Question for teachers: How did your admin support staff around recent events/racial injustice?

[Anonymous]

A friend at another school said her principal sent staff an email but made no mention of any current events around race at their staff meetings. What did your principal do? I assume there was a wide range of responses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend at another school said her principal sent staff an email but made no mention of any current events around race at their staff meetings. What did your principal do? I assume there was a wide range of responses.

MD is hardly teaching, what they gonna do online, moot point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend at another school said her principal sent staff an email but made no mention of any current events around race at their staff meetings. What did your principal do? I assume there was a wide range of responses.

MD is hardly teaching, what they gonna do online, moot point!

Did you not have any online staff meetings? Not one?

[Anonymous]

Does this mean schools generally did nothing for staff support around recent news? Just emails?

[Anonymous]

Eastern was very supportive of staff and families. A lot of reaching out to those of us who are people of color to offer emotional support and asking for anti-racism resources. Some deep and difficult conversations between white staff as well —at least that is what I’m hearing from white colleagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern was very supportive of staff and families. A lot of reaching out to those of us who are people of color to offer emotional support and asking for anti-racism resources. Some deep and difficult conversations between white staff as well —at least that is what I’m hearing from white colleagues.

That's great to hear. Did your principal bring it up with everyone at once? Was there any conversation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern was very supportive of staff and families. A lot of reaching out to those of us who are people of color to offer emotional support and asking for anti-racism resources. Some deep and difficult conversations between white staff as well —at least that is what I’m hearing from white colleagues.

That's great to hear. Did your principal bring it up with everyone at once? Was there any conversation?

I don’t know if he talked to the A-Team first, but he’s really engaged with racial justice and probably decided on his own that he needed to address Floyd’s murder. It was not his first time leading our school in difficult conversations. Our school’s leadership team has worked on conversations about race for years. Not that everyone gets it. Trust me, there are some teachers unwilling to get comfortable being uncomfortable, but they haven’t transferred. It’s a start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern was very supportive of staff and families. A lot of reaching out to those of us who are people of color to offer emotional support and asking for anti-racism resources. Some deep and difficult conversations between white staff as well —at least that is what I’m hearing from white colleagues.

That's great to hear. Did your principal bring it up with everyone at once? Was there any conversation?

I don’t know if he talked to the A-Team first, but he’s really engaged with racial justice and probably decided on his own that he needed to address Floyd’s murder. It was not his first time leading our school in difficult conversations. Our school’s leadership team has worked on conversations about race for years. Not that everyone gets it. Trust me, there are some teachers unwilling to get comfortable being uncomfortable, but they haven’t transferred. It’s a start.

I’m at a middle school where our principal sent out an email and that was it. Left the rest to individual departments. Staff are upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eastern was very supportive of staff and families. A lot of reaching out to those of us who are people of color to offer emotional support and asking for anti-racism resources. Some deep and difficult conversations between white staff as well —at least that is what I’m hearing from white colleagues.

That's great to hear. Did your principal bring it up with everyone at once? Was there any conversation?

I don’t know if he talked to the A-Team first, but he’s really engaged with racial justice and probably decided on his own that he needed to address Floyd’s murder. It was not his first time leading our school in difficult conversations. Our school’s leadership team has worked on conversations about race for years. Not that everyone gets it. Trust me, there are some teachers unwilling to get comfortable being uncomfortable, but they haven’t transferred. It’s a start.

I’m at a middle school where our principal sent out an email and that was it. Left the rest to individual departments. Staff are upset.

You all could write a letter to him asking for an equity trainer for pre-service to jump start a series of conversations about race. Anti-racism work is never a one-off.

[Anonymous]

Our schools had Zoom community circles available to all student grade levels. We did one for staff as well. Pretty powerful. Some staff were really upset and crying. It was eye opening to see how this has affected others.

[Anonymous]

Our principal mentioned it in a weekly newsletter to staff but that’s it. We have parents dying from Covid and unemployment is huge in my Title One school. It’s not making the list of priorities right now. Our social worker is working over time just to get food to families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our principal mentioned it in a weekly newsletter to staff but that’s it. We have parents dying from Covid and unemployment is huge in my Title One school. It’s not making the list of priorities right now. Our social worker is working over time just to get food to families.

But kids at your school probably also face police brutality in their neighborhoods. At the car rally, a Latina spoke about her son being brutally beaten by MoCo police. It’s not just black kids that are impacted by racial injustice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our principal mentioned it in a weekly newsletter to staff but that’s it. We have parents dying from Covid and unemployment is huge in my Title One school. It’s not making the list of priorities right now. Our social worker is working over time just to get food to families.

But kids at your school probably also face police brutality in their neighborhoods. At the car rally, a Latina spoke about her son being brutally beaten by MoCo police. It’s not just black kids that are impacted by racial injustice.

No. The neighborhood is pretty peaceful. Once or twice a year there might be a crime like a car stolen or vacant home broken into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our principal mentioned it in a weekly newsletter to staff but that’s it. We have parents dying from Covid and unemployment is huge in my Title One school. It’s not making the list of priorities right now. Our social worker is working over time just to get food to families.

But kids at your school probably also face police brutality in their neighborhoods. At the car rally, a Latina spoke about her son being brutally beaten by MoCo police. It’s not just black kids that are impacted by racial injustice.

No. The neighborhood is pretty peaceful. Once or twice a year there might be a crime like a car stolen or vacant home broken into.

The school where the principal just made mention in the staff email is actually a very white and wealthy school. I think you're right that he needs an outside person to jump start conversations because he's maybe uncomfortable. Going forward the county needs to do a better job training principals to do this work and hire people who can lead through these times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our principal mentioned it in a weekly newsletter to staff but that’s it. We have parents dying from Covid and unemployment is huge in my Title One school. It’s not making the list of priorities right now. Our social worker is working over time just to get food to families.

But kids at your school probably also face police brutality in their neighborhoods. At the car rally, a Latina spoke about her son being brutally beaten by MoCo police. It’s not just black kids that are impacted by racial injustice.

No. The neighborhood is pretty peaceful. Once or twice a year there might be a crime like a car stolen or vacant home broken into.

The school where the principal just made mention in the staff email is actually a very white and wealthy school. I think you're right that he needs an outside person to jump start conversations because he's maybe uncomfortable. Going forward the county needs to do a better job training principals to do this work and hire people who can lead through these times.

I think it has been very hard for them to do so at the wealthy, half white schools because staff deny their school has problems. It can be very hard for people to differentiate between racial privilege and economic privilege. As a result, staff might feel:
“I’m white, but I grew up poor. I don’t have any privilege just because I’m white.”
“The black students in my classes live in $800k homes. They’re fine.”
“I did my student teaching in SE DC. The black students in MCPS have no idea how lucky they are.”

These are actual things coworkers said when I taught at a W feeder. We definitely had discriminatory policies and practices. I used to call it Type II racism.

I taught in a W feeder for almost a decade. It took nearly that long for the principal to apply strategic pressure on retirements and transfers so she could get a faculty willing to even discuss race.