By Jayde Levesque
Westport’s Long Lots Elementary School is continuing its tradition of promoting diversity.
In a new project that teams Long Lots with Bridgeport’s Elias Howe Elementary School, students are learning racial and cultural understanding.
The school has received a two-year $64,000 state diversity grant that “promotes literacy, confidence, and joy,” but it may have many other benefits.
Mary Misevich, Long Lots vice principal and active participant in the diversity grant, said school officials have adopted the state Department of Education goals of “reducing racial and ethnic isolation and promoting multi-racial and multi-cultural understanding.”
“I believe it’s the most important thing,” she said. “It goes well beyond understanding racial and cultural differences. It’s appreciating them.”
The program involves two second grade classes and two third grade classes at Long Lots.
The idea came after Westporter Joan Hass, literacy coach at Elias Howe, learned of Long Lots’ Leadership Council.
The council boasts a book club consisting of parents, students, teachers and administrators who read and discuss racially themed books.
Since Long Lots is the only school in Westport with a specific platform of diversity awareness, Haas decided to integrate the two schools.
The grant provides students transportation to museums, activities and meetings at both Long Lots and Elias Howe.
The Connecticut Writing Project and Connecticut Story Tellers are also involved with the project under the grant.
Each Long Lots student is paired up with an Elias Howe counterpart for the duration of the year.
Misevich said matching students was not based on race, but rather on gender. Female students have female partners and male students have male partners.
Kyra Post, a Long Lots third-grader, said she was excited about meeting her Elias Howe match.
“We both like sports,” she said. “She likes basketball and soccer and I like to play them too.”
Post said her favorite part of the program was meeting new people.
In addition to learning about likes and dislikes, Misevich said, students are learning about language differences and life experiences.
“It was amazing how well they were able to interact with each other and just talk about what countries their families were from, what languages were spoken at home,” she said. It was a more personalized approach.”
Misevich said school officials have not explored if students should have activities outside of those provided in school, but she envisions it happening.
Although this program will end next spring, she said, it’s a possibility the program will continue this fall.
“I think it helps us to recognize value and appreciate other cultures,” said Misevich. “By these children interacting in a very personal way it helps them to accomplish these goals. It adds a richness to the experience.”
And what would you do when the money runs out from the grant? Have us continue to pay for out of town students using our tax dollars?
Hosting a student or students in for one or two years and then sending them back would do more harm than good
Lets enjoy the fact we have the grant and its is being used to promote diversity. As a parent of one of children in the selected classes I am glad to see this taking place, and hope more grants like this can be found in the future.
Chris,
I’m with you on opposing any feel good jesters.
What I also oppose is wasting money for the sake of making a statement. One thing that comes to mind is the town government wanting to buy green energy.
Yes its good for the environment but paying more for energy using tax dollars is not a good use of tax dollars. What I also oppose it that mindset its our job to fix Bridgeports problems. Let work on our own issues.
Sorry for taking this off topic. Back to my rant,
I don’t share your concern of the lack of minority hiring in Town departments, we as a town and all business should hire the most qualified person.
If that person is a minority they should be hired if they are the most qualified, but if that person is a white male, don’t penalize him because of the past.
Now the lack of affordable housing in Town I can say its more than just a Westport issue. It is a nationwide problem. I currently am the chairmen of the Norwalk Housing partnership and most towns and cities in the state and not only Westport has this problem.
Westport sadly has just over 2% of its housing stock that would classify as adorable housing. The problem is most people think of adorable housing and then instantly think the worst.
What most people do not realize, adorable housing is needed for most of the regions workers. Fire, Police, nurses, teachers, seniors. Young people just starting out, the list is endless.
Its really should not be called adorable housing as that leaves a bad image in many peoples mind. It should be called workforce housing to better represent its purpose.
What many people don’t understand, the state has passed legislation that penalizes any town with less than 10 percent of its housing stock as affordable.
It allows developers to build higher density housing than would be allowed and puts the burden on the community to defend why it shouldn’t be allowed, as long as they include affordable housing in the project.
While the price of the land will prevent that from happening anytime soon in Westport. What is more likely if we as a community don’t do a better job with our housing stock.
Soon Westport may only be home to million dollar homes and the town workers may all be commuting for far away distances, or worse yet we may not be able to hire the workers we need.
Chris, I suppect we agree on more items than we disagree on and I agree with you that I would love to see more people join in the debate.