Cumberland Valley parents try to salvage appearance by ‘30 Rock’ actor that school board canceled
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Some Cumberland Valley School District residents are launching an all-out effort to salvage a school assembly in May that the school board canceled Monday night out of stated concerns over injecting “political activism” into the schools.
The board, on an 8-0 vote, voted to cancel the scheduled appearance by Maulik Pancholy, an actor and author who has become a semi-regular speaker at schools, colleges and in the corporate world on issues concerning diversity and acceptance of peoples’ differences.
It’s the kind of content micro-management that is being seen more often as school management has become a battleground in America’s political wars.
All the members pointed to an informal policy the board has tried to follow since the district got heavily criticized for playing host to a Donald Trump campaign rally in 2016, of keeping political activism of all stripes out of school facilities.
But a growing number of parents, seizing on several comments during Monday’s debate, say they see the board over-reaching here with the effect of stopping a positive message because they’re either blinded by homophobia, or scared of those who are.
Pancholy is gay, having come out in 2013.
“The cancellation of this assembly sends a harmful message to our students — that being different is something to be ashamed of or hidden away,” CV parent Trisha Comstock wrote in her online petition, which had garnered 700 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.
“We call upon the Cumberland Valley School Board to reverse their decision and allow Mr. Pancholy’s presentation on empathy, anti-bullying, and his books at Mountain View Middle School.”
Comstock, who started her effort just hours after Monday night’s board action, and other parents made clear to PennLive in interviews Wednesday that they love the school culture at Mountain View, which they view as overwhelmingly supportive of its students.
At the same time, said Erin Corvaia, a Mountain View mom who also happens to be Pancholy’s sister-in-law, it is a middle school serving hundreds of kids living through the emotional cauldron that is adolescence.
Pancholy’s message about finding your voice, trying to fit in, and how to handle it if you don’t, could be just what many of them need, she said.
“It’s sick to me that they tried to fabricate that this is political because it’s not political in any way,” Corvaia said.
“There are children in that school that need to hear him speak. There is a high Asian-American population. (Pancholy is Indian-American.) There is an active LGTB club at the school… So the kids that are there that need to be represented, I feel terrible for them.”
Pancholy, 48, is perhaps best known to some for playing Jonathan, the harried executive assistant in the old NBC sitcom hit “30 Rock.” More recently, he has appeared in the Hulu comedy “Only Murders in the Building.”
But he has also become an in-demand speaker in recent years, after writing two highly-regarded novels featuring middle school-age protagonists.
School board member Bud Shaffner led the move to cancel the program this week.
“If you research this individual, he labels himself as an activist,” Shaffner said at one point during Monday’s discussion on his motion from the floor. “He is proud of his lifestyle, and I don’t think that should be imposed upon our students — at any age.”
Here’s what Pancholy lists most prominently as his activism on his personal Web site.
In 2014 he was named by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He co-founded the anti-bullying campaign #ActToChange — designed to meet the unique needs of AAPI youth.
In response to the uptick in discrimination, hate and bullying against Asian Americans due to covid-19, Pancholy moderated a series of webinars called #CovidConvos featuring guests such as basketball player Jeremy Lin, actor Randall Park, and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.
Pancholy’s sexual orientation surfaced several times in Monday’s conversation.
“It’s not discriminating against his lifestyle. That’s his choice,” board member Kelly Potteiger said at one point before the vote. “But it’s him speaking about it…
“He (the Mountain View Principal) did say that that’s not the topic. But that’s what his (Pancholy’s) books are about and he will probably talk about his pathway because he talks about anti-bullying and empathy and inclusion, so part of this is his individual journey. And as a self-proclaimed activist, that’s where it gets concerning, I think.”
Potteiger, who has been a member of Moms For Liberty, is from a line of social conservative thought that believes schools should be mostly hands-off on issues like sexual orientation and gender identity, and leave it parents to talk to their children about them; if they want to at all.
Comstock, however, is hopeful the board will reconsider Monday’s vote.
Several members who voted yes Monday left some wiggle room in their position, saying they’d be more comfortable with Pancholy’s appearance in after-school hours, where kids and their parents would have the option to attend.
Board President Greg Rausch at one point said he couldn’t support Shaffner’s motion. Another key member, Michael Gossert, was absent Monday night.
In the interim, Comstock said, her effort is aimed at making sure the board knows that that’s what the Mountain View community wants.
Otherwise, Comstock said, it’s the school board that will look like the bullies because she believes the message sent Monday night is that “if you are anything other than heterosexual, that you are not worthy, and you are not seen.”
And that, she said, would be an embarrassment that most at Cumberland Valley do not deserve.
Cumberland Valley’s next full board meeting is scheduled for May 6.