Board asked to review bias policy Asian Indian speakers press Marlboro panel for improved response By larry ramer Staff Writer MARLBORO — Members of the Asian Indian community of Marlboro are asking for information about the Board of Education’s policy on bias incidents in schools, and requesting that the board take new steps to prevent bias incidents from occurring. Representatives of the Asian Indian community are also asking administrators of the K-8 school district to evaluate the ways in which they deal with bias incidents. The requests were sparked by two attacks on a Sikh Indian student that occurred during the 2002-03 school year. The victim’s father is now saying he is not satisfied by the school district’s response to the incidents that occurred at the Marlboro Middle School. Speaking at a July 15 meeting of the board, Prem Trivedi, a representative of the Asian Indian community, asked the board to inform the community about the protocol followed by the district when a bias incident occurs, and "the specific procedures/polices that are in place to encourage, support and protect victims of bias crime." The board should also "make ... teachers discuss bias incidents and punishments (for them) explicitly with students at the beginning of the year" and "create a body consisting of school officials and parents, which can oversee how the district has dealt with bias incidents," Trivedi said. The requests come in the wake of several incidents of verbal and physical harassment that were directed toward a Sikh Indian boy who was a student at the Marlboro Middle School last year. The boy’s father, Jaspal Virdee, told the board he did not believe school administrators reacted properly to the harassment directed toward his son. "After the first incident in November, I called the superintendent and said stronger steps need to be taken to protect my son, who is the only Sikh in the school who looks physically different. Four weeks later, my son was confronted by a staff member about his headgear. Obviously no action was taken in those four weeks," said Virdee, who labeled school officials "insensitive, uncaring and unwilling to listen." In a subsequent interview, Virdee said his son had been hit in the head by another student in February. The alleged attacker yelled "Say hello to Osama bin Laden" when attacking his son, Virdee said. Traditional Sikhs, who are not Muslims, do wear turbans. Virdee is angry that school officials punished his son for retaliating against his attacker, although Virdee said they subsequently rescinded the punishment. Now, Virdee is seeking more specific information about the school district’s deliberations regarding his son. Board members reacted after another member of the public, Amarjeet Grewal, implied that the district was not doing anything to react to the incidents that befell Virdee’s son. Speaking immediately after Grewal made his comments, board member Raymond Eng said, "The school district has ongoing educational programs that address many of the issues being grieved right now." Citing an annual diversity fair, special training for students and affirmative action programs, among other programs, Eng said, "I want to correct the impression that may have been created by the speakers that the school is doing nothing about this issue." Board Vice President Bari Sobel cited other programs the school undertakes to encourage multicultural understanding and added, "We have to be careful as a K-8 district that we don’t insinuate certain actions going on in the school are biased when a lot of times these things happen because children are too thin ... or are wearing a different shirt. We don’t want to plant these seeds [of bias] in our children if they don’t already exist." Sobel added that every child will receive a student handbook outlining the district’s new policy on harassment, bullying, and intimidation. The policy specifically defines harassment, intimidation and bullying, in part, as an "act that is reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin ..." Each student’s parents or guardian will have to sign the student handbook, Sobel said. In addition, a school psychologist, Dr. Nancy Asher-Schultz, speaks with every student each year about multi-cultural issues, Sobel reported. Board member Mark Orenzow said he "took umbrage to a certain extent at being made to look like we’re doing nothing about this problem." In addition, Orenzow said he had seen a synopsis of how school officials handled the case involving Virdee’s son and "was satisfied that the [school] administration did the right thing under the circumstances. School administrators have said that due to student privacy laws, they are unable to say what, if any, action was taken against anyone who may have harassed Virdee’s son. The Marlboro K-8 system does not need to explicitly address the issue of bias crimes, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Marc Gaswirth said. "Bias is a legal distinction that we rely on courts to sort out. ... We don’t have a policy on bias crimes," he said. The district is extremely sensitive to the issues raised by the Asian Indian community, Gaswirth said. However, the district will rely on its new disciplinary policies when determining how to deal with misbehaving students, he added. These policies address harassment, bullying, intimidation and violations of student rights, among other things, but do not explicitly mention bias crimes.