School looks to start committee on racism

Jun 17, 2019

Following a presentation on racism at a May 22 school committee meeting, the school will start a new subcommittee to address the issue.

The committee will kick off June 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the conference room next to Superintendent Doug White’s office for anyone who would like to discuss the issue and to determine the direction of the subcommittee

Barbara Sullivan, former long-time director of the Wareham Boys and Girls Club and Danielle Lopes, a community mother and teacher in Fairhaven, detailed experiences that their children or grandchildren had in the school system that made them uncomfortable for racial reasons.

School committee members felt the impact of the presentation, and resolved to follow up and take action on the issues that the two raised, most immediately by having school committee chair Cary Humphrey talk with Sullivan

Humphrey expressed a desire to have the subcommittee come out of the joint school committee, since that committee has residents from all three towns and also includes the elementary school, where Sullivan and Lopes said there were also observed instances of racism.