At Monday’s meeting, Milford School District’s Board of Education rescinded policy 6103 regarding “controversial subjects.” The policy had garnered negative public reaction when it was proposed in the summer of 2024, leading the district to table the matter until a task force could review it. The task force completed the review in December and a revised policy was presented for discussion at the meeting on Monday.
“We did not present this tonight for a review,” Dr. Kelly Carvajal Hageman, Chief Academic Officer, said. “This is really because the community wanted an update. We formed a committee that involved individuals across the Milford School District community, which was not an approval body, but served as a group of individuals representing a variety of perspectives.”
The committee consisted of Rene Diaz, Jennifer Massotti, Greer Stangl, Ryan McNulty, Stephanie Short, Jean Wylie, Briane Clarke, Yanelle Powell, Trish Marvel, Kimberly Webb and Matt Faulkner. Carvajal Hageman began by saying the “committee’s core belief was the foundation of excellence is rooted in an academically rigorous curriculum, supportive instruction and high expectations for each learner,” which was part of the district’s strategic plan. Before the presentation, during the public comment period of the meeting, several people spoke out for and against the policy.
“My concern about policy 6103 is that it is vaguely written and saying that almost anything could be considered a controversial policy,” Maynard Gregory said. “Now, what I feel and what I have heard is that you wouldn’t be allowed to have a Black Lives Matter banner in the school and another that you couldn’t have a gay pride flag. I have concerns about that because both of these items are helping people communicate that they do, indeed, matter.”
Gregory suggested that not allowing students to talk about LGBTQ matters sent the message to students in that community that they are not important, leading to psychological problems. He pointed out that the board could take a lesson from Lulu Ross Elementary School where the meeting was held.
“If you go right down this hall, you will see a big thing talking about the word inclusion,” Gregory said. “Last spring, they had a festival where Hispanic children could bring the flag of their country, and it showed students that they are all valued and welcome.”
Those who felt the policy should remain pointed out that children were not allowed to discuss religion in schools, questioning why other personal decisions should be permitted.
“I’m here because a school is a place for teaching, for learning, that’s what I want my tax dollars spent on,” Barbara Lister said. “English, arithmetic, science, history, that is what I want to see. That’s what I want them to come home and tell me they learned. There are other things that should be discussed with parents and not other people. Teachers are there to educate.”
Shea Parks, who graduated from Milford High School and now teaches there, spoke out against the policy.
“All the community members did a fantastic job last summer of articulating their concerns and I’m glad the board listened and had the committee created to adjust the policy,” Parks said. “I was incredibly disappointed an exasperated with the board documents were published and the revised policy is the original policy.”
Parks continued, pointing out that one section of the policy was the same used by a school district in Idaho that required a sixth-grade history teacher to remove two signs from her classroom. One read “Everyone is welcome here.” The second read “Everyone in this classroom is important, welcome and accepted.”
“These are statements we as teachers want all students to feel, but because those signs had coloring that could have been interpreted another way, the teacher was required to take them down,” Parks said. “So, my concern is that although these policies sound great and should make students feel more welcome or safe, they can actually be utilized by those who mean to do harm.”
After the presentation of the proposed policy, board vice-president Matt Bucher commented that the original policy was so old and so incredibly vague, it had never been enforced. In his opinion, the policy didn’t need to be changed but felt it important to allow a committee created from the Milford community to come up with a revised version.
“This policy, written by a committee, in good faith, by people, and I recognize almost all those names, all across the ideological spectrum, and that is the type of policy that a committee made up of reasonable people would come to a similar conclusion,” Bucher said. “It’s exactly what you would expect good, solid citizens to come up with.”
Bucher continued, stating that the board was required to not only look at what reasonable people would feel is appropriate, but also passed legal oversight.
“We have to look beyond what reasonable people would do because we have to watch out for unreasonable people,” Bucher said. “Therefore, the standard for policy is it might incur any type of controversy to be eminently legally defensive. The vagueness of the policy precludes that as being a successful board policy at all.”
Bucher then made a motion to make both the original and updated policy action items. Once that passed unanimously, he motioned to waive the need for a first read of the two policies which would allow discussion that evening and a vote. After that passed unanimously, Bucher made a final motion.
“The reason I did that was to clear the way for this final motion to delete the existing policy 6103 as written in our board documents,” Bucher said. “I will volunteer that eventually, we need to have some sort of replacement that is more to the point, without the vagueness and the room for making a legal error, but that is not our business tonight. Our business I suggest is to simply delete the existing policy which is not suitable to our needs as a district.”
The motion passed unanimously.
“I would like to thank the committee that spent their time working on this,” Bucher said. “I appreciate it. I would also like to reiterate that it was an important, valuable piece of research, particularly given, as I said, the widespread ideological view of the members. They did a fantastic job, and we would not have been able to come to a conclusion tonight without it. They’re important and we’ve been able to learn a lot of good things because of their work.”
