EWSD — Communism, “promoting trans-lifestyle” and sexualization of Kindergarteners were three claims made about Essex Middle School curriculum that were included on a flyer an EWSD father distributed to parents during pick-up time.
After her sister came home crying about the effect the flyer had, EHS senior Hannah turned to the school board.
“I want to know what the district is doing to protect the LGBTQIA community and…Not allow middle schoolers to come home crying because they see how upset some of their friends are because of parents and adults in the district trying to restrict her friends' ability to express themselves,” she said at a Nov. 1 school board meeting.
Eighth graders at EMS are learning about the U.S. Constitution this year, and when several classroom teachers selected "The 57 Bus" as the coordinated social studies reading material, Ray Piche's son came home upset.
Piche did not believe the reading material should be used for a Constitution lesson plan and reached out to the school with his complaint.
When his concerns were not heard, Piche printed out flyers that included politicized buzzwords to catch the attention of EMS parents, encouraging them to read the book. Parents, district administrators, the school board and the older sister of an EMS student made it clear: transphobic messages are not welcome in EWSD.
The flyer created by Ray Piche sits in the car seat of an EMS parent. This image was edited to remove Piche's email.
Before handing out the flyers
Ray Piche handed out the flyers after his son came home upset that his Essex Middle School teacher Laura Pratt assigned “The 57 Bus,” a nonfiction book by Dashka Slater about Sasha Fleischmanan, an agender teen with Asperger's Syndrome, who was set on fire in 2013. The book discusses race, class, gender and crime through the lens of the true story.
Piche said he never meant for the conversation to become about LGBTQ+ rights. His main issue is he feels the selected reading has nothing to do with the U.S Constitution.
“It's not an anti-gay thing or LGBQ. I have no issues with people and their choices on who they love or how they feel,” Piche said to the Reporter. “I did use that [language] as a hook to try to get people to listen to the book.”
If the book was selected for an English class instead of social studies, Piche said he would feel differently about the content being discussed in the classroom, but he still feels it’s too mature for eighth graders and is better suited for seniors in high school.
“Eighth grade is not where you have a philosophical debate on genders or justice versus what's right,” he said. “It's not an age appropriate discussion and it definitely has nothing to do with what their curriculum is supposed to be for this grade.”
Piche said he reached out to the school three times the week after his son told him about the reading in an attempt to discuss his issues with the curriculum and said he received no response. Piche then decided to print out flyers and give them to the parents.
EMS principal Kevin Briggs told the Reporter he only received two emails from Piche with his concerns about the use of “The 57 Bus” in the social studies class.
The Flyers
While parents of EMS students waited for the children in the student pick-up line on Oct. 25, Piche walked down the line with a stack of flyers in hand. He received a mixed response from parents with one mother extremely upset and others more receptive.
“Know what your kids are learning,” Piche’s flyer states at the top. “Main character Sasha talks about how great communism and Russia is. Wants a hammer and sickle flag. Next 40 minutes is just promoting trans lifestyle. At the 2 min 30 sec mark of chapters 16-26 on YouTube promotes sexualization and gender identities of Kindergarteners.”
The text covered during the two minute and thirty second mark of “The 57 Bus” reading referred to as “promoting sexualization and gender identities of kindergarteners” by Piche, is a teacher replacing the separate boys and girls sign-in lists with A-M and N-Z lists.
Throughout the book, Sasha is described as being “obsessed with everything having to do with Russia and communism.” They chose the name Sasha because it’s a Russian nickname for both Alexandra and Alexander, and for their sixteenth birthday they asked for a Soviet flag, which they recreated with cardboard when they did not receive one.
Sasha’s obsession with Russia is used as more of a character description than a general theme throughout the book. The word “Russia” is only mentioned nine times in the 320 pages, two of those instances were used to discuss the Russian literature course they were taking.
In the flyer, Piche asks parents to listen to the book on YouTube and reach out to him with their thoughts.
“If you think I’m out of touch, please let me know as I want to be open minded,” the flyer states. “If you agree, please give me suggestions on the next step as complaints to school fall on deaf ears.”
Response
In the days following his flyer distribution, Piche said he received about six emails from parents who read his flyer, which he said could be categorized on a wide range of support and opposition. One anonymous email Piche felt was written just to insult him. Another sender compared teachers to molesters, which Piche disagrees with.
On Oct. 26, the day after Piche handed out the flyers, he was able to sit down with EMS principal Kevin Briggs, who then sent him an email Oct. 27 to answer the questions asked by Piche in the meeting.
An email sent to Ray Piche from EMS principal Kevin Briggs details his response to Piche's questions and concerns Oct. 27.
“We are trying to connect the Constitution to real life experience,” Briggs wrote in an email to Piche. “What do we mean when we say ‘domestic tranquility,’ ‘promote the general welfare,’ ‘establish justice,’ etc…?”
Sasha Fleischmanan’s story is an example of a traumatic crisis that was dealt with through the American legal system no matter who Fleischmanan was, he said. It’s an example of the Constitution at work.
“‘The 57 Bus’ is written for 7th-9th graders to understand trans youth issues,” Erin Maguire, EWSD director of equity and inclusion told the Reporter.
The EWSD curriculum is designed with a balance of what the district expects and what they allow for the teachers to decide for themselves, Maguire said. EWSD’s equity policy calls on the district to include trans youth across the curriculum, which Maguire said the district reminded parents is something they need to expect from EWSD schools.
“We've done training for all of our teachers around auditing their curriculum, or through an equity lens…Teachers have a fair amount of autonomy and what they choose, you know, we pay them a lot to have that skill,” Maguire said.
After Piche’s flyers were handed out, the district responded to individual complaints, communicated with faculty and sent a letter to the EMS parent email listserv.
An email sent to EMS parents and guardians includes the school's response to the incident. "I have received no less than 15 emails from families that are in complete support from around not only from Essex, but around our state," Briggs said to the Reporter Nov. 2.
A week following the incident, a high school student addressed the school board and asked what they were doing to protect the LGBTQ+ community and ensure students didn’t come home crying. School Board Chair Erin Kennedy Knox and school board member Marlon Verasamy raised their mics to respond.
“My understanding of how the principal of that school responded was pretty amazing … Someone on school property approaching people was obviously something that didn't feel safe for a lot of people,” Knox said.
When Verasamy spoke, he began with an apology, saying he was sorry the student, her sister, and her sister’s friends went through what they did.
“That's unacceptable. No kid in this school should have to come home and feel like they're less than, feel like they're ostracized, feel like they are being pointed at or targeted for being just themselves.”
Verasamy then continued to say he didn’t know the full story of the situation and he hadn't read the book so he wasn’t able to comment on the entire issue.
“I don’t know exactly what happened last week, so I'm not going to speak to it, but I feel if somebody has concerns you want to talk about parent to parent, that's fine. There's a time, there's a place. Ambushing people in line when they’re picking up the kids from school is not the way to do play,” he said.
