W-JCC Superintendent apologizes for comments at grassroots public meeting

Daniel Keever says his comments were misunderstood, but that he should have done better. He answers questions about school redistricting and impact on diversity at Monday town hall.

It’s June 9. Today we’ll review the school superintendent’s discussion at a town hall organized by a racial equity grassroots group…A preview of this weekend’s Sail Yorktown…Williamsburg hotel rooms posted occupancy growth in May.

Village Initiative founder Jacqueline Bridgeforth Williams, left, questions school superintendent Daniel Keever. (Williamsburg Watch photo)

Williamsburg-James City County’s school superintendent met with a skeptical but polite audience Monday night to discuss school redistricting -- and how it would impact minority students -- at a community discussion organized by a grassroots diversity group.

A diverse group of more than 60 people attended The Village Initiative for Equity in Education’s meeting at the downtown Williamsburg Library theater, submitting more than two dozen questions to Superintendent Daniel Keever.

Keever began the evening by addressing what the organizer termed “The elephant in the room” – comments he made about diversity to a school meeting at Lafayette High School a week ago. School officials said his comments on diversity, which acknowledged students want to go to schools with others like themselves, were misconstrued.

“I made a mistake on Monday at Lafayette,” Keever said. “I made a mistake in the explanation that I was trying to share with students around the idea of demographics as one of the guiding principles related to our work, looking at redistricting. That mistake was... absolutely something that I would have corrected in the moment, had I realized the way that it had been heard by members of the room.”

“I believe in diversity...And I’m incredibly disappointed in myself for not doing a better job of articulating what it is that I believe and how I believe that on Monday at Lafayette.”

Ironically, the executive director of the initiative showed how comments could be misconstrued by herself misunderstanding a comment Keever made in when he said he did not expect a standing ovation for rezoning schools.

Jacqueline Bridgeforth Williams responded by prompting Keever “you said there was a standing ovation?” and he clarified “there has not been a standing ovation.”

Many of the audience questions centered on diversity concerns, saying the proposed maps would increase racial and socioeconomic segregation, concentrate high-needs students in specific schools and worsen the existing double-digit gap in test scores between white and minority students in the system.

They also asked about the racial composition of school leadership, the racial composition of the committee formed to review redistricting with a consultant, and the moves of principals and assistant principals to new schools this year. One question said the schools had lost minority administrators this year.