Reply to Deep Racism Problems at NCS and STA: Questions/Answers we can't get through admissions

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi everyone. Our mixed-race DC is looking at schools for next year (through virtual open houses and zoom discussions with administrators).

One of those schools is NCS/STA (I'd rather not do anything to reveal who our family is).

We have read with deep shock the @blackatsta, @blackatncs, @asianatsta and other accounts in the DC schools. They are horrifying--racist comments by students and teachers, race-based bullying, race-based exclusion, extreme bullying (telling kids to kill themselves, relentlessly), etc.  Worst of all--kids of color who just seem deeply and unfairly unhappy. The schools have of course acknowledged these accounts and have issued statements and outlined their plans to do to address these issues. So we have the "official" line from the schools.

What we'd really like to ask and have answers to though are not things we feel like we can get from the schools and those "official" statements and plans. We know that this forum is imperfect, too, and we're doing our best to find families that attend there. We only know a couple, as we've only lived here a couple of years. So we hope that some here are willing to engage.

How deep and ingrained are these issues of racism?  Is there even a chance that these issues will be meaningfully addressed by new administrators? Or are these deep problems that would take decades to root out? Deep problems that will potentially be perpetuated by sets of moneyed groups with long ties to the school who not only aren't really committed to change, but who are also part of the problem (this last question comes from something one of the few families we know there said about a subset of very wealthy legacies at this school who have no commitment to change, and often are part of the problem)?

Again, we've heard the speeches. We've read the plans. Our DC has expressed a desire for single-sex, and DC is a competitive applicant (please, this is not an invitation to tell us to "get in first." You can't get answers about these sorts of things in the very short time you get to decide post-admission, and as parents of a child of color, we owe DC as much due diligence as we can--which is made even harder by the pandemic).

We would deeply appreciate the perspective of anyone from these schools who is willing to talk about what's REALLY going on there on these issues. [/quote]

So some blogs and anonymous posts are driving your decision in choosing a 45-55k/year private school decision?  And that is quite an accusatory subject line take as fact. Perhaps you've made up your mind based on this 3rd hand info from blogs and just enjoy posting your post on places like DCUM. Good luck. [/quote]

I presume you either do not have children at these schools, or that you do and you have read absolutely nothing from the administration nor have you listened to any community meetings nor have you engaged at all with the discussions happening at the schools. The schools themselves acknowledge that there are "deep" problems re: a history of racism and racist incidents at these schools. It is a FACT that the schools have used this language when speaking to the community about trying to make these schools more welcoming and inclusive. As just one of many examples, the incident of boys photoshopping the heads of members of their own community, their own brotherhood, atop holocaust victims, is a FACT, and it is also racist.

These facts might be inconvenient, but that doesn't make them any less facts. And the FACT that we live in a world where millions of people have decided that it is ok to pretend that facts don't exist does not make these things any less factual; it just means that a lot of people on this board and in this country are so weak-minded and so easily offended that they have to declare a personal war on facts just for their egos to survive the day.  [/quote]

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