To the editor:
I write in support of Jamie Fitzgerald and Camilo Riano for the Board of Education. Both are highly qualified, dedicated Westport residents who would add an important and much-needed common sense perspective to the current board.
Westport has long required that no single political party make up more than a bare majority of town boards and commissions, including the BOE. This legal requirement has served the town well by ensuring that individuals with a variety of political viewpoints and perspectives are heard in town decision-making and oversight roles.
Yet the Goldstein-Phillips campaign, whose party already holds a majority of the board, and a supposedly “unaffiliated” write-in candidate, have coordinated a joint campaign in a transparent effort to circumvent the law and effectively obtain a supermajority of the board.
Every Westport resident should be concerned about the prospect of the board charged with providing core oversight and strategic direction for our schools becoming an echo-chamber with an almost unfettered ability to alter the direction of our schools as they wish. To succeed in this transparent effort to circumvent the bare majority law, the joint Goldstein-Phillips-Dillon campaign has gone to great lengths to portray Fitzgerald-Riano (and Mr. Riano, in particular) as “right-wing extremists,” “book banners,” and character assassination.
Do not be fooled. I’ve spoken to Camilo many times over the past few years and he is a caring, highly intelligent, accomplished, and motivated parent who decided to run for the board because he wants to see all children succeed, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or socio-economic status.
He believes all people — especially children — should be treated as individuals, and not grouped together into identity groups of privileged oppressors and oppressed victims. As a first-generation American, he believes passionately that all of our children have the ability to succeed given a quality education, whether privileged or those less fortunate, but that schools should focus more on education than on areas traditionally left to parents or mental health professionals.
Two years ago, during the first summer of the pandemic, the board under the current chair approved the hiring of NYU Metro Center to conduct an “equity study” of the Westport Public Schools. NYU Metro is a radical, avowedly anti-capitalist, at times blatantly racist, organization that seeks to “transform” and “dismantle” education. It espouses an approach in which curriculum, disciplinary policy, grading and tracking, and teaching should be replaced with a system that sees everything through the lens of race, gender and social justice activism. They believe that any and all differences in outcome are necessarily the result of racism and discrimination.
Among other things, the final Westport Equity Study report sought to portray the successes of Westport’s Asian students (actually a group made up of students with a wide variety of national and ethnic heritages and backgrounds) as attributable to their privileged access to resources, based on no evidence other than their disproportionate enrollment in AP and Honors classes.
While the board and the administration have since understandably distanced themselves from the radical NYU Metro Center and its report, to this day the current Westport Equity Study Action Plan includes NYU’s recommendation that “the school district needs to audit the AP, Honors and Track B and C programmatic structure … and critically engage the disproportionality that currently exists.”
Based on NYU Metro’s recommendations, with the support of the Board, the administration is also now pursuing “Social Emotional Learning” and “Culturally Responsive Education.” While these teaching philosophies may sound terrific to those unfamiliar with them — who would be against social development and cultural awareness? — in fact many forms of SEL and “Culturally Responsive” teaching were developed by radical activists such as those at NYU Metro and they have never been shown to be effective in a school district like ours.
This kind of identity politics, “white privilege” and oppressor/victim mindset threatens to rob our children of their own agency and ability to think critically. It is no wonder that colleges and universities that have championed these philosophies have seen a sharp rise in antisemitism, where Jews are seen as white oppressors whose successes are attributed to unearned privilege and oppression.
A recent survey indicates that roughly 50 percent of young adults between 18-24 believe the recent barbaric actions of Hamas were justified. There is something terribly wrong with an educational system that produces such an utter collapse of rational moral thinking.
None of this is to say that any of the current candidates or anyone in our school system support Hamas, that they are in any way antisemitic, Marxist, or critical race theorists.
To the contrary, I believe all of them are good people who want the best for our children. And we are very fortunate to have some of the finest teachers and administrators in the nation, all of whom are dedicated and hard-working professionals.
But there can be little doubt that had it not been for parents such as Camilo Riano, many people would have had no idea that the Westport schools were even entertaining the ideas espoused by the likes of NYU Metro Center. Or that school libraries were actively promoting highly controversial books containing graphic depictions of child sex with literally how-to manuals about adult sex “hook-up” apps. To suggest that this material may not be appropriate for children as young as 13 is not extremist, it is not “book banning,” and it is not anti-LGBT.
Candidates like Camilo Riano and Jamie Fitzgerald — who have real-world managerial and executive experience, are independent thinkers, who support academic excellence, who do not want Westport schools to go the direction of school districts like those in New York City, Baltimore, or California, and who are parents and neighbors — are not the extremists. They are the kind of candidates we should all want on our Board of Education.
Andy Frankel
Westport
The writer of this letter of support should take the time to read Camilo Riano’s own words, ad hominem attacks, recorded in public on CT Centinal and Board of Ed meetings:
1. “I think a vote cannot be justified as the democratic way of doing things, because this is not the American way.”
2.He compares Westport to the Taliban and says the library is “enforcing leftist censorship with “the Prevention of American Rights.
3. “In the heavily politicized environment of Westport, ‘fighting misinformation’ is a euphemism for ‘enforcing leftist censorship’. Following the example of the most dogmatic regimes on earth, such as the Taliban, the library’s selection committee has constituted itself into the Westport Library Committee for the Promotion of Socialist Virtue and the Prevention of American Rights.”
4.Mr. Riano describes his “continuing efforts to establish a system of “radical-left indoctrination” and presents the Westport School District’s work as “attempts to justify the introduction of un-American ideologies into the public school system.”
Every vile insult he has made and profligate incendiary remark without substance is available for everyone to see, hear, and read.
I highly suggest that all voters in Westport do their due diligence and own research and investigations into who Camilo Raino is, who he writes for, what publication he writes for, and listen to his recorded comments at past board of education meetings. It is imperative that we listen to what he says with his own words and mouth, what his thoughts are that he thinks with his own mind and words he has written with his own hands. Nobody tells Camilo what to think, say, or write. He must own it all.
Please read Camilo’s articles in CT Destructive Media – Todd Wood’s publication- CT Centinel. Anyone can see for themselves if this is an extremist outlet that Camilo writes for or not. Listen to Camilo’s choice words that he himself, and himself only, decided to use to describe Westport Schools and Westport itself. Are those extremist words for a school board candidate to use? You decide at the polls.
As for the constant attacks on Westport, teachers, the schools, and superintendent from Camilo, again, nobody made him do it. You decide if that is the climate you want your kids to learn in. I can tell you that good teachers will leave if these attacks continue.
I hope that this gaslighting ends on Tuesday and we can get back to focusing on Westport being the best district that it has already been rated!
Thank you to Lee, Neil, and Tom for making our schools even better! Jobs well done!
The newest Truth social post from Doanld J Trump basically says that DEI and SEl would be removed under him if he were to win presidency and he would have no problem removing and arresting teachers for it. I think he said he was going to come up with a Trump form of Academy of schools. Not extremist at all.. lol.
The fact that anyone thinks DEI causes people to be pro- Hamas is sickening and vile, then again, Moms for Liberty, Fox news, CT Destructive media and all the far right outlets are using that propoganda to get Jews like me to vote Republican.
That is not happening with educated people in Westport.
Ask your Jewish kids if DEI is making them pro Hamas. Ask your kids about DEI in general. It is not an evil machine to make kids into terrorists.
Clarification: Creative Destruction Media not CT. Scroll all through it. Is it extreme? You decide! I would ask my kids to do the same assignment!
1. Why did you put “unaffiliated” in quotes? Jill Dillon, just like over 40% of Westport voters, has always been registered as such. She’s an experienced PTA President. Are you in the business of questioning people’s affiliations and right to run in our elections?
2. I only see Goldstein/Phillips campaigning on the topics that pertain to running the board, as they have been doing for years, leading our schools to top in the country. It is YOUR candidates that own the character assassination approach, not them. We’ve been having to watch Camilo Riano call our board members and teachers “groomers,” “Marxists,” & “indoctrinaters” for the past two years at board meetings. It’s all recorded. Hours of it.
3. You include an unnamed survey about adult support for Hamas. Are you trying to make it seem like those numbers represent Westport students? And are you suggesting that our board members, teachers and administrators were, all this time, sending our children out into the troubled world to support terrorists? That’s a reckless accusation, but even if it were true, it would only point to a need for more of the things you stand against: Social Emotional education and a curriculum that is rich with diversity, equity and inclusion. This is how we teach the empathy we need so badly in today’s world.
4. You and Camilo love to describe in great detail these “graphic depictions of child sex,” and yet you never provide the titles of these books. I do know that a while back when Camilo claimed a teacher was “indoctrinating” kids with a sex video, it turned out to be a clip from the PG Disney movie, The Greatest Showman.”
Luckily in our award-winning school, our students are learning to think for themselves, and are taught to recognize baseless accusations that can’t be qualified. But still… maybe watch what you write. Facts matter.
Donald Trump is getting rid of DEI, great! Another reason to vote for Trump. Look into DEI and SEL parents, before you vote for its proponents. And yes this type of indoctrination is leading to self hating Americans demonstrating against the free state of Israel.
And there you have it folks! A vote for Camilo is the same as the vote foe a twice impeached, vagina grabbing, lying, cheating, bullying, gaslighting, divisive, dictator Facist wanna be insurection leading cult leader!
Trump is not able to be president according to our constitution, let alone remove anything he is against in Westport schools! Our children will stud all these facts!
And I ask Sharon to ask any Jewish kid in Westport schools if DEI turns them anti – Israel.
Enough of the right wing Trumpian propaganda and gaslighting.
As we have seen over and over and over again, Camilo aligns himself with true extremists.
And in the 2024 election I’m sure you will encourage everyone to vote for the Alzheimer patient who has tanked the economy, opened the border to anyone who wants to invade and destabilized the world as dictators perceive our president as the feckless, clueless idiot he is. Good job, with your help we can make Westport equally dysfunctional.
I will be driving home for 4.5 hours on Tuesday to make sure people like Riano and Fitzgerald don’t contaminate our school board.
Of course, Mr. Riano and Ms. Fitzgerald will be at the polls telling all their people not to vote as Mr. Camilo proclaimed quite clearly: ““I think a vote cannot be justified as the democratic way of doing things, because this is not the American way.”
Vote for Lee Goldstein and Neill Phillips and Write-In Candidate Jill Dillon. Thank you, Stephanie Frankel for your courage and graciousness.
Wow. I looked up the definition of graciousness, she ain’t it.