June 4, 2020

 WPS Statement on Equity and Equality

Wildwood Public Schools have been and will always be committed to issues of equity and equality. This commitment is made even more relevant as the nation has united in protest over the past few days, and will fuel and inspire our efforts as we continue in pursuit of this goal until it is met.  

Our work toward this goal is well documented.  It can be found in our testimony regarding the pipeline issues that negatively impact the preparation of minority teaching candidates, the negative impacts of standardized assessments and high school graduation, and the negative effects of funding inequities on our students.  

We have never just talked the talk, but have returned to the district to develop programs that address the issues that we travel to Trenton to call into question.  Some evidence of this work includes the following:   

• We have partnered with Stockton University to develop a teacher preparation program as a response to the minority pipeline issue.  
• We worked with our Chief of Police to build a CTE Law Enforcement program in response to the small pool of minority candidates applying to our local police department. 
• We petitioned the NJDOE to be admitted into the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program as a response to how the program impacts our funding and our demographics, as our district is the only high school district in the county that does not have choice seats.
• We have been members of the New Jersey Network of Superintendents, an organization committed to equity in schools.  Participation guided us to completely overhaul how students gain access to our Advance Placement and Honors courses, which has resulted in more minority students sitting for this higher level coursework.
• Our board has approved a resolution to become a party to the most recent desegregation lawsuit against the state of New Jersey.  Only two districts in the state are included as plaintiffs and Wildwood is one of them.

 Our actions and commitment to the work speak for themselves.  We feel that all of our efforts and an explanation of what we are advocating for needs to be a living resource on our website, as we need a forum to highlight our efforts, and it can now be found on the designated page known as “Equity and Advocacy”.  As stated earlier, we will continue the pursuit of equity and equality for our students until the goal is met as our students deserve nothing less.

Sincerely,

J. Kenyon Kummings

Superintendent