A typical report from student representatives on the Concord Board of Education includes updates about student life, from college applications to winter carnival, and announcements about school events, from open houses to concerts. But at the most recent school board meeting, junior Aryn Bernado made a clear request. 

“There is racism happening in our community,” she said. “There is racism that is happening in our schools. With DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — being removed from several establishments, I believe that now is the most important time to educate all schools, including students and staff, with DEI/anti-racism education.” 

With the federal government taking aim at DEI, Bernardo said she and her peers want the Concord School District to double down.

“I have parents who are people of color and who came to America just so they can give my siblings and I a better education,” she told the Monitor. Younger students of color “really want their peers to be educated about racism. And it’s really sad, because I don’t want them to go through the same things that I did.” 

The Concord School District will undergo an equity audit this spring and summer, Superintendent Kathleen Murphy announced to the school board this month. The audit, in two phases beginning this spring and lasting into next year, would be conducted by Great Schools Partnership, an organization that has also worked with the Manchester School District. The grant-funded contract sets a spending cap of $70,000, Murphy said, although the audit is expected to come in below that. 

When it comes to equity work, “I feel like it was time for us to take a pause, do some evaluation and analysis: What are we doing? What’s working? What isn’t working? And how can we improve?” Murphy said. The audit will conclude with recommendations for the board. “This will give us the data to have a more targeted response to the needs of students.” 

One thing that will be key to watch is how and when the district fills its vacant Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice director position. In 2022, Concord became the fourth district in the state to make such a hire. At the start of this year, then-Director Quinci Worthey shifted to a restorative justice coordinator position focusing on the middle school. He will leave the district at the end of this year, leaving both positions empty. 

Worthey emphasized in an interview that his three years in Concord Schools — building new bridges with students and parents, helping adjust policies and processes, and generally bringing a fresh perspective to school discussions — were positive and that he's moving on to a new chapter in life. 

He hopes the district will not only fill the DEIJ director position but hire more than one person to do it, given the scope and responsibilities of the role. 

“It should be a team of people, but at least one other person,” Worthey said.  

At the same time, he acknowledged there are risks and challenges in the current political environment to hiring a DEIJ director and prioritizing the broader mission underpinning the role. 

"For a role like this to survive it will take a lot of courage from the district," he said.

An executive order from the Trump administration would pull federal education funding for any district that maintains diversity programming. That order is being challenged in court by the National Education Association, a teachers union, and its New Hampshire chapter.

Objections to DEI as a concept, including those from the Trump administration, often focus on race. 

Both Murphy and Worthey emphasized the benefits the position brings to all students in Concord. Its funding, Murphy noted, was partially drawn from a grant for student mental health.

“When I talk about equity I’m not just talking… about brown and black people,” Murphy told the school board. It includes students who experience poverty or homelessness, students with special education needs and LGBTQ+ students. “The word equity, it does represent all of those folks. When we do these audits, we want to see how that reflects on all students and their participation.”

As an example that cuts across all students, Murphy said, the audit would examine whether learners across the board are getting enough support to succeed in AP courses. 

“Equal access. That’s what we really want to achieve,” Murphy told the Monitor. “Making sure that all kids have access to the opportunities that others do.”

Part of what drove Worthey’s position adjustment, he said, was an opportunity to introduce restorative practices to the middle school that are well-established at CHS, he said. These processes handle conflict with a focus on repairing harm rather than relying on blanket punishments. This can include talking through an incident to identify what precipitated it, developing mutual understanding and focusing on a solution that those involved see as fair and restorative. That process can include both students and teachers. 

“The district is in a good place to continue this work,” he said. 

Concord schools have an Equity Advisory Committee that includes students, staff, administrators, and community members with expertise. It currently has several areas of focus, Murphy said, including professional development, participation in co-curricular and classroom activities, reducing barriers and stigmas, and ensuring safe and open communication from students about what they’re experiencing. 

This means things like assessing whether students are equally able to enroll and succeed in advanced courses, working to arrange better transportation so that all students and their parents can be involved in or attend things like sports and music programs, evaluating disciplinary demographic data, and other work.

The results from the audit would drive how the district allocates resources toward diversity, equity and inclusion going forward. A district-wide restorative justice position, funded from district dollars, is included in next year’s budget but a new hire hasn’t yet been pursued. Much of the Concord’s future direction in this field, Murphy told the Monitor, awaits the audit’s findings. 

Bernado, who is in CHS’ Racial Equity Club and serves in the Equity Advisory Committee, emphasized the importance to students that the role be filled promptly. 

Worthey is someone students can go to for help they may not trust everyone with and may not otherwise seek out, Bernado said. 

“It might be ‘I'm going through something right now,’ or like, ‘this person called me a slur, what do I do?’” she said. “He was the core person for that, and I don't know if there’s another person students can go to ... who can do that for them.”

School board members celebrated Bernado’s call to action at the meeting. 

“We all know that those types of efforts are under attack,” President Pamela Walsh said. “That makes them more valuable.”

As the audit is undertaken, Murphy said the district’s belief in the benefits of equity initiatives has not wavered. 

“I feel confident we have a vibrant equity advisory district-wide,” she said. “People should rest assured that we are continuing this work.” 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.