Latinos Riled Over School-Test Meeting

An April 22 meeting for parents of Latino students about New York State math tests has aroused controversy, with some saying they were misled by the East Hampton School District administration--and the East Hampton Teachers Association calling the meeting “racial profiling.” The district denies allegations that it called Latino parents to the meeting to persuade them to have their children “opt back in” to the test.

East Hampton’s test refusal rate was among the lowest on Long Island, with 90 percent of students participating in the English language arts exam and 85 percent in the math exam.

“It seems to me that the intent of this meeting is being clouded as getting kids to opt back in,” Richard Burns, the district superintendent, said. “The intent of the meeting was to clarify why a test is given. It wasn’t there to persuade students to opt in. . . . That’s a complete mischaracterization of the meeting.”

Mr. Burns said he had quite a few private conversations with parents of many backgrounds to talk about the importance of the testing.

Bob Tymann, the assistant superintendent, who attended the meeting, said it was not “unique to the testing.” District officials “felt that some clear information was necessary for our Spanish-speaking community, to explain what the tests are for. That’s what it was about. . . . We do the same thing when it comes to problems, for instance, with scheduling.”

Mr. Tymann said the meeting was called after the district noticed a spike in the number of test refusals coming in for the math test and saw that many were from the families of Latino students.

Nevertheless, at least two parents have questioned why only Latino families were invited, while a third said her son was called “lazy” for not taking the test.

Amid continued back and forth among parents and school personnel about the meeting, yesterday, the East Hampton Teachers Association released a statement that if the meeting was indeed as parents had described, “it shows a remarkable lack of judgment and sensitivity on the part of district officials to the needs of the school community.”

 It went on to read: “In every sense of the phrase, this was ‘racial profiling.’ Given the composition of the meeting that took place and the pressure applied solely to members of the Latino community, it is hard to conclude otherwise.”

One parent who attended the meeting said she had expected it would be simply a general meeting about the testing and was “really surprised that it was just Hispanic parents, and no Americans were there.” Speaking through a translator, Martha Euri, who has a daughter in eighth grade, said she received a phone call and a text message on April 22 informing her of the meeting. A refusal letter had already been submitted for her daughter.

During the meeting, which was conducted in Spanish, Ms. Euri said she was told that the tests were important for the children because “it would help them for college.” She said the confusion over the test caused a fight with her daugher, whom Ms. Euri then thought was lying when she said many other children weren’t taking the tests. According to parent accounts, some of their children were called to the office the next day to discuss taking the tests. Others were reported to have gone to the office to ask why it seemed that only Latino students were being talked to.

Another parent, Jesus Ibarra, also said he had been told the tests were important because they were related to college admissions. But Mr. Tymann said any discussion related to college was framed in the context that the tests measure preparedness for higher education.

“What they were told was that there are tests like the SAT that are going to be very important for college, and the question was would they opt out of that? It’s a question I ask all parents that I would have the discussion about test refusal,” Mr. Tymann said. “The Common Core and the new SATs that are evolving at this point will be very similar. . . . There should be some logic based on educational research of what it means to really be prepared for college.”

Mr. Ibarra also said he was actually told that students could not opt out of the tests. “It doesn’t count for anything for the kids,” he said. “They are losing time that they can do something else.”

“The American people did not have that meeting,” Mr. Ibarra said.

Also speaking through a translator, Monica Alexandra, a parent who did not attend the meeting, said she thought her son, a sixth grader, was a victim of “bullying” by the administration. She said he was called “lazy” for “not wanting to take the test,” although she did not identify who had said it.

Asked to comment on this, Mr. Burns said he did not think any administrator would speak to a student that way. “I’m not aware of a student called ‘lazy’. . . . I don’t even know what to say to that one. I would have a hard time thinking that would have been said.”

 Ms. Alexandra said her son “feels really sad because he is very smart and he is a good student. For them to call him lazy like that really hurt, because that’s not who he is.”

“We have to work together and move forward,” Ms. Alexandra said. “The racism has to stop. It feels like it was racist against the Hispanics, what happened here. It can’t go on. It has to change.”