2020-02-07-LHRC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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• JB: Suggests maintaining awareness of the various other events happening on Race Amity Day to avoid conflict. • MDR: Input is welcome from Human Services and the Lexington Police Department on the events of the day. Race Amity Day is focused more on shared humanity and cross-cultural/racial cooperation so any tie into Conversations on Race themes will have to be evaluated carefully. It is important to celebrate RAD in a meaningful way because Lexington is so diverse and how fortunate we are to have a lot of cooperation across cultures in town. • LexPride Liaison: The LexPride Celebration will be from 11AM to 2PM on June 14th location is not confirmed. LexPride would also appreciate LHRC support for town wide Pride Celebrations. • Select Board Liaison: Work with the Select Board Clerk to request a proclamation in recognition of the day so that it can get on the agenda to be signed by the board. 7. Civil Rights Incidents Reporting (Roy, Gisolfi) • TG: In the process of reviewing Committee bylaws and charge. It has been brought to the LHRC's attention that bullying is not being reported to LHRC. The goal is to have a transparent explanation of process and procedure listed on the web site. • MDR: LHRC is not representative government like the Select Board and one goal is to be available to assist vulnerable and marginalized groups and make sure they feel they have support. It is important for the public to be aware of LHRC and know what can and cannot be done by the committee. Becoming a commission would be ideal. • Select Board Liaison: Select Board appreciates the input from the LHRC on the suggestions that will be considered by the Select Board when drafting the charge. 8. School Discipline Disparity Workgroup Update • MR: The presentation is available on LexMedia. Johnny Cole presented at school committee extensively on race, also examined LGBTQ issues. African-American students and disabled have a documented high discipline disparity and disparity has risen. LPS is majority minority school district while 90% of faculty are white. Concerns about the lack of collection of LGBTQ statistics remain. • SB: Johnny Cole is visiting all of the schools, so work on getting all unified is ongoing. Disappointed that action wasn't taken sooner, but glad to be working on the issue now. JC reported that teachers have desire to work on the issue. Will provide documentations for reference that will be part of minutes. • TG: Cultural Competency training has to be ongoing and comprehensive. Would like to see more clarity around data collection. • LexPride Liaison: There has been little to no mention to LGBTQ students with regard to disparities in the school system, economically disadvantaged students also seem to be overlooked. There is disappointment with the results. Understands the issues with data collection for a variety of reasons including confidentiality. 9. Not in Our Town/Schools Workgroup Update (Gisolfi, Swann, Coats) • TG: Work on NIOS began years ago with a pilot at Diamond Middle School, however recently it's been determined that Diamond will not be moving forward with the pilot. The goal was for all the schools to have a uniform curriculum across LPS and then a similar curriculum could be presented to the entire Lexington Community.