Calvert’s public school administrators didn’t have a lot of editorial changes to some of the system’s provocative policies, but the ones they did have Aug. 8 yielded feedback from the board of education.
The school system’s hiring policy was originally presented to the board for discussion by Zachary Seawell, human resources director, with no recommended changes. However, when the board reviewed the policy in July, the board members requested that the purpose of the policy contain an assurance that in addition to being fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory, it also be “consistent” and mandate “security measures.”
Seawell said the hiring process policy will also reflect the use of a “thorough pre-employment security screening” for prospective employees.
Antoine White, board president, noted the proposed hiring policy had been posted on the school system’s website for public review and could be voted on for approval.
Board member Dawn Balinski made a motion to accept the policy as written and the motion received a second.
However, school board member Inez Claggett, who did not attend the July meeting, found fault with the policy’s definition of discrimination.
As presented, discrimination is defined as “unfair and unequal treatment, prejudice, inequality, intolerance of an individual or group based on certain legally protected characteristics and/or membership in a particular group or class, and/or harassment.”
Claggett wanted “membership in a particular group or class” removed from the definition.
“We need to be careful in how we define discrimination in our policy,” Claggett said.
Susan Johnson, chief operations officer, noted the wording does match the school system’s current discrimination policy.
Claggett wanted to send the hiring policy back out for additional review.
Board member Lisa Grenis suggested an attorney review the policy.
However, it was revealed to the board that only school system staff reviews the policies and there is no attorney on retainer for such a review.
Seeing it was clearly the majority’s desire for further review, even Balinski voted opposed to her motion to approve.
“It will go back for review,” White said. “We’ll come up with the proper verbiage for that.”
Grenis wanted a segment of the system’s equity policy to be changed to reword “eliminating achievement gaps” to “addressing achievement gaps. You can eliminate an achievement gap by lowering standards. By lowering the expectations. That’s not what we want to do.”
Under the “guidelines” segment of the policy, it states “the employment, retention, recruiting and placement of persons from underrepresented groups.”
Grenis said she wanted to add, “provided they are the most qualified.”
Margo Gross, equity supervisor, said that portion of the policy “is heavily aligned” with the code of Maryland.
“We need to be careful not to sacrifice talent for diversity,” Grenis said. “We want diversity. It needs to be the most qualified candidates we can get.”
“I think we can achieve attracting most qualified through other methods,” Claggett said.
“Our hiring objective is to hire the most-qualified people,” Balinski said. “That’s a given. What this is saying is we need to add diversity to that already high quality hiring.”
Grenis made a motion to included her “most-qualified” caveat.
The motion failed 3 to 1.
“I don’t believe that this policy is telling staff when they have a choice to choose one over the other based on what underrepresented group they may belong to,” Claggett said after the vote was taken.
“I guess I don’t see it as a given and I’m afraid we could sacrifice a highly talented candidate in the name of diversity,” Grenis replied.
The proposed amended policy will now be available for public review for 30 days.
Most Popular
Comments / 0