positions during a suspension from classes. 

They also want the punishment noted on the student’s academic record until completion of a reflective essay and bias training specific to the offense.

On Thursday, Kevin Christie, chair of the school board’s policy committee, said a lot of progress on the policy revisions has been made since February.

Feedback has been gathered from students, which Christie called helpful, and the committee has run through a long list of infractions and violations along with potential responses to them.

Although student privacy laws apply to individual situations, the thought is that a Code of Conduct that is specific enough and consistently applied should give parents an understanding of what is likely to happen to students based on the offense.

During a two-hour session Wednesday, Christy said the policy committee talked about consequences, restorative opportunities and ways to prevent violations from occurring.

The loss of privileges and participation in school activities as a consequence of violating the policies remains a work in progress.

Students suspended from school are already barred from extra-curricular activities during the punishment.

Assistant Supt. of Schools Michael Rizzo told the board that secondary school principals have told him they do not favor stripping students of titles or responsibilities as a result of an infraction.

“It came down to what are we about as educators,” Rizzo said. “How do we help students learn?”

The principals might “talk at our April 9 [policy] meeting,” suggested board Chair Lee Goldstein. “We need to hear from the educators [about] why they’ve made choices that are different than some other places.”

Goldstein, who sits on the policy committee, said as interesting as it is to learn how complaint investigations work, how students are treated and how parents are looped into the process, there is some tension over getting the document done.

The board has yet to have a first read of the proposed policy document.

Board Vice Chair Dorie Hordon, also a member of the policy committee, said she is also ready to hear what other board members think about the issue.

There were mixed views regarding the potential to make community service an option for offenders to make restitution.

Parents who wrote the letter to the board suggested that for race-based infractions, community service in a town more diverse that Westport may be warranted.

Rizzo said any community service done outside a school setting is difficult to manage and implement.

“The community service piece, to me, is all sort of shades of gray,” said Hordon.

Capellan suggested that instead of reinventing the wheel, that Westport look to other school districts that have figured out a way to appropriately handle hate-based harassment and prevent it from happening.

“Incorporate the best from other high-performing districts,” Capellan said.

Others, without children currently attending Westport’s public schools, also spoke during the public comment segment of the meeting.

“I’m here tonight because my friends are fearful. They live in Westport, Connecticut, and they’re fearful,” said Al DiGuido, a local business owner. “These young children need someone to battle for them.”

“You guys are all brave coming up and talking,” added Jimmy Izzo, a Representative Town Meeting member from District 3. “I think we definitely have to continue our community discussion and we have to do better.”

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.