Brookline Schools Eliminate Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Office, But Could METCO Funding From State Save It?

The Brookline School Committee plans to eliminate its two diversity-equity-inclusion administrators to save money amid budget cuts, but supporters are trying to raise money from private sources and eventually from the state’s racial-integration program to keep the services going..The decision to eliminate the public school district’s Office of Educational Equity in this left-leaning town -- it voted 83 percent to 12 percent for Kamala Harris in November 2024 -- has critics fuming, with some saying it amounts to surrendering to President Donald Trump.One Brookline teacher said that the diversity-equity-inclusion administrators have helped her along what she called “my anti-racist journey.”“The lessons they have taught me have been invaluable in my own ability to teach and grow all my students in the classroom, regardless of their background, said Lara Miller, a seventh-grade teacher at the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade Lawrence School in Brookline, during public comment period of the school committee meeting Thursday, March 13. "Additionally, with the anti-DEI initiative that the current Trump administration is pushing throughout this country, we would be capitulating to his administration by cutting this office and these positions from our district.”She cited Timothy Snyder’s 2017 book 20 Lessons For Fighting Tyranny to the effect that “the first step to resist authoritative rule is to not obey in advance.”“If we cut this department, we are obeying in advance,” she said.She said more than 110 teachers had signed a letter expressing similar views. Close VoteLater that night, the school committee, an elected board that oversees the town’s public schools and sets its budget, voted 5-4 to eliminate the school district’s Office of Educational Equity. That vote and a related vote eliminating services that depend on the administrators would save a little more than $400,000 in the school district’s budget, which school officials say currently has a gap of several million dollars between the amount they say they need and the amount they’re likely to get from the town government.Committee members who voted to eliminate the office said they value its work but can’t justify keeping the diversity-equity-and-inclusion administrators at the expense of academic subjects.Valerie Frias, a school committee member, criticized Trump and praised diversity-equity-and-inclusion, but she said certain educational services must come first.“I don't disagree that at the federal level in particular, we're seeing horrific, horrific policies and decisions hourly by tweet or whatever it's called now. At the same time I think that our students and our staff are best served in the buildings with programs like Steps to Success, The Calculus Project, Tutorial, Scholars, Metco, ACE,” Frias said.Below is a description of the school services Frias said she values over the Office of Educational Equity: Steps to Success offers extended learning and other services to students from low-income families beginning in third grade.The Calculus Project tries to counteract historical underachievement in math among African-Americans, Latinos, and low-income students by putting them on a track to take calculus their senior year in high school by offering them extra coursework and tutoring in math starting in seventh grade.Brookline Tutorial offers academic support in particular subjects for students in grades 10 through 12 four times a week, with an eye to helping students “identify specific goals for improving academic performance” and “receive individual guidance in developing effective study strategies.”The African American and Latino Scholars Program offers a seminar “for self-identifying students of color” at Brookline High School, “with a curriculum that explores themes relevant to the experiences of black and brown people in the world, the United States, and in Boston” and which includes “field trips,” “host speakers,” “college counseling,” and “community gatherings.”METCO – formally called the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity – is a voluntary racial desegregation program founded in 1966 that provides state funding to enable students in the city of Boston to attend public schools in more affluent towns outside of Boston, including Brookline. Most high schools in towns outside Boston outperform Boston public schools academically and in extracurricular activities.ACE is a selective program that offers students the chance to take core academic subjects (including English, math, history, and science) in small classes that emphasize “experiential learning” that enable students to “Demonstrate knowledge rather than memorize it,” according to its web landing page. If the Brookline School Committee’s cuts stand, the diversity-equity-inclusion administrators would keep their jobs for the current school year but lose them in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.Currently, the assistant head of the Office of Educational Equity trains teachers who serve as “equity leads,” who then train other teachers. The school district has 12 “equity leads” at a total cost of $24,000 this school year.School Committee member Helen Charlupski asked during the March 13 meeting why the initial superintendent’s proposed budget for next school year called for 22 “equity leads” when the school district has only 12 this school year.The superintendent of schools, Linus Guillory, said the original plan for this school year was to have 22, but the school district could only get 12.“So not for lack of funding it was lack of people who wanted to do it?” school committee chairman Andy Liu said.“That were able to commit to it at that time,” superintendent Guillory said.After cutting the director and assistant director of the Office of Educational Equity, the school committee also voted to cut the extra pay for “equity leads,” since there won’t be anybody to oversee the program and see to the training. Private Donations, Followed By METCO?Even though the diversity-equity-and-inclusion office has lost its school district funding, though, there is a movement to save it by raising money from other sources.Toward the end of the school committee meeting on Thursday, March 20, Jodi Fortuna, the school district's deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, offered committee members offered what she called a “very exciting update” centering on a private nonprofit organization called the Brookline Community Foundation, which raises money to “remove barriers to opportunity and equity in our community.”“A coalition of groups in town being coordinated by the Brookline Community Foundation has come together and is working to raise funds to fund the position of assistant director of the Office of Educational Equity, the equity leads, and the supplies for the office. So they've so far -- we just got an email -- have raised another $20,000. So they've raised $85,000 towards their total of $205,000, approximately $205,000,” Fortuna said.“I just wanted the community to be aware that this was ongoing work that members of our community are taking on because of something that they value,” she said.Liu, the school committee chairman, said he understands that the Brookline school district may eventually be able to use a portion of the METCO grant it gets from the state to pay for the positions.“So, any school committee action on this would be, I suppose it would be a grant acceptance eventually if it came through. My understanding is that this is going ahead in the expectation that we would eventually take over funding the positions through the METCO grant,” Liu said.“Yes,” Fortuna said. “And the reason this is an allowable expense on the METCO grant is because the METCO grant is for funding anything that has to do with equity and our METCO students.”Brookline is a town of about 63,000 nearly surrounded by the city of Boston.Brookline’s METCO program serves 303 students, including 215 in kindergarten through eighth grade and 88 in grades 9 through 12, and currently employs 14 staff members, according to a school budget presentation to the Brookline Finance Committee on February 16.METCO serves about 3,100 students from Boston in 33 school districts in towns outside Boston, according to its web site.Brookline.News, an online news outlet that covers Brookline, reported the diversity-equity-and-inclusion budget cuts in mid-March and reported the current private attempts to save the Office of Educational Equity last week.

Brookline Schools Eliminate Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Office, But Could METCO Funding From State Save It?

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