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Black Lives Matter at NYC Schools @Blm_edu_nyc virtual rally is kicking off.
Denisha Jones, a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee, says that there isn't an achievement gap but a debt of education owed to these students, also notes indigenous students.
She says their demands are the following — ending zero tolerance and instituting restorative justice and mandating black history and ethnic studies be taught in schools (not just as an elective but a requirement for all students).
They are also calling for the hiring of more black teachers as teachers and at all levels, not just for discipline work, for example, as well as hiring more social workers, counselors and mental health experts before even one police officer is paid to be in a building.
“I’m gonna talk about my history because that’s very important to me,” says one student, Savannah Monk.
"We do not own these seats that we sit in, we are holding space and we're supposed to be here to do the right thing and it's about advocacy for all," @ShannonRWaite5, clinical assistant professor at Fordham University and PEP member, says.
"We have to begin being very comfortable with being uncomfortable and have these conversations that we can move his needle," Waite says.
. @brainyandbrawny, associate director of education for the Schomburg Center, says black women have played key roles in school desegregation and making schools better. Gives Mae Mallory and Babette Edwards as examples.
Jones says that when he first started working at Schomburg, he learned that Ella Baker worked there and was organizing young people in an educational out-of-school program that she created to teach them black history.
"This Black Lives Matter at Schools movement is in the tradition of grassroots organizing for learning and liberation," Jones says. "It is squarely in that tradition."
One speaker says @UFT is endorsing Black Lives Matter at Schools Week for first time this year after a four-year fight to get them to endorse it: "Although we will keep fighting to ensure that they continue to support our work...we're excited to having it" be public citywide.
