A parent committee will be formed to work with Dewey Elementary School Principal Andrew Krugly after some said earlier this week that Krugly is unable to understand the needs of minority students and parents, participants at a community meeting said Wednesday night.
Parents said Krugly has harshly disciplined minority students. They also said Dewey needs more black teachers and a curriculum that focuses more on black history and culture.
Parents at the meeting, which had a crowd of about 30, did not set a date for when to hold the first meeting of the new group. At the meeting, interested parents could sign up for of the group, which would meet regularly to address these issues.
Krugly said he is committed to working with parents to solve their problems.
“I am really sorry that this has reached the boiling point that it has,” Krugly said during the meeting at the school, 1551 Wesley Ave.
A few minority parents at the meeting said Krugly does not communicate well with them. They also said some minority students were treated unjustly — receiving more severe punishment in comparison to white students.
Beverly Richardson, who attended the meeting, said Krugly has spoken harshly to students when disciplining them. Richardson said one child was so afraid from an experience with Krugly that he urinated on himself.
Richardson suggested the hiring of an assistant principal to help Krugly communicate with Dewey’s diverse students and parents. But Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board member Sharon Sheehan said the district currently could not afford the staff addition.
But Leslie Sevcik, parent of a kindergartner and a fourth-grader, said Krugly has been a good principal and she is not aware of any racially motivated acts at Dewey.
“I’ve always found him to be fair, impartial, open to any issue,” Sevcik said. “He’s one of the few principals that comes to every PTA meeting and every school event.”
Participants at the meeting also said there weren’t enough black teachers at Dewey, especially after Dewey fourth-grade teacher Jasmine Harris, who worked at Dewey for two years, was recently relocated to Willard Elementary School, 2700 Hurd Ave.
“I have no negative thoughts or feelings about my relocation,” Harris said. “I’ve interacted with (Krugly) quite a bit this year and last year professionally. I feel that he does his best.”
Dewey is ranked eighth out of 16 schools in District 65 based on the percentage of black certified staff members, Krugly said at the meeting. The school has the fifth greatest percentage of minority certified staff members in the district.
But Lloyd Shepard, a member of the Education Committee for the Evanston/North Shore branch of the NAACP, said despite the numbers, black students aren’t getting what they need.
“We definitely need more African American teachers across the district,” Shepard said. “If you got a district that has as many African American students as you do European students, the staffing should reflect that.”
Some parents said they were interested in developing a curriculum focused on black culture to better motivate black students. District 65 Superintendent Hardy Murphy said tutoring programs could incorporate this focus without revamping the curriculum.
Reach Lensay Abadula at [email protected].
