Meeting Unites Community

A meeting arranged by Civic Leader Patricia Weems took place inside the RJ Bailey School as she had hoped. You’ll recall that getting the proper paperwork in order had threatened to force the meeting to be held outdoors, which fortunately did not happen. There were about 30 to 40 people in attendance, including numerous community group leaders. The mood was somber but positive.

The evening’s discussion was moderated at Ms Weem’s request by Bishop Dr Wilbert Preston of the Christ Temple in White Plains. After a opening statement by Bishop Preston, to which he humorously lamented that as a preacher, he had to remember he’s not in church and to control his preaching. He introduced himself and some of the people in attendance: Patricia Weems; Solomon Schechter School’s Director, Michael Kay and Principal, Eric Bassin, a Woodlands graduate and GCSD Trustee David Warner, to name a few.

Once Ms Weems was given the microphone, she opened the discussion explaining she and others  were dismayed over what had transpired with a student from the RJ Bailey School at a recent Purim event at the Solomon Schechter School on W Hartsdale Avenue. While she had been somewhat vague, she stated unequivocally that this was not about anything the children had done. She also mentioned that the Greenburgh Schools Superintendent told her this trip was routinely signed off on and that there was no active participation from the Bailey principal.

Someone in the audience asked for an explanation of what had actually happened? Ms Weems explained that an RJ Bailey student participating at the Purim event had gone to a face-painting “booth” and requested his face be painted by a Solomon Schechter 11th grader as the Marvel (Spiderman) character, Venom. After painting the 4th grader’s face black, he finished by painting his lips red. Again, Ms Weems stressed this was not about what the child had done but questioned where were the adults supposedly supervising this? And, that it was insulting to all. When the youngster got back to Bailey, a teacher pointed out that this was wrong.

Solomon Schechter Director Kay requested the microphone and proceeded to explain the Purim event to the audience and that they have been doing this every year. While he admitted that with the number of students there, both visiting and their own, and the amount of booths they have set up for this event, it was difficult to monitor all of the booths. He said they realize in retrospect that they need to do a better job of monitoring the event and plan to do so in the future.

Director Kay also gave an example that had a child asked to have a yellow star painted on their face that they would have found that distasteful and unacceptable and intervene as they would be particularly sensitive to that. He admitted that after this event that they need to do a better job of chaperoning this. It was his hope that this event could be used to not only be a learning moment for them, but moving forward he was hoping to invite the administrations of the various area schools to their location and begin a dialog that allows everyone to get to know each other better. He was happy to offer the Solomon Schechter School for this initial meeting.

Recently re-elected Greenburgh Central School District Trustee David Warner was in attendance. He commented that no one initially saw the mistake and that everyone recognized the youngster as Venom, the character, and it was only after a teacher pointed it out did they realize what was wrong. To his credit, he said they would address this as the Board and looked forward to working with others to make sure this never happens again. With two new Board members, Tanya Dragic and Ashley Pineda to help him, we hope to see more inter-school interaction.

The meeting started out on a negative note but ended with a positive outcome. Others in the audience pointed out different groups in Greenburgh that deal with different issues such as Armed Services Veteran’s suicides, Holocaust and Human Rights and others. The point here is that Ms Weems opened a dialog with some of the people that should be able to continue moving the equation forward and make some long-lasting progress. It will only help to make A Better Greenburgh.