We are living in a polarized country.

Over the past year, we have seen Black Lives Matter, protesters objecting to how black and brown people are treated and Democrats and Republicans at odds.

How are educators helping students and staff navigate America's social ills and treat people of all races with dignity and respect?

Hello, I'm Monica Evans.

- I'm Pastor Phil Davis, senior pastor of the Greater Charlotte Church.

Welcome to Courageous Conversations.

We are broadcasting from the PPL Public Media Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

- Joining us to talk about what's being done in their school districts to bring awareness about the effects of implicit bias and other social ills, please welcome Dr. Joseph Roy, superintendent of the Bethlehem Area School District, and Tracy Piazza, the assistant superintendent of the Easton Area School District.

Thank you both for joining us.

Doctor Roy, tell me this.

What made you think it was important and decide to pull stakeholders from the community, from community members, parents, teachers, administrators, other support staff and students to address this $100 million ordeal?

- So for several years, our district has been engaged in what we call anti-racist work, diversity, equity, inclusion, and, you know, over half of our students are students of color.

And so they have experienced the systemic racism that is pervasive.

And so we want to make sure that when our kids are in school, we are purposely looking to remove as many obstacles for their success.

They face obstacles in society, and we need to be really training ourselves to look at things with an equity lens to make sure our students are able to access all the opportunities we can provide.

- What is the makeup of your administration and is it reflective of the student population?

If not, you know, what plans are in place to really bring that diversity?

And if so, how are you able to achieve that?

- We're not in either level representative of our student population, which, again, is over 50% students of color.

I think you have to look position by position.

And when you are filling positions and interviewing for positions, you have to make an effort to identify candidates of color.

We have promoted some people internally into director of Student Services, director of Grants and Early Childhood Learning.

Recently, we've promoted a number of people or hired into principalships.

But there sometimes we're hiring teachers.

So then we are not diverse enough in our teaching corps.

And then it's great to move people into leadership positions, but then we've reduced the number of teachers of color, so the recruiting challenge is something we're working on.

And it's definitely, definitely a challenge.

- Yeah, yeah.

Tracy, how about yourself?

And I know there's a lot of initiatives that are happening in Easton right now, but has the diversity been able to make it to the higher levels of administration within the district?

- Very similar to what Dr. Roy just said, Easton does not have any administrators of color at our central office level at this time.

That has ebbed and flowed over the last couple of years with one or two people.

But right now, currently, we do not have anyone here at our central office level.

At our principal and assistant principal level, we do have several African-American or non-Caucasian employees, but it certainly does not mirror our student population at all.

Like Bethlehem, we are nearly 50% non-Caucasian in Easton.

- We spoke a couple of days ago about some of the initiatives that your district has started to implement.

Why don't you share that, please?

- Sure.

Absolutely.

So a number of years ago, probably five or six, and really, I think at the impetus of Pastor Phil, quite frankly, the district started a Community Diversity Alliance committee that was open to both district and community partnership to start the conversation around, you know, how do we become more inclusive?

How do we become anti-racist?

How do we increase our population of employees to mirror that of our students?

There were many years, four or so years, where there was a great conversation.

But unfortunately, that did not lead to much action, led to a lot of admiration of the same issues.

But most recently, I would say last year into this year, we do have a new superintendent, Mr. Piperato, who really re-initiated the conversation and put some action teams into place so that the action would be viable.

At this point, we have six action teams that consist of both district employees, community members.

There are a few students that join into those teams as well.

So we have about 130, 140 individuals who work weekly on six different initiatives or six different committees that we have established.

They are the Supports and Opportunity Committee.

That really looks at how do we make sure that every opportunity that is available within our district is available for all people within our district, not just a select audience.

The second one is discipline and policing.

This is a very critical committee, as we know that the nationwide statistics show that students of color, particularly boys, are disciplined far more frequently, usually far more harshly than their non-color peers.

And so one of the things that we really needed to dig deep into is not only national statistics, but certainly the Easton statistics to see does that hold true here in Easton?

And in fact, it does, and then start to uncover the whys around that.

The policing aspect really comes into play when we talk about our district police force, our security force.

How can their role be shaped to be proactive and community police officers as opposed to disciplinarians within the school and to support kids from that proactive stance?

The third one is our Culture and Climate Committee.

That committee is looking at, again, how are our schools run?

How do people feel, both students, staff and community as they are engaging in our school system?

Do they feel welcome?

Does everyone feel like they have a voice and a place?

And so, again, important work happening at that committee.

The third - fourth one excuse me - is our curriculum committee.

That committee is dealing with curriculum across the board.

I believe Pastor Phil joins that committee from time to time.

And obviously the big portion of the work there is to make sure that as we are redeveloping our curriculum, that student perspective, cultural perspective is included in the teaching of whatever topic that may be so that it is not just a European view any longer, that as we're teaching topics, that there are perspectives available for kids to identify with.

Next, we have professional development.

That one not only tries to support the other groups in the work that they're doing and how do we help support our teachers learn their work, but it also is the group that will put together some resources for the community, such as what are the national holidays?

What are some common etiquettes around different cultures that people should be aware of?

What are some common terms and how are they used and defined within the educational system?

But then also deliver professional development for our new staff coming on board annually, so on and so forth.

And the last one is really exactly what you started your conversation today around, the recruitment, the hiring and the retention of employees within the district at all levels, and certainly that group has a lot of work to do in identifying individuals who are interested in working here in the community, in the school district.

We have started a small program really at the grassroots level of trying to mentor our students who express interest in some kind of academic endeavor, whether that be teaching, administration, any of the other fields, and try to mentor them along their way.

So perhaps they come back into Easton to join our ranks.

But those are the six committees that we have working currently.

And then we come together as a community unit of about 45 people.

That's an open door forum that meets once a month to then vet out all the work that is being done, give suggestions and remediations to the work that's happening at the community level.

- When I spoke to you a couple of days ago, I talked about how a lot of organizations have these diversity equity inclusion metrics and they are simply checking the boxes.

I was delighted to hear how you all are drilling down.

You actually had some strategies and some tactics.

And, Dr. Roy, I know that you have some similar programs.

We talked about the resource officers and curriculums.

And one of the things that has happened, I believe, since Covid, virtual learning, has been great.

And so you guys have expanded from the textbook and using more tech books.

Elaborate on that, please.

- When you buy a textbook, it's out of date as soon as you buy it.

If you buy a history textbook...

But with an online program, the resources can be constantly upgraded, updated, and also now the major publishers, and we've been using Discovery Education, include very large amounts of multicultural materials.

Tracy's talking about trying to build in different perspectives than the traditional Western European perspective.

The resources are there now.

So the challenge used to be where can I find these resources, because they weren't being produced.

Now we have them.

Now they work really and say, OK, in our existing... And we're focusing specifically on American history and also on literature.

But in American history, thinking about that, you know, what are we not doing that is available to us that we need to build into the curriculum?

I want to see not isolated events taught, you know, so we learn about Rosa Parks, then we learn about Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech when you go back farther in it.

I want to see a continuous thread through our curriculum that shows this is the work of our country over time and that's been going backwards and forwards up until what we saw recently with the insurrection.

that there's a thread through history that kids understand.

So when they graduate, they're better positioned to be citizens that understand the history of race and disparities in our country.

- What types of training and education are you bringing to your teachers?

Because even if you change the curriculum, if the teachers have not dealt with their own implicit bias, it's still going to get filtered through their experience.

How are you addressing that?

And if you're doing implicit bias training with s of that nature, are you utilizing people from the minority community to do it?

Because one of the challenges that I had for EA was, hey, it's great that you're going to do this implicit bias training, but you should have a brown person doing it because the lens is much different when being presented.

Can you kind of talk a little bit about that and how that's being approached?

- So first of all, I think it has to start at the top with a clear message from the superintendent or, in business, the CEO, that this is a commitment to equity.

And again, we purposely use the phrase anti-racism because we're challenging people to look for those things that are in our system that have inequitable outcomes or create inequitable opportunities or outcomes.

So the message from the top is important.

Then your leadership people.

If your principals aren't able to speak the language of diversity, equity, inclusion, that's a problem, so we spend time monthly with our principals.

And we've done longer trainings, but we spend time at our monthly meetings challenging principals, you know, stimulating dialogues and helping principals grow because they then need to be more comfortable in handling the issue at their school level.

Internally, Dr. Vivian Robledo is our director of Student Services and Minority Affairs.

She's really the lead on doing the training and brings those experience.

She's a person of color, grew up in Bethlehem, went to Bethlehem schools, has her doctorate now in studying these issues.

She's kind of our in-house expert to plan and to push out the trainings that we do.

I think it's got to be ongoing.

Like, you can't take your foot off the gas and let a school year go by.

Like, this would be a perfect example of a school year.

Lord knows, we have enough other issues to deal with right now with Covid, but we still need to continue the conversations.

Short, ongoing conversations are more effective, in my mind, than bringing in a trainer for a big full day training.

So one of the things we're working on, in fact, we're in conversations with PBS39 about this, is to produce videos that people are just telling their story.

You need to hear other people's stories, kids, parents, community members.

We've done a few and Vivian, Dr. Robledo's titling it Can You Hear Me Now?

And we want to do these short snippets of videos, people telling their story and then with conversation starters so we can help people.

When you talk about implicit bias, a lot of it is you don't know what you don't know and you assume that other people's experiences are similar to yours.

So if you listen and learn about other people's experiences, that's where I've seen the biggest impact, Pastor, when we have people, kind of the light bulb goes off like, oh, wow, I never realized that's something that these kids, you know, this kid or that kid or this family has to think about and worry about.

And in my experience with our teachers, once the light bulb goes off, then there's a lot more intrinsic motivation, like, geez, I need to learn more.

I would be really happy with our faculty this summer, with the events of the summer, with the social justice protests, that there was a lot of teachers reaching out, saying, OK, I need to know more about this.

Where can I learn more?

And we're providing materials and resources.

And that's where I felt good.

Now, of course, not everybody, but I feel good about people feeling internally motivated like, geez, I need to know more about this.

Once you hit that, then you start to get some momentum.

- That's a wonderful thing.

It is.

You touched on about people not knowing what they don't know.

I often think about checking a box that says African-American.

I cannot link my lineage to Africa.

So I don't feel like I'm an African-American.

Black, yes, but not an African-American.

I am far more Jamaican than I am black African-American.

- Yeah.

- And I think those little nuances mean a lot, and particularly to students because they want to fit in.

You know, no one wants to be the outsider.

Everybody wants to acclimate.

Tell me this.

What are you doing in your district to involve students in this process?

- For me, I'll answer that.

We are we have two social justice clubs, one at each high school, and we're involving those students in making the videos because they are the most engaged, you know, and stepping forward.

So we wanted to start with them and then build out from there.

So Dr. Robledo works with both high schools in trying to pull those students in to help our thinking on how to push forward with these conversations.

If I could just also quickly, because you mentioned that piece about African-American versus black American, we also pay a lot of attention to that with our Hispanic students, right, the Latino students.

That is a broad, comprehensive word that brings in.

And that's not how the kids or their families see themselves.

They see themselves as Dominicans or Puerto Ricans or so forth.

And so we have to be aware of that when we're working with groups, too.

It's not just paint all Latino kids with the same brush.

Their backgrounds within the community, the countries that they are from, really makes a difference.

So we have to understand that, too.

And that is something that you need to learn.

It's not that you automatically understand that.

- One of the challenges that I think I heard you mention was dealing with curriculum.

This can be for either one of you.

The implicit bias is baked into the foundation of our country, white supremacy, white superiority, essentially.

And in our textbooks, we did a show on the whitewashing education of and were able to identify significant areas of deletion and exclusion in the creation of curriculum.

If you're going to rework the curriculum, will it be kind of K through 12?

Because we know that by the time a child gets into school, they've already developed a bias.

Do you think it's important to begin that at the kindergarten level, maybe the preschool level, to ensure that there is inclusion and equity even in the curriculum?

Tracy, why don't you begin?

- Sure, absolutely we believe that.

And as we are rewriting our curriculum, that is a K to 12 adventure, or venture, I should say.

We are very, very cognizant of the fact that we need to start young.

We are very cognizant of the fact that there needs to be a scaffold from K to 12 and a vertical alignment so that topics are not repeated but are enhanced as they go up through the years of their educational system.

So that is very important to us.

The teams that will be brought together for that will certainly include teachers, administrators, some students at our upper levels as well, supporting some of that learning.

And we're not there yet, but we certainly will look to have some community feedback within our committees that I mentioned and even parent feedback as we're rolling this out.

This is new, we are starting a new five year cycle for us.

So that is very important, as is, of course, the perspective and the voice of all of our students to the best of our ability to be included in those curriculum rewrites.

- I also think about all the other folks, the other employees in school districts that have an impact on your life.

I think about the custodians.

- Bus drivers.

- I was just going to say that, bus drivers.

- Cafeteria ladies.

- They all have an impact.

And I can remember my children, my daughter in particular wanted to do something for her bus driver.

I never knew that a custodian, I knew his first name is Bob because I was a Girl Scout leader and I met with my troop in the elementary school.

They called him Mr. J. I thought his last name began with J, but they called him Mr. J for janitor.

But he was the most loving and embracive man.

Are you guys communicating the same information to bus drivers, your custodial staff, your office support and lunch ladies?

Because they're the ones that are flashing the lights and saying, hey, guys, you need to eat, I'll talk to your mom.

Are they getting the same message?

Because they have touch points with all of the students.

- Yeah, that's a great point.

You know, half of our employees are teachers, the other half are not.

So when you take the entire operation into...

So, yeah.

So we've done trauma-informed schools training, trauma-informed awareness.

We've included the support people as well.

We've done specific trainings with bus drivers in particular because, you know, they're the first people the kids see and the last people they see at the end of the day.

They play a critical role.

Also, we have a more diverse employee pool in those departments in our district as well.

So that actually is helpful in engaging our diverse students.

But yeah, they play a key part.

I always say we need a child to make a connection with at least one adult, hopefully more, but at least one adult in the school.

And that could be the lunch lady, that could be the custodian at school that is always there to help people.

So you're right, that's easy to overlook because we talk about teachers, teachers, teachers on this.

But half the people are not teachers.

And so it's a great point that you make.

- And kids need to see kids that look like them.

It helps them dream.

It gives them possibilities.

- If I could get mentioned just on the curriculum, but that point about kids need to see people that look like them, that is one of the advantages.

The curriculum that we use today, and I'm thinking and I know Easton uses the same literacy curriculum, Wonders, tons of resources.

But you see when you're reading them, there are families of color, there are diverse families, diverse families with stepchildren and stepbrothers and -sisters.

So much, much, much more today than ever before.

When our kids are reading the materials, reading in early literacy in our elementary schools, they are seeing families and kids that look like them.

And that's a big change.

- Often, and please correct me if I'm wrong, students who are selected for gifted programming tend to be white students.

What are you doing in both of your districts to reach kids of color, to urge them to participate in those advanced classes?

I'll start with you, Tracy.

- Sure, that is absolutely true.

Most of our students who are in our gifted program or our AP programs tend to be Caucasian students.

And that comes into one of those areas that I talked about, that support and opportunities - do all kids have opportunities to be part of, you know, part of any portion of our educational system that they so choose.

A couple of things that are happening.

One is we started to... D level, if you will, our secondary schools so that there are less tracks where kids don't get pigeonholed in based off of their zip code or assumptions, that they have an opportunity to select the curriculum pathway that they so choose.

We do evaluate our students in second grade, trying to capture students that may not have been identified by their parents or their teachers of having some giftedness.

So we do a universal screening in second grade trying to, you know, also find people through that forum.

- That's amazing, that you're starting in second grade.

That's awesome.

Dr. Roy, what are you doing in your district to reach young people who are gifted and talented?

- So, looking at looking at students in a broader way, because I think teachers can have a conception of the gifted student, and that may not be the profile of a student who's coming from a difficult situation at home.

And no, he doesn't have a pencil every day and no, maybe his homework isn't completed every day, but the student has some real talent.

And so we have to make sure we're looking at beyond the surface and getting to the talents of the students.

And there are screeners and assessments for doing that.

But you have to make sure that they don't have their own built-In biases, these screeners that you can buy.

So we've identified some tools that we think will help us get past that piece.

But it's a big issue.

- It sounds like you guys are taking the bull by the horns and doing some really great work.

Dr. Roy and Ms Piazza, thank you both for taking the time to join us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- There are many people in the Lehigh Valley doing courageous work to engage and enhance the lives of others, and we would like to put them in the spotlight.

If you would like to highlight the courageous work of someone in your community, let us know by going to PBS39.org/courageous.

We would love to hear your suggestions.

- I have a little news flash that I'd like to share.

Today is my final broadcast at Lehigh Valley Public Media.

I've decided to resign, to spend more time with my family.

I have truly enjoyed my time here at PBS39, from working with Jim Deegan, managing the news team and helping reporters hone their craft, to working with this outstanding production crew under the direction of Javier Diaz.

It has been a great ride.

I've had the pleasure of producing and hosting live debates, live hour-long community conversations right here in the studio and in schools and colleges with the energy of a live audience.

I truly miss that.

We have also broadcast live from Washington, DC., turning a hotel suite into a studio when Susan Wild was elected as the first woman to represent the Lehigh Valley in Congress.

I want to say to all of my PBS39 colleagues from membership, marketing, education, content, production, engineering and radio, and I hope I have not forgotten anyone.

It has been a pleasure working with you all.

And to our viewers, I want to thank you for allowing me to come into your home to help you understand how issues and events affect your lives.

I'm happy to announce that Courageous Conversation will continue.

And, Pastor Phil, are you ready to take on the helm?

- I am.

And let me just say, Monica, thank you for working with me, not being a TV person.

Your professionalism, your commitment to journalistic integrity, your friendship, the laughter, all of it has been great and you will be sorely missed here.

But I'm confident that we'll be able to carry on the show and continue to produce content that's going to be relevant, empowering and inspiring.

Thank you.

- That is the key.

I think this is a great opportunity to help to give people a platform, people who don't normally have the opportunity to speak their truth.

- Underrepresented.

And so we want to be a voice to the voiceless in some ways.

- I think it's going to be great and I'm delighted to know that it will continue.

- Thank you for all you've done.

Thank you so much.

- Oh, it's been fun.

It's been fun.

All the best to you with this program.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Well, on behalf of Monica Evans, myself and everyone here at PBS39, make sure you stick around for Counter Culture with Grover Silcox.

His show is straight ahead.

I'm Pastor Phillip Davis.

And once again, on behalf of Monica Evans and everyone here at PBS39, thanks for watching.