This letter was written by a parent of a student in the Orleans Central Supervisory Union addressing school board push back against diversity and inclusivity work in the district. We think it makes excellent points about the importance of working to end racism, and is a model of civil and respectful discourse. Reading to End Racism is a signatory to the letter:
This letter is respectfully submitted to you, a group of parents and community members who have stepped up to the difficult, elected, but essentially unpaid task of helping to guide decision making for the OCSU district. We honor and respect your work. We appreciate your commitment to serve the community and to help oversee education in the district. We are writing to you as parents, community members and educators, teachers, and administrators also highly concerned with our schools, to ask that you respectfully consider the following.
Honest discussion of school climate requires education, bravery and a number of factors, which do include issues of race and racism within our predominantly white schools. In a Chronicle article covering a LRUHS Board meeting in January, members of our board are quoted dismissing conversations of race with such comments as “Racism is like ketchup. People have a tendency of putting it on everything;” and “If you say ‘anti-racist,’ you know, you’re just pointing fingers at people” We feel it important to analyze these comments, not to point fingers, but to inform while building a bridge toward best practices and to mitigated harm for all in our community.
These comments reflect sentiments widely held in our community, and it is educational, important, and positive for us to address them. As co-signers, we again thank members of the Board in advance for the additional work and attention in hearing this response. The statements are troubling because they are dismissive of the vast documentation that exists of both collective and individual manifestations of racism that permeate our society, which affect us all in different ways.
In November 2020, the American Medical Association declared racism to be a public health threat, one that “negatively impacts and exacerbates health inequities among historically marginalized communities.” A year earlier, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a July 2019 policy statement on racism, stated, “Racism is defined here as a ‘system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call ‘race’) that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources,’ as described by Camara Phyllis Jones, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.” The statement continues, “Racism is a social determinant of health that has a profound impact on the health status of children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families.”
We concur with the extensive research that shows racism has deadly consequences for people of color, is harmful to all, and deprives many white students of the right to develop into empathetic and engaged members of our increasingly multiracial society. This, in turn, impacts how we all work together more effectively on common goals and for the betterment of community and the country as a whole.
We lack the space here to scratch the surface of documentation, well-researched resources, and individual testimonies, on the pervasiveness of racism and how it plays out in our society and communities. We invite everyone to further study this history and we are glad to make reading and content recommendations.
We respectfully ask that the school board reflect on the roles and responsibilities of school board members, as outlined by the Vermont Agency of Education, to take racism, school climate, and a commitment to equity seriously. This will be especially important in light of likely curriculum and school content changes under Act 1, also known as “the Ethnic Studies Bill," signed by Vermont’s Governor in March 2019. Act 1 established an Ethnic and Social Equity Standards Advisory Working Group, to make recommendations to the state Board of Education for implementing ethnic, social, and equity standards for grades k-12 into Vermont schools. We need School Board members and everyone involved willing to see this as an opportunity for progress, rather than as a poke that triggers personal defenses. Racism is real, so analyzing it could spare us from its harmful effects. Not one of us signing this letter is perfect and all of us are strengthened by each other. We will work and ask and hope for growth. We look to explore these issues further and to possibly hear a correction of statements that upholds this critical work for our children. Thank you again for your service to the community.
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