Who Is Dr. Derrick Gay, the DEI Expert Working With the Scarsdale Schools?
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- Written by Wendy MacMillan
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Scarsdale School District is starting the 2022-23 school year by renewing its commitment to maintaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all its valued school community members. As parents may have read in Dr. Drew Patrick’s “Message From The Interim Superintendent,” the district aims to “reorganize DEI to include well-being as a co-equal partner in the work of creating an even more inclusive, diverse, and equitable learning community.” According to Patrick, the new acronym WIDE (Wellbeing, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity) “reflects both a fundamental precondition for learning and an ambitious goal. We want our students to be good at learning AND at life; and we all must seek to thrive, not just survive. Thus, we must find ways to make everyone in our learning community feel like they belong and are included.” To help the district achieve these goals, it will continue its productive partnership with the world renowned DEI expert Dr. Derrick Gay.
Dr. Gay began his journey with the Scarsdale Schools when, after a months long search of multiple candidates, he was hired as a DEI consultant during the 2021-22 school year. As the District website states, “Dr. Gay is an educator, activist, and consultant working across a broad spectrum of sectors on a range of topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
According to his own website, Dr. Gay is a graduate of Merit School of Music; Oberlin College, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Columbia University, and The University of Pennsylvania. Fluent in several languages, Dr. Gay works in countries all over the world helping businesses, schools, foundations and others, engage in diversity and inclusion work through designing and supporting diversity and inclusion strategy, providing inclusive leadership trainings and coaching, designing and facilitating inclusion workshops, and so much more.
In schools, “Dr. Gay draws on 18 years of experience in schools to empower boards to cultivate inclusive 21st-century global communities. This work includes exploring community life frameworks, national and regional demographic and inclusivity trends, and best practices to strategically embed inclusive values into curriculum and pedagogy, student life and programming, admissions, and the intentional cultivation of an inclusive school community.”
Specifically in Scarsdale, Dr. Gay will assist with long-term planning and will provide support for students, teachers, and the larger school community through workshops and presentations. In his “Message From the Superintendent,” Dr. Patrick also demonstrated how Dr. Gay’s support has already begun to impact our district with the following illustration: “Last year we were challenged by our DEI consultant Dr. Derrick Gay to reconsider the word diversity, and to do so in two important ways. The first, to see diversity as a space to which we all share a claim, because we are all diverse. The second, to shift our mindset from thinking about diversity as a particular type of person to thinking about it as a goal that adds value for everyone in our community by focusing on excellence and equity simultaneously.”
The Scarsdale PTA is working to provide a program for our community with Dr. Gay as the presenter later in the school year. Stay tuned for details!
Wendy MacMillan is a former teacher and now a proud mom of two, school aged children. With a background in psychology, education, and mindfulness, Wendy has long been passionate about wellness and helping others.
Patrick Prioritizes Well-Being, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion For the 2022-23 School Year
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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Interim Scarsdale School Superintendent Drew Patrick sent the following message to the community communicating his ethos for the coming school year.
Dear Parents, Caregivers, and Community Members,
As we say in the schools, Happy New Year! As the summer gives way to an exciting new school year, I do hope you have all taken the time necessary to rest, recuperate, and reflect. I am delighted to add my own welcome to the 2022-23 school year to those extended by our Board of Education and our building principals.
On Wednesday morning, the faculty and staff gathered for our annual convocation ceremony on Butler Field to launch the new year. In addition to staff, Board of Education members were in attendance, along with this year’s Parent Teacher Council President, Lauren Grossberg. Board President Amber Yusuf shared words of encouragement for the year, as did Ms. Grossberg and Mr. Joe Vaughan, the President of the Scarsdale Teachers Association. As I stood to deliver my own message, I was energized by the fact that there were strong overlapping themes among our words. We each acknowledged the shared hardship of the past two and a half years, along with the hope for a return to the familiar. We also communicated messages about building community, and the importance of reengaging with our parents and with each other, as the challenges of the pandemic start to give way to more inclusive and collaborative opportunities. In short, we are unified in our view that the year holds incredible promise for our students and families!
That’s not to say we won’t have challenges to address and overcome. As I noted in my remarks, we are in new territory as educators, operating at a unique moment in the history of public education. Our responsibility is to fulfill Scarsdale’s mission to sponsor each student's full development, enabling our youth to be effective and independent contributors in a democratic society and an interdependent world. We must do this at a time when our democracy seems increasingly fragile, with the first generation of young people living their entire lives in the presence of social media, and in a landscape where truth and facts are expertly distorted and disguised. On top of this, we continue to confront the circumstances of raising and educating kids in the midst of a devastating global pandemic. As I said, there are challenges, but I assure you we are up to the task.
One of our strategies this year will be to organize our work as educators around a few key priorities. We are calling this effort Connecting our WIDE Community. Connecting refers to both connecting the dots- helping our educators to see the full K-12 picture, and to recognize how their individual goals and work support the mission and the larger purposes of the education we provide. Connecting also refers to working with one another in partnership. Our best work happens when we are working well together, sharing, and learning with and from one another in order to advance something greater than ourselves.
The acronym WIDE stands for Wellbeing, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity. This reorganizes DEI to include well-being as a co-equal partner in the work of creating an even more inclusive, diverse, and equitable learning community. WIDE reflects both a fundamental precondition for learning and an ambitious goal. We want our students to be good at learning AND at life; and we all must seek to thrive, not just survive. Thus, we must find ways to make everyone in our learning community feel like they belong and are included. Last year we were challenged by our DEI consultant Dr. Derrick Gay to reconsider the word diversity, and to do so in two important ways. The first, to see diversity as a space to which we all share a claim, because we are all diverse. The second, to shift our mindset from thinking about diversity as a particular type of person to thinking about it as a goal that adds value for everyone in our community by focusing on excellence and equity simultaneously. We expect to continue this work by aiming to adopt shared definitions for the terms inclusion, belonging, diversity, and equity, and by constructing a visual representation- a model- that communicates both these definitions and our vision for how DEI, or WIDE, can guide our practices. Simultaneously, we will continue our collaboration with Dr. Gay to deepen our knowledge and skills, even as our seven schools continue their WIDE work in unique and specific ways. We look forward to communicating more about this important work in the near future. In the coming months, I will be attending elementary school general PTA meetings to hear from parents about their hopes and interests with respect to our work in this area.
Finally, nurturing community is our fundamental charge as educators and human beings, and it is the surest route to wellbeing. However, the pandemic, coupled with the challenges of digital life, has surfaced disruptions in typical patterns of social emotional growth and development, as well as challenges to concentration, engagement, and deep thinking for our students. Complicating things further, the pandemic also upset our normal patterns of school:home connection. Our ability to confront these challenges depends on our willingness to come together as a community, and to actively work to create community in all of our spaces, interactions, and encounters. This is because each of us plays a role in creating community, utilizing partnerships and leveraging the urgency of our purpose. We will be challenging ourselves each day to think of ways we can build community and help our students, families, faculty, staff, and leaders flourish.
In conclusion, it is my hope that this simple framework, Connecting our WIDE Community, can serve as a helpful structure for collaborating to fulfill our mission. I want to thank you, our parents, caregivers, and community members, for entrusting us with your children. We look forward to engaging with you in our schools and events, and expect this to be a transformative school year!
Sincerely,
Dr. Drew Patrick
Interim Superintendent of Schools
Scarsdalian Smashes Grueling Guinness World Record to Inspire Other Epileptic Athletes
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Rowan Haffner with his Coach Jeff BoyerIt is not often people get to witness a Guinness World Record find a new home, but on August 13th at SUNY Purchase, the prestigious award for most sprint duathlons completed in 24 hours was broken by Rowan Haffner. The motive for running 45 miles and biking 108 miles (yes, an 18-year-old did that) is best described by Haffner.
He explained, “The entire motivation behind aiming to set a world record was to raise awareness about what epileptic athletes are capable of. Because of the natural limitations living with Epilepsy can bring, very few people with Epilepsy participate in endurance events. I wanted to demonstrate not only could someone with Epilepsy achieve and finish such a strenuous race, but show that someone with Epilepsy could be the best in the world at something. I hope others can see what I’ve done, and that I’ve helped pave the path for future epileptics to dive into endurance sports and challenge themselves and not let Epilepsy limit their ambitions.”
Jeff Boyer, Haffner’s coach from Barracuda Tri, told of how the preparation for the event is no less strenuous than one would expect – making the accomplishment all the more remarkable.
“Let’s say he wasn’t training for this specifically when he was diagnosed with Epilepsy in November 2021,” Boyer said. “That kind of took the fast-paced draft-legal racing out of his repertoire. That’s when I succumbed to training him for a long course like this. He signed up for Iron Man Lake Placid which took place three weekends ago, and we started training for that in January, and that training helped for this as well.”
For context, Boyer estimated a “typical Iron Man athlete” would need closer to a month to recover from the Lake Placid event before even considering attempting to break this world record. This is just another of seemingly countless reasons why, when the final steps were taken, it is no wonder the rush of emotions hit Haffner hard.
“When I finished, I was immediately flooded with feelings of relief, enormous fatigue, but most prominently pride. This was a goal I set out to do months ago, a goal that required up to 20 hours of training a week to complete and so seeing that come into fruition was emotional and truly incredible.”
The previous record for most sprint duathlons completed in 24 hours was nine full sets. One full sprint duathlon has a 5k run, followed by a 20k bike segment, followed by a 2.5k run. Then, the cycle repeats. Haffner tied the former record at nine full sets, and he determined he had enough gas left in the tank to break it by completing another 5k run. After nearly 2-full-marathon’s worth of running (and enough biking to get from Scarsdale to Philadelphia), Russ Gold, the certifier of the record, was able to confirm Haffner had indeed set out for what he wanted to do: he showed how someone with Epilepsy can be the best in the world at something with flying colors – even in an intense athletic field. The message is worth infinitely more than the Guinness World Record – though the accolade does make the achievement tangible and undisputed.
Gold, a decorated triathlon/duathlon coach and official, acknowledged the uniqueness and rigor of the feat, telling how he would not be shocked in the slightest if this is the only time he is asked to verify this world record. Boyer added, “It takes a certain individual to do something like this. Not so much to say they want to do something like this, but to actually put the work in and do it. It takes a certain mindset, determination, self-motivation to do something like this.”
Regardless of how impressive the feat was – even in the mind of the experts – Rowan is far from finished.
“It’s hard to think about what’s next considering I always want to go one step further than my previous accomplishments,” Haffner admitted. “It’s that mindset that led me to set a world record. Yet I’m still searching for what can be crazier than setting a 19-hour world record. That being said, knowing me, I’ll find something even crazier to do soon enough that is even more challenging than I could imagine.”
Set to be a part of Duke’s club triathlon team, the training never stops. As Boyer memorably said, “This is Rowan’s crazy.” Fortunately, his “crazy” has led him to be the best in the world, portraying the exact message he wanted to inspire people with. Epilepsy could not prevent him from being the best.
Community Calendars Available from Scarsdale Security Systems
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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Dear Editor:
At Scarsdale Security, we value our connection with the community and our participation in Village life. This year, we are proud to be one of the sponsors of the Scarsdale Community Calendar, compiled and distributed by the Scarsdale Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. These calendars correspond with the school year (September through August) and include all school closings and events, as well as community meetings and information related to village organizations. A telephone directory for the school district, local government, village services and community organizations is also included in the calendar.
As a sponsor, Scarsdale Security has a supply of calendars available for distribution at no cost to you. If you would like a calendar, please contact our office’s outreach liaison at 722-2323.
We look forward to serving you – not only as the northeast’s premier boutique for security, fire, camera and home automation systems – but also as your neighbor. Together, we all make our community a great place to call home.
Very truly yours,
David Raizen
President, Scarsdale Security Systems, Inc.
132 Montgomery Avenue
Scarsdale, NY 10583
914-722-2323
Synagogues Host Drive for "Second Life” Medical Items to be Donated to Ukraine
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Max Grudin with Shah Haq, a Lufthansa representative at the JFK airport. Lufthansa has been supportive of the effort.
The following article was submitted by Max Grudin of Overhill Road, Scarsdale. He is a native of Vinnytsia, Ukraine.
Despite the many challenges this summer (high fuel prices, extreme heat, gun violence), two organizations are stepping up to help with the Ukraine crisis. Local Jewish congregations Temple Israel and Westchester Reform Temple are co-hosting a donation drive for pre-owned medical items for Afya Foundation, a local leader on aid to Ukraine. Your pre-owned, in-kind donations may be tax deductible. If your organization would like to join the drive, please reach out to Max Grudin (mgrudin@yahoo.com).
Volunteers performing quality control at Afya’s warehouse in Yonkers.Afya was founded by former Scarsdalian Danielle Butin. It is a very efficient nonprofit: for every dollar donated to the Afya Disaster Response Hub an astounding $0.90 goes directly to supporting global health during times of disaster.
Just last week Afya arranged almost 500 pounds of supplies for Ukraine, such as first aid kits, knee braces, gowns, wound care, etc. I personally delivered the supplies to Poland from where volunteers are transporting them to Ukraine. Big thanks to Lufthansa for the support and to my neighbor Nick Buchen for helping bring the bags to the airport.
Right now and throughout the end of August, Temple Israel and Westchester Reform Temple are holding a donation drive for “second life” (pre-owned) medical items such as:
-thermometers (no mercury)
-walkers, non-electric wheelchairs, crutches
-stethoscopes
-reading glasses and magnifier glasses
-unopened pain killers and ointments
-test strips, adult diapers, slings, braces, underpads …and so on. 
Open packages are OK. No expired medicines. Please contact Sharon Stiefel at the WRT (sharon.stiefel@wrtemple.org) and Rabbi Annie Tucker at Temple Israel Center (a.tucker@templeisraelcenter.org) for their guidelines. The needs are dire; your help is really appreciated.
The Kharkiv area map of Eastern Ukraine with the recent Russian missile strikes. The Kyiv-based volunteers delivered two tons of humanitarian supplies to Malynivka (lower right corner, 3 miles from the front lines) on 7/13/2022 just two hours before the strikes.
Afya can provide a letter acknowledging your donation, but for an itemized list of your donations, you should also reach out to the congregations. Please consult with your tax advisor about deductibility of your donation.
Afya also needs funds to buy some items that cannot be obtained otherwise and also to fund transportation to disaster areas. You could bring a check to one of the congregations mentioned above or go to https://afyafoundation.org/donate/ to make a donation. It would be really appreciated. If you want to make sure that your donation goes to a particular cause you can write Afya a check and mention the cause. Or, if you want your donation to go to Ukraine, you can email me (mgrudin@yahoo.com) your name and I will let Afya know. Afya’s Ukraine campaign page https://afyafoundation.org/campaign/ukraine/ has a link to an Amazon list of the most needed items.
The Afya supplies I brought to Poland last week will reach volunteers from Ukrainian nonprofit Ridnyi Krai (Brovary branch) in Kyiv, Ukraine before July 31th. These volunteers, led by Svitlana Fedosova, will distribute medical aid to civilians in the Kharkiv region as well as to defenders in the east and south of Ukraine.
In the meantime these volunteers have been distributing other humanitarian help in Chuhuiv and Malynivka, near the city of Kharkiv, three miles from the front line. Few organizations supply these dangerous areas, and these volunteers provide help that is otherwise not available.
Acknowledgments (apologies if I have missed anyone)
-The Afya Foundation - Danielle Butin, David Bourns, and Arilene Garcia for providing and packing the supplies and for the motivation.
-All the Scarsdale donors who gave funds and supplies to the Afya Foundation, to other charities, and to me.
-The Lufthansa Group for their support. Shah Haq is their representative who managed the check in process very efficiently!
-Dara Broxmeyer Gruenberg - for connecting me with Afya and advice
-Westchester Reform Temple - Rabbi Blake, Mary Blum, and Sharon Stiefel for spearheading the donation drive effort
-Temple Israel Center - Rabbi Annie Tucker for joining the effort at a short notice
-Nick Buchen for helping with the transportation and handling of the Afya Foundation supplies
-The Scarsdale Forum for giving me an opportunity to speak about the issue
-Mykhailo Sorochynskyi for transferring the supplies from Poland
-Svitlana Fedosova and the Ridnyi Krai Brovary Branch for their selfless dedication…and my wife Ingrid Tamm for giving me time and inspiration to work on this.
The locals get very little humanitarian support because many volunteer efforts do not distribute supplies in unsafe areas. A lot of women and children came to get help.
