School committee responds to comments on ‘Wheel of Power’ teaching tool

MANCHESTER, NH – Concerns were expressed during public comment at Monday night’s school board meeting about a professional development worksheet called “the Wheel of Power,”  and school board members were quick to respond to those concerns once public comment concluded.

The worksheet, also known as “the Wheel of Power and Privilege,” was created by Sylvia Duckworth of the Canadian Council of Refugees to visualize different subsets of people closer and further away to power and privilege that can create unintentional “microaggressions” and destabilize social interactions between people occupying different tiers of privilege in society.

Following the professional development workshop where the worksheet appeared, which took place at McLaughlin Middle School, Manchester resident Camille Craffey sent an e-mail on April 26 to Ward 6 BOSC Member Dan Bergeron and close-copied a list of 157 people appearing to be other local and state elected officials, members of the media and representatives of local, state and federal government agencies.

In that e-mail, Craffey called for a response regarding to the worksheet as well as a separate e-mail by district staff advising participants within the workshop that the contents of the workshop were not meant to be shared with the general public. While McLaughlin Middle School is located within Ward 6, it is not mentioned in the email if Bergeron played any role regarding the workshop. It is also unclear why Craffey did not address the e-mail to the two at-large BOSC Members that represent Ward 6 and the rest of the city, or the BOSC members from Ward 2, 3, 4,5, and 7 as students from those wards also attend McLaughlin. It is also unclear from the e-mails if the materials from the worksheet were ever eventually integrated into any lesson plans.

Craffey sent another e-mail to Manchester School District Superintendent Dr. Jenn Chmiel referencing the first e-mail and issuing a right-to-know request regarding details on the worksheet.

On Monday, Craffey referenced the e-mails and lack of information from the district in her public comments.

“Let me just say this: my son is six years old and I have always taught him that anyone who asks you to lie to your parents is not a good person and is a bad person. We call that a predator. So asking children in a classroom to keep what they’ve been taught by teachers is predatory and grooming behavior,” she said.  “If there’s nothing to hide, why are you hiding it? Speak to the parents. It’s the law.”

Craffey was one of several people testifying in opposition to the worksheet, but others that participated during public comment shared the need for the school district to engage in diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI efforts. One of those speakers was Sarah Georges, daughter of former school board member Mary Ngwanda Georges.

Georges followed her mother’s comments and shared her experiences growing up as the only Black student in her grade school class.

“Yes, racism is a thing, but our children are going to grow up in a world where they need to know where it’s not okay to call a Black woman aggressive or say she is attacking you when she simply talked to you in a loud voice. It’s not okay to say things like that because one day they’re going to be put in a position where someone who is going to look like me or someone who is Hispanic or someone who looks not like them and they’re going to say something like this,” Georges said, underscoring the need to include open discussion in the classroom about understanding our differences. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

Members of the board responded with the uniform view that the school district needs to support all students regardless of their background, with different members of the board providing different perspectives on what was said during public comment.

Ward 8 BOSC Member Jess Spillers said that the wheel was not used in a class and when combined with class materials, can help self-reflection and challenge social assumptions.

Ward 7 BOSC Member Chris Potter said that DEI initiatives, especially those focusing on equity, are essential to giving each student what they need to be successful.

“We could no more walk away from equity than shut this district down,” said Potter.

Vice Chair Jim O’Connell said that he supports the district’s teachers and referring to the educator leading the professional development workshop as engaging in “grooming” was beyond unacceptable and potentially in violation of the board’s rules and state public meeting laws

However, O’Connell said he appreciated the discussion on the issue, as did Ward 9 BOSC Member Bob Baines, who shared examples of racism he heard during his tenure as an educator in Manchester, including one instance where another teacher told a student that “he should go back to Puerto Rico.” Baines felt that it was important to hold a forum on the topic of racism given the district’s ever growing diversity.

“We have to create an understanding of where people come from, that’s how you create a community,” he said.

Baines also stated that information from the workshop should be available to the public, something that At-Large BOSC Member Peter Argeropoulos stated as well. Chmiel said the materials were targeted toward adult learners, but Argeropoulos asked if it was appropriate to spend time on any information in professional development that could not be shared. He also voiced frustration about confusion related to the materials themselves as well as how that confusion distracts from the positive things the district is achieving.

“When we have these conversations to fix these mistakes, we need to make sure they are based on what’s actually happening,” he said.