“It was insane how people could write something like that, and it was mind-boggling that people would just play it off like it was cool," Pettway said. Senior Caleb Pettway, who is both African-American and Caucasian, told us that for a while, students of color felt like their peers and their teachers were ignoring the racist etching. WXXI Caleb Pettway, a senior at Brighton High School, is both African-American and Caucasian. The epithet contained a slur against African-Americans and a threat.
“We discovered that there had been, on the sidewalk outside the high school, a racial epithet scratched into the stone," McGowan explained. Last spring, an incident shook up the district and brought that disparity more to the forefront. That’s 1.5 percent teachers of color in a district that has nearly 30 percent students of color. Diversity in the student body at Brighton is celebrated.īut out of 335 teachers in the Brighton district, only one is African-American, two are Latino, two are Asian. The Brighton school district has diverse student groups, called unions - there’s an African-American student union, a Jewish student union, a Muslim student union and more. “We believe deeply in our commitment to diversity and providing kids with all different types of role models," McGowan said. That just happens, because that’s what people do.”īrighton superintendent Kevin McGowan agrees and wanted to explain how this issue affects his district. "That’s every place, no matter where you go, whether it’s teaching, industry, whatever. “It’s easier to hire the person who looks like you," she said, adding that she doesn't believe hiring practices are malicious or even necessarily conscious. Castle can’t be certain that more teachers of color would lead to a more diverse reading list, but as a former school administrator herself, she wants school districts to be aware of bias - and human nature. Of those, 478 are white, two are Asian, one is black. The Pittsford Central School District employs 481 teachers. “When you have books, and the only people shown in the books are white people, kids begin to say, ‘That’s the world,’ when in reality, the world is a kaleidoscope of many different people," Castle said. Castle met with staff and challenged them to include more diversity in the reading list - for the benefit of students from all backgrounds. Louis is now a junior at Pittsford Sutherland High School.
But students don’t get the opportunity to see different points of view.” Not that they aren’t great books - they are great books.
“My children graduated from Pittsford schools in the ’80s," Castle said. Castle, who is African-American, pointed out that the authors and protagonists are almost all white. The books come from her grandson Louis’ high school English class reading list. On a recent afternoon, Musette Castle was sifting through a stack of books on her dining room table: The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway Dubliners by Joyce Catch 22 by Heller.