Systemic Inclusion in Schools

Hi Friends!

Huge news on the front page of The Washington Post about Parent-Teacher Organizations (PTOs) and their role in making an effort to be inclusive. Included in that article was a reference to a DC organization called Kindred, which works with gentrifying schools to facilitate discussions of racism and encourage parents to understand and include each other in their school advocacy. How your PTA functions and includes/excludes families is extremely important in our equity work. Please consider taking a bigger role in asking questions about inclusiveness and community engagement, especially if your PTA officer representation does not reflect the makeup of your school. (Full disclosure — I’m Randolph’s PTA president and our Board has been majority or completely white for a very long time even though only 11% of Randolph’s students were white in the 18–19 school year. My goal for my two-year term has been to build leadership equity and inclusiveness so that our core volunteers better reflect our population.)

Also big news this week is an article about the activism of the Black Parents of Arlington about how our schools are not serving all of its students equally. Please be familiar with their advocacy work so you can listen, amplify, and follow their leadership in Arlington’s schools.

Here’s a great article about what parents of color want from white parents in their educational advocacy work. I was going to put this in my list of resources, but it’s so good, and so clear about what white allies need to do, that I wanted to amplify it more by putting it higher up in my update. Please read it.

On September 21, Arlington County committed “to developing an equitable approach to decision-making, with the goal of eliminating disparities in outcomes.” The resolution is here. The press release links to the Government Alliance on Race & Equity, which will be assisting in the process. It will be VERY interesting to see how this develops and I am very glad that Arlington County has taken this step. What comes next will matter. We will certainly be watching.

Voting! I’m sure many of you were inundated like I was with reminders that yesterday was National Voter Registration Day. Please consider getting involved in get out the vote efforts now, or volunteering to be active on Election Day. Also, in-person absentee voting opened on September 20, so please share this information widely (polls are open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm in Arlington and Falls Church City — Arlington: Bozman Government Center (Courthouse Plaza), 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Suite 320; Falls Church City: Office of Elections in City Hall, 300 Park Ave. Suite 206).

If you want to be involved in equity work at APS beyond PTAs, consider volunteering for the Advisory Council on Instruction (ACI). The council has subcommittees including the Advisory Committee on English Learners, Arlington Special Ed Advisory Committee, Equity and Excellence, Gifted Services, and Student Services. All of these committees either need members or equity allies. Several of our group members have already signed up and/or have experience serving on ACI, so reach out to me if you have questions and I can put you in touch with them.

I’m curious about a recent press release from APS about its new Student Support Process. It will be interesting to see how this looks in practice and whether families report more satisfaction with the way their concerns are addressed moving forward.

A reminder that the deadline of September 30 is approaching to provide comments on the Transgender/Gender-nonconforming Students draft guidelines for the PIP. People opposed to the policy will be commenting, so we need supporters to register their affirmation of our students in large numbers.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) named white supremacy as one of the most potent drivers of domestic terrorism, which is considered an equal threat to foreign terrorism. It’s a step in the right direction.

UPCOMING EVENTS/OPPORTUNITIES:
- Local non-profit organization, Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR), reached out to me to make sure I was aware of their Undoing Racism Workshops, which they are offering twice this fall. Please check them out!
- “League of Women Voters of Arlington (LWVA), Virginia Humanities, NAACP, the Alliance for Housing Solutions, and Challenging Racism are partnering for an event on the history of racism and housing in Arlington.” Saturday, September 28 from 1:00–3:00 pm at Wakefield HS. Register here.
- Challenging Racism is also hosting a webinar on Tuesday, October 8 from 4:30–5:10 pm called “Conversations about Race for Educators, Students, and Parents.”
- Arlington County is hosting two Housing Matters Forums on October 3 and 7
- A.C.T.O.R. too! (A Continuing Talk On Race) is an open discussion series hosted by Busboys and Poets. The next one is taking place on September 29 at 5:00 pm at the Shirlington location.
- There is a Town Hall Meeting about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which is a primary national education law for public schools. October 2 from 6–8 pm at Kenmore MS. Contact Ingrid Gant or Danielle Miles for more info.
- The Arlington County Board and the Alexandria City Council are meeting on Tuesday, October 1 from 7:30–9:30 pm at Gunston Community Center. “The unusual effort to fashion a joint approach on an array of related issues is meant to address concerns in both communities about the impacts on rents, housing prices, schools, streets, the environment and more in the wake of Amazon’s arrival and expected expansion, over the next 15 years, of its headquarters workforce to 25,000 employees.” The meeting is open to the public, but there will not be an opportunity for public comment.

Keep working.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.

Access and Opportunity

Hi Friends!

Sorry for the delay this week — some things were developing and I wanted to pull together the most updated information to share with you.

I have an APS action item for you. APS has been engaging in a trend of making key information for families available online only.

- The budget for this school year included a stipulation that report cards no longer be printed. After budget hearing pushback, some of that budget was maintained for families who will need paper copies.

- The “first day packets” were available only online starting this school year, and there was no clearly available support from APS for the schools that had higher populations of families needing assistance filling it out. Many schools had to use their staff to run clinics for families to come and fill out their information at the school, a burden added to their already busy schedules at the beginning of the year.

- The application for Free/Reduced Lunch services at APS schools has been changed to online only with inconsistent access to paper copies (some families have had to make a special request, often in-person) and little to no communication about the change.

- At the upcoming college fair for high schoolers, students are asked to register online ahead of time and if they do, they can print a barcode that will enable them to quickly sign up for more information from the institutions and organizations at the fair. Those who are unable to register and print the barcode will have to fill out a card at each table.

I support efforts to use technology to give families more options to access information and opportunities. However, when those efforts replace alternate forms of access (paper copies, etc.) and content is offered only online, that’s when we’re creating additional barriers to access for families who may not have internet access at home, who only have access on their phones, who do not have printers, who cannot easily travel around the county gathering necessary forms, who may not even know who to ask or that there is an opportunity for their needs to be met.

For example, emails like the one yesterday about the college fair could explicitly include information for these families, sharing alternate methods for obtaining a printed barcode, acknowledging that not every family has easy access to the internet and printers, something to show that APS understands their needs and has made arrangements to meet them.

APS can do a much better job of placing its resources in ways that remove barriers and extra hurdles for vulnerable or disadvantaged families from accessing information and opportunities. For example, APS could have communicated with schools explicitly offering APS staff to help with the new roll-out of the online first-day packets rather than burdening schools with implementing that county-wide change.

All of these examples add up to a systemic problem of catering to privileged populations rather than underprivileged ones. They do not exhibit equity, supposedly a core value of APS. Every action APS takes, every policy and procedure and process should be taken through an equity lens. I know that many APS staff work very hard to engage communities, to consider many perspectives, etc. before making recommendations to the School Board. We’re just not doing enough in the implementation and communication about how we’re meeting the needs of our wonderfully diverse student population.

Please reach out to the School Board and the Superintendent’s office to advocate that APS make our most vulnerable students a bigger priority.

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And some more resources from the past week or two:- The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has a great story about the Environmental Justice Movement, which I heard about through Black Lives Matter.
- The Virginia Theological Seminary will pay reparations for its role in perpetuating and benefiting from slavery.
- Schools are integrating! “More students are going to school with children of different races. But schools in big cities remain deeply segregated.”
- From a group member — Why calling someone racist can be more damaging than describing what affect their actions are having (political article, but the point makes sense in many contexts).
- Regarding criminal justice and the Felicity Huffman sentence — I thought this was an important perspective with a long view.
- The Montgomery County Council introduced an equity bill in the last few days called the “Racial Equity and Social Justice Act.” “Under the proposal, all county government agencies in the ­majority-minority suburb would have to develop equity action plans that include mandatory training for managers and supervisors. A newly formed Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice would identify existing government policies that could be changed to address inequities.” It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
- I came across a new organization, the Inclusive Schools Network, which sponsors Inclusive Schools Week, which takes place this year from December 2–6. Think about finding a way to celebrate at your child’s school!
- You might have seen the article about a few Virginia couples suing the state about required questions on the marriage license for each person to state their race, including some very outdated racial terms. Attorney General Mark Herring responded with a new policy to allow applicants to decline to answer the race question. However, the law still needs to be changed.
- A new study shows that wealthy areas that splinter from their school district to create their own are promoting racial segregation.
- There are Integration Success Stories available for us to learn from — based on a study of the areas that successfully desegregated in the 1960s and the long-term impact on children in those areas.
- The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Jenny Kim about why debt shouldn’t mean that a person loses their driver’s license.
- Mother Jones reports that more than 1600 polling places have closed since 2013 when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, most of which are located in minority communities.

More resources related to The New York Times 1619 Project (from a group member):- Pulitzer Center Education Programming
- “Evaluating and Reshaping Timelines in the 1619 Project: New York Times for Kids Edition”
- “Reading Guide: Quotes, Key Terms, and Questions” — really great questions to consider as you delve into the material
- “Nikole Hannah-Jones Reframes America’s Memory of Slavery In ‘The 1619 Project’ in The New York Times” Breakfast Club radio interview (YouTube)
- “Breaking Down The 1619 Project & History Of Slavery in America w/ Nikole Hannah-Jones” HOT 97 radio interview (YouTube)

And if you feel like celebrating after all that, SURJ is celebrating its 10th anniversary on September 25 with a webinar with Patrisse Cullors (Black Lives Matter co-founder), Makani Themba (movement strategist), and Carla Wallace and Pam McMichael (SURJ co-founders).

Sorry for the fire hose! Just pick something and read it.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.

How Are Your Actions Supporting White Supremacy?

Hi Friends!

A reminder that our group has an opportunity for a special listening session with VOICE related to how we can make Amazon’s arrival an opportunity to work towards and/or mitigate the detrimental affects that can come with tech companies’ presence. VOICE has a focus on the “whole community” and would like to hear from Facing Race in Arlington members your thoughts and priorities. We could meet on Sunday afternoon, October 6, or Tuesday evening, October 15. Please let me know your interest and/or date preference.

Please take the opportunity to provide comments on the Transgender/Gender-nonconforming Students draft guidelines for the PIP. Deadline is September 30. People opposed to the policy will be commenting, so we need supporters to register their affirmation of our students in large numbers.

I mentioned this last week regarding the event that was planned for last weekend, but wanted to follow up. The Black Parents of Arlington (BPA) wrote an oped in The Washington Post about why they have united and what their goals are, particularly in relation to APS. They say, “We see the irony of the Arlington County School Board espousing concepts of equity in its Strategic Plan while failing to embrace this value in its budget. The board should always seek to support and fund resources and programs that promote a more equitable school system.” YES! Facing Race in Arlington will listen, amplify, and follow their words and work.

A group member shared an article by Noah Berlatsky about how white parents are enabling school segregation. He says, “White Americans have largely stopped seeing anti-racism as a major goal of educational policy. Instead, they have chosen to focus on maximizing their own choices and the success of their own children. It’s natural for people to want their kids to do well. But how well are you really doing when you are collaborating in a society built on injustice and inequality? Despite the best efforts of activists and scholars, the dream of desegregation in America is dying. Our children are worse off as a result.” THIS is what I’m talking about when I say that we need to take a county-wide view and think about ALL Arlington students, not just our own.

Beverly D. Tatum (author of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?) wrote in the Seattle Times in 2017 after the UCLA Civil Rights Project analyzed school segregation and found that schools are more segregated now than they were before Brown v Board of Education. She says, “The cost of school segregation and white racial isolation is immense. As long as children of color remain trapped in under-resourced schools, many won’t have the opportunity to develop their talents — a loss not just for those children and their families, but the whole country. Meanwhile, white children won’t have sufficient opportunities to develop the skills needed to engage effectively in a multiracial society. Racial isolation means that experience of “the other” is too often rooted in well-worn stereotypes, rather than in knowledge nuanced by ongoing engagement. Fear and anxiety about the unfamiliar are the common result.” The resulting fear and anxiety about each other has implications for everything. One of the solutions to the current climate in our country is to ensure that our children have the opportunity to get to know people from many backgrounds and life experiences so that stereotypes break down and it becomes harder to “otherize” and thereby demean or discriminate against each other. Take active anti-racist steps to teach your children (and yourself) the way forward.

Noah Berlatsky has another article about how whiteness and privilege need to be named in order to take truly anti-racist actions to dismantle the white supremacist system around all of us. He says, “teaching people to be anti-racist doesn’t necessarily address the structure of racism itself. In fact, racist structures often determine who does and does not have access to these kinds of educational opportunities. One of our ongoing societal challenges will be figuring out ways to move beyond individual education and address the root issues of inequality — and our role in upholding them.” He recommends Margaret Hagerman’s book (White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America) and says, “Hagerman’s book is a careful, painful and convincing argument that when white people give their children advantages, they are often disadvantaging others. Racism is so hard to overturn, in part, because white people prop it up when they work to make sure their children succeed.”

I recently rediscovered this amazing resource — Opportunities for White People in the Fight for Racial Justice — which gives clear steps and content for moving from Actor to Ally to Accomplice and is straightforward about the role white people should play in racial justice work. I cannot recommend this enough.

Here are some additional resources for you this week:
- Finding the Joy in Black Motherhood by Helena Andrews-Dyer
- Plantations teaching about slavery are experiencing pushback from visitors
- Loudoun County schools fail to confront racism
- It’s Not Pie — this refers to the idea that equality looks like oppression to those with privilege.

Sit with it. Let it make you uncomfortable. Do the work. Reach out as you have questions.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.

Fair Compensation for POC Educating White People

Hi Friends!

Happy September!

In case you missed it, I have expanded our group to my new website, White Folks Facing Race, which includes the Resource List. Please feel free to share this with anyone and everyone to spread the movement beyond the DC area. I’ll still post updates as usual to the email group, which will also be posted to Medium and this new website. The email list will still serve as a way to find out about local events and opportunities that might not get posted to the website. Additionally, any meetings I organize in Arlington for group members will only be shared via the email group.

I recently connected with the Program Director for Race, Equity and Leadership (REAL) Program with the National League of Cities and told her about my work. She suggested adding Undoing Racism — The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond to my Resource List and will keep me posted as she finds more resources to share.

Our group has an opportunity for a special listening session with VOICE related to how we can make Amazon’s arrival an opportunity to work towards and/or mitigate the detrimental affects that can come with tech companies’ presence. VOICE has a focus on the “whole community” and would like to hear from Facing Race in Arlington members your thoughts and priorities. We could meet on Sunday afternoon, October 6, or Tuesday evening, October 15. Please let me know your interest and/or date preference.

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One of our group members went to last month’s listening session at UUCA about white supremacist violence and shared with me some poignant and wonderful observations, which I am sharing with her permission:

- “My first big moment was reacting to Danny’s [Cendejas] first words (he opened after the prompt to share his thoughts/feelings about the recent terrorism at the hands of white supremacists) which were very quietly stated “Just believe us already.” Several of them responded to the prompt with how deep the wound still was from having been in Charlottesville and this recent wave of terrorism happening on the anniversary of that date. It made me wonder how they stay so strong in the face of years of adversity and continue to show up to help white people get it at an event like this. Tracey’s [L. Rogers] response to the first and other prompts was about how tired she was, maybe commenting on this exact idea.[…] She said on several occasions that she did her best to avoid predominantly white spaces and interacting with white people whenever she could because of the exhaustion. That was really sad to hear, but of course understandable.”
- “One thing that surfaced at this one was that Reparations must include cash to impacted families. Whitney [Parnell] told a story about how recently she was at a speaking event where Reparations was brought up and a white woman said to the crowd that Reparations didn’t have to mean money, it could mean an apology, which of course elicited a lot of head-shaking and disgusted laughter from the panel. It was made clear by all three black women that Reparations must mean money. Azza [Altirafi] brought up the point that black people’s bodies and labor brought direct cash to white people as capital and that there is no end to white supremacy without the end of capitalism (and reparations in the form of cash).”
- “Another thing that got brought up was how difficult it was to be paid for the work they were there doing. Whitney mentioned how hard it is for her to get paid for her professional work in her day job, because she gets pressured to offer up her services for the greater good, despite that work being her means of income. They took up a collection at the end, but who knows if they were compensated fairly.”

I want to point out some key things here. First, any people of color who choose to engage in the work of educating white people about racism and white supremacy deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. Whitney Parnell, for example, founded and runs Service Never Sleeps, which offers Allyship workshops that last six hours each and are amazing. She offers these for free because she cares so much about the work. While this is her choice, it should be the choice of those accepting her labor to compensate her anyway.

This also ties into reparations. I know that this can mean all sorts of things and it’s going to take a long time before something happens on a national level. So in the meantime, consider taking steps to redistribute your wealth through donations or becoming a customer or member with POC-led organizations and POC-run businesses. SURJ NoVa has offered in the past to pass along any donations they receive to these activists who have participated in these listening sessions and I’m sure they would again. This is heavy, vulnerable work and they deserve to be compensated accordingly. Go to the SURJ NoVa website and donate via PayPal, then email them to let them know your name and donation amount and that you want the funds to be designated to the activist listening session that took place on August 10.
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MORE RESOURCES:
- An affordable housing effort is receiving regionwide attention.
- The Cherokee Nation Seeks to Send its First Delegate to Congress.
- Adeel Hassan interviewed Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s son and reflected on the 56th anniversary of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
- The Washington Post created “Teaching America’s truth” about education and how slavery is taught.
- Jessica Horan-Block wrote about how common childhood accidents are treated differently when the child is of color versus when the child is white (parents of color get accused of abuse).
- A reminder about Teaching Tolerance, especially now that school is back in session.
- Brentin Mock writes about the economic divide between whites and people of color and how systems were created to maintain and deepen that gap.

ACTION ITEMS:
- Please support Sheila Bynum-Coleman in her delegate race for HD-66 in Virginia this Saturday, September 7th at 6:30 pm.
- Registration is open for White Awake’s “Roots Deeper Than Whiteness” online course. It will be recorded, so you don’t have to be available at a particular date/time.
- Sign up for EmbraceRace’s September 24 webinar called “Breaking Hate: Supporting children to push back against white nationalism” — it will be recorded and you can access it later if you register.
- SURJ NoVa shared a #UnitedAndFree Community Meeting on Sunday, September 8 at 5 pm related to the detention of migrant children.

Keep moving.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.