True Social Justice & Racial Equity Is Hard Work
“I’m sorry, but we currently don’t accept students with IEPs.” This phrase has been told to me numerous times during my search for schools for my child. And each and every time I hear it, I am stunned and hurt by the discrimination. Even as a seasoned parent of a […]
I have always loved books, and I was obsessed with fiction for most of my young life. And not the “good fiction” people who are book obsessed usually name like Tolkien or Mark Twain, I was a “Sweet Valley High” and “Babysitter Club” kid for a long time. Actually, my […]
Today we celebrate the birthday of a great man! Well, two great men: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, but also, and more importantly, to me, I celebrate the birth of my Uncle Larry! I love my Uncle Larry and I choose to believe when he tells me that I […]
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Audre Lorde Dear Black Students: I understand how frustrating it must be to see all the anti-Blackness in the world now and feel unprepared with the tools you need to fight racism in schools. Schools are normally failing Black kids, so […]
An Inconvenient Truth: There is Racism and White Supremacy in NPOs, too If you are giving money to organizations to help Black folks and support Black liberation; that isn’t run by Black folks, you are not doing anti-racist work. Racism isn’t solved by funding nonprofit organizations that are run and […]
Parents of children with disabilities are already some of the strongest, fiercest and most exhausted parent advocates for quality schools during regular times. So sure, add on a national pandemic, e-learning with no training, and, oh yeah, prohibit physical contact with people! In this latest episode of “Are you Kidding […]
Dear parents of school-age children: Please don’t be so hard on yourself if “e-learning” at home is hard for you. Teaching is a profession, where folks go to school, shadow other teachers and get continued training each year. Teachers are educated professionals who spend an inordinate amount of time, energy, […]
Having a child with a disability, and becoming disabled myself, has put me through a boot-camp that prepared me for the war for quality services for folks with disabilities. I had to learn a new language (so many acronyms!), preferred labels, federal laws, state laws, service providers, what is an […]
News flash: We have been celebrating Black History Month all wrong. Black History Month (originally “Negro History Week”) was started by Carter G. Woodson in 1915. He had a very simple theory to promote the liberation and success of Black people: Black history has to be taught without centering Whiteness. […]
When we think of legally segregated and unequal schools, we usually think of the Jim Crow system of “Black and White” schools. Most of us know from our social studies classes, that the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregating children by race was unconstitutional and that there were no […]