To The Editor:

The article you posted regarding the BOE meeting and the Special Committee, written by Linda Conner Lambeck, misses the point of the objection to TEAM’s influence in our schools.

The article mentions only the essay contests. The larger issue is the tremendous influence TEAM, whose members may not even have ANY students in our public schools, has in our schools, and the fact that its interests and methods contravene the views of many of the parents who DO have children in our schools. We feel that it is the parents’ views that should predominate.

The issue that many parents have with TEAM is that it is dictating policies to the school that conflict and cancel out our views, and that it uses every opportunity to cancel us and make sure that our views are not heard. For example, when Staples appointed a representative to the DEI Committee, TEAM allies, who constitute the DEI Committee, had that person removed because it disagreed with her views. In another act of cancellation, TEAM wrote a motion for the BOS to adopt at its Oct 13, 2021, meeting that denounced all those who do not share TEAM’s views, which it a priori deems racist and divisive.

In another act of cancellation, it encouraged the Library to cancel an event we had negotiated for two months to present because it declined to debate the speaker, Ian Rowe, a Black academic founder of charter schools who had experience with NYT Metro, the firm conducting our Equity Study. TEAM  plays the race card at every opportunity in order to disparage those with who it disagrees, while asserting that it wants to dialogue. Is it any wonder that parents are angry about its influence, when it is our kids that are in the schools, and not theirs!

These points should have been included in the article in order to better educate the public regarding why many parents are pushing back.

Respectfully,

Anne Alcyone