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Dear School Committee Members,

We wanted to share a more detailed version of REAL’s statement from tonight’s public comment period, which contains additional information, including more data.

Tonight’s statement was written collectively by members of REAL (Racial Equity and Learning), a group of NPS caregivers, students, teachers, and staff. We have been working together for the past few years to deepen our understanding of how race and racism operate in Northampton public schools so that we can challenge the centering of white experiences and practices, and promote ways of thinking, doing, and being that move us toward becoming an anti-racist district.

First, we would like to acknowledge that the challenges of reopening are at the forefront of everyone’s mind tonight. However, because school discipline is on the agenda AND because of the current and rightful local and national outrage/momentum about the need for racial justice, we feel compelled to speak on the issues of police presence and alternative forms of discipline in the Northampton schools.

We were pleased to hear that as part of the budget cuts, the NPD eliminated the district’s SRO position, as we know that there are more effective and less harmful ways to deal with conflict in schools. It is also important to acknowledge that this is not about one individual, but about what the data tells us about police in schools. 

Research across the country on the impact of SROs reveal shocking data, including these examples: 

• Denver, Colorado experienced a 71% increase in school referrals to law enforcement between 2000 and 2004.
• Georgia schools went from approximately 89 referrals per year in the 1990s to 1,400 per year in 2004.
• A three-year study of 13 schools in a Southeastern school district with both urban and suburban characteristics showed schools with SROs had nearly five times the number of arrests for disorderly conduct as schools without an SRO, even when controlling for the level of economic disadvantage of the school.

And not surprisingly, the presence of SROs–along with other traditional forms of school discipline–disproportionately harms targeted populations, namely students of color and students with disabilities. For example:

• A 2016 Education Department report on national school data reported that Black students are more than twice as likely to be referred to law enforcement or arrested at school than their white peers.
• 70% of students involved in in-school arrests are Black or Latinx.

It is critical to note that data also shows that schools are NO SAFER today than they were before the implementation of SRO programs.

We know that Northampton is not exempt from these statistics, no matter the rhetoric about our so-called “progressive” town. To illustrate, data from the Northampton Public Schools shows that students of color account for 30.7% (835/2270) of the total student population, and 50% of the students disciplined.

According to the most recent data, at the high school, African Americans are 2.87% of the population and account for 5.83% of disciplinary actions; Latinx students are 17.17% of the population and account for 30.83% of disciplinary actions; and remaining students of the global majority constitute 6.51% of the population and account for 8.33% of disciplinary actions. White students at the high school are the only racial group whose percentage of disciplinary action–50%–is lower than their percentage of the population–69.3%.

There are better ways to deal with conflict in schools–ways that, among other positive results, do not disproportionately harm students of color. The termination of the SRO position provides an opening for us to seek new possibilities. If this district is truly committed to becoming anti-racist as committee member Laura Fallon is proposing tonight, these possibilities should be thoughtfully explored and implemented. 

There are two related projects that REAL will be working on, in coordination with other local groups and community members:

1. A commitment to sever ALL relationships between NPS and the NPD from here on out in the form of a School Committee resolution. 
2. A push for a truly authentic restorative justice approach in our schools. Here we would like to note that the newly revised Code of Conduct claims that this is something the district is committed to.

As background, restorative justice offers non-punitive, relationship-centered processes for avoiding and addressing harm and collaboratively solving problems. Studies show that restorative justice improves school climate, reduces suspension rates, increases graduation rates, enhances teacher and student satisfaction, and reduces racial disparities in discipline. A few years after adopting restorative justice as its official policy, and committing staff and funding to the effort, Oakland Public Schools still report some racial disparities in discipline–but the black/white discipline gap narrowed from 12.1% to 6.4%–a 47% decrease. And the Latinx gap narrowed from 3.4% to 1.4%–a 59% decrease.

Northampton’s recent DESE investigative report states that “the systems for clear, schoolwide positive behavioral systems and expectations are not sufficiently robust or comprehensively articulated for K–12… The high school does not have a positive behavioral program… Without a coherent, robust, and comprehensive system of supports, the district cannot ensure that it is equitably challenging and supporting all students to develop social-emotional and academic knowledge, skills, and competencies to prepare for college, careers, transitional pathways, and life.”

We believe that implementing restorative justice practices, paired with effective training and support, can help address the current shortcomings in our district that harm all students, but  disproportionately students of color and students with disabilities.

We hope that going forward the district goes beyond making claims about anti-racist intent–to actually following up with anti-racist actions and practices that, though they will require time and effort and a willingness to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, will ensure our schools are healthier places for all students. 

Thank you,

REAL

Dear Principal Wilson and Superintendent Provost,

First and foremost, we want to acknowledge that this is a time of deep grief in the NPS community. 

The impetus for this email is the latest expression of racism at JFK, which adds to the fear and vulnerability many are already experiencing. We appreciate and thank you for the timely acknowledgement of and communication about the racist graffiti. We are also encouraged by the Forum work, STAND UP JFK, and the overall focus on inclusivity at the school. 

That said, we would like clarification about the district response referenced in the letter sent to JFK caregivers. Although we understand the need for consequences, we want to ensure a more systemic response to the ongoing racism in our schools than what is suggested in the letter. Focusing solely on individual offenders rather than on cultural shifts and community repair won’t reflect the restorative approach to conflict resolution outlined in the district’s new Code of Conduct. Racism is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed as a community.

We believe it is crucial to take meaningful action without delay. Families have continued to reach out to REAL (Racial Equity and Learning) about incidents of racism in our schools, including in recent days following the latest discovery of racist graffiti at JFK. We have communicated with many stakeholders across the district who feel increasingly hurt, angry, and silenced. In your letter to families, you note that “we will guide the deep work of repair and restitution.” We are eager to hear your current plan and timeline to begin that work and start building relational trust within the middle school and across our district. What we most need as a school community is to come together to reflect, share concerns, and discuss how we can work toward safer, more inclusive schools for everyone.

REAL is available to support district efforts toward this repair. Below are some suggested resources, including a guide for responding to racism in schools and a local consultant who has provided anti-bias training to NPS employees in the past. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you would like to collaborate with REAL around interrupting and addressing racism in our schools. 

Regardless, we would appreciate hearing from you by the first week of March about how the district plans to engage in the work of repair, so that we can assure community members who contact us that there will be clear pathways for healing and trust building.

Sincerely,

Deborah Keisch, Jenny Bender, and Tom Chang 

(REAL co-leaders on behalf of REAL Northampton)

Suggested Resources:

Responding to Hate and Bias at School: A Guide for Administrators, Counselors and Teachers

Safire DeJong (sdejong@collaborative.org), a social justice and equity specialist, facilitates powerful dialogues to help heal communities and shift racist culture.

Liz Pryor, a Smith professor and parent of NPS students, does research on the “n-word” and recently gave a Ted talk, The N-Word in the Classroom. If shared with members of the school community, the talk may help NPS parents, teachers, and students reflect on the power this word can have and the harm it can cause.

Dear John and Beth,

We were so pleased last year when the district invited REAL to join the Code of Conduct (CoC) Committee. Thank you again for that invitation. Annie has been providing us with regular updates, which we then share and discuss with our members and partners.  

While we look forward to remaining on the committee and helping in any way we can, we are finding ourselves disappointed by the limited focus on race equity and community outreach in this second year of the work. We were under the impression that the second year was added in order, specifically, to focus more on equity and to invite greater inclusion of families/students in the conversation–that that was the stated (and sole) reason offered in the CoC committee meetings for extending the work and not implementing a final revised code this year. Last year Annie shared with us the below blurb from the BSS May 10th principal’s weekly message.  

“The code of conduct task force has been hard at work this year creating a draft of a new pre-K-12 code of conduct. Although we will have a draft at the end of the school year, we will not implement it next year. We felt strongly as a task force that we needed to take a second year to focus on race and equity. We also want to invite the voices of our families to join us as we create the finished product.”

This was, in our minds, an enormously exciting commitment on the part of the district and one that we eagerly shared with our members. To acknowledge that racial disparities were/are one of the main reasons that the district wanted to reexamine and revise the code and to then commit to taking the needed time to actually view any revisions through that lens was notable and inspiring. We entered this school year excited to collaboratively conduct outreach and inclusion of more voices AND, relatedly, spend time talking through how the code and the implementation of the code could affect racial disparities (positively, negatively, or neutrally).   

With all this in mind, we were surprised in the first two committee meetings of this year to hear statements to the effect that: (1) race equity was already tackled and addressed in last year’s committee work, and (2) student and parent outreach had already occurred (or will occur by simply sending the 50-page document to select student groups for their quick response and eventually vetting it by the various school councils). (See further below for our thoughts and reactions to these statements.)  

We expressed, in each of those two meetings, our confusion and tried, in diplomatic ways, to remind the group of the promises that were made last year and to offer our partnership in meeting those promises. We get the distinct sense, from things that John has said and from the approach to the meeting agendas so far this year, that the code is essentially considered done, loose ends are being tied up, and that the desire from leadership is that we just sign on (and leave it be). We don’t feel it is useful, at this point, to continue to raise–in the full committee meetings–our concerns about how this second year has been playing out, but we would be remiss to not put some of those thoughts down on paper and share with you.  

A focus on race equity. It is our understanding that there was one committee meeting last year in which a 30-minute section of the agenda was dedicated to a conversation about race equity, facilitated by Annie. That part of the agenda was a time to hear from committee members the extent to which they feel that race equity (and its relation to discipline) is discussed in their schools and/or the district as a whole. It was not a review of the current code of conduct with race equity in mind or a discussion of how current (or newly revised) code of conduct practices may or may not contribute to racial disparities.  It was meant as an opening to a focus on race equity in the committee, not an end to the dialogue.    

It sounds like this agenda item led to the decision that more time was needed to adequately and thoughtfully focus on race equity in year two, to grapple with a topic that needs to be grappled with everywhere, including Northampton. There were times in meetings following that one in which a topic was raised (detention and the loss of recess, for example) and the group flagged it for further discussion in year two, again through the lens of race equity. None of the agendas to date in this second year have focused on this topic (other than our reps raising the issue and asking whether it will still be a focus). We were poised, and are still poised, to help make that focus a reality (with the below topic of inclusion and outreach an essential part of the work). However, the clear message we are receiving now is that it’s done.  

Inclusion and community outreach. We understand that there was some student and parent representation (beyond that of REAL and SePAC) on the committee in the beginning of last year. And that those people stopped coming early on in the work. But we don’t think that signifies that family and student outreach or meaningful inclusion occurred last year or that students and families aren’t interested in the conversation. While we commend the district leadership for inviting students and parents to the committee, the structure and process of the committee meetings undoubtedly made it hard for some to know how to enter into the dialogue or to know what their value was in the process. Please know that we are not saying here that other voices weren’t invited (they were) or that it is easy to do anything like this in a truly inclusive manner (it isn’t), but simply that we were excited to hear that this second year was going to allow for greater intentionality around meaningful inclusion and outreach.   

Last year, the group had started batting around ideas about real community outreach–maybe some in-community, evening forums to allow for feedback and thoughts about the code of conduct (what needs to change in current practice, what the committee may have overlooked to date, how to ensure racial equity in disciplinary practices and responses to student behavior, etc.). Again, that was a brief discussion (a few minutes) and it was placed on the back burner, to be revisited this year.  It has not yet been revisited.  

We know that the committee leadership has now sent a draft of the revised code to the middle and high school student groups, including the Students of Color Alliances, seeking their feedback and proposed edits. And while this is great, it feels like the easiest, most traditional, and not very useful way of seeking input. This is a 50-page document. The students have no real insight into what the conversations in the committee have looked like to date, nor how open (truly) the committee is to hearing their thoughts about discipline practices and race equity. An expectation that they have the support to document or track their proposed edits, in a tight timeframe, without an actual relationship to–or in-person dialogue with–the committee feels like a shallow, and even condescending, approach to inclusion.  

Finally, we understand that the school councils need to vet and approve the final code of conduct, and that’s as it should be, but we don’t feel that passing the code through the councils alone is the kind of inclusion or focus on race equity that was at least considered during last year’s discussions.  

We do not come at this work or our expressed sentiments here just as observers or critics. We come to this work as ready partners, people who want to work in collaboration with the district as much as is possible, to lift up and pay attention to issues of race and racial in/equities. It is difficult to not wonder if this second year of the committee’s charge was added just to appease us and others, without a true commitment to doing what was promised and maybe just as a way to buy more time for line editing and design.  

Assuming that the opportunity for a meaningful focus on equity and inclusion has passed for this year’s work in the committee (knowing that there is a desire to get the final code formatted and completed as soon as possible), below are some things we propose going forward.  

• Build a relationship between district leadership and the various student organizations so that there are opportunities for in-person dialogue and forums around how to ensure that the implementation of the code is done with a commitment toward race equity. We would be ready and eager to talk about what this might look like.

• Define what the revised code means by “restorative practices” and “restorative interventions” and establish a plan for training school staff on those interventions. It is our understanding that the restorative language that was placed in the revised code was modeled after the code in Syracuse, New York. More and more jurisdictions across the country, including Holyoke and Amherst, are turning to restorative justice approaches in schools as a direct way to tackle racial inequities and build healthier (in all ways) school climates and student outcomes. We celebrate an introduction of this frame in Northampton, and have been recommending it for some time. However, we are worried that the language is being inserted in Northampton’s code without a real discussion of what is meant by that, or a real understanding of whether schools are prepared to truly offer it. This also may offer an opportunity to connect with other schools and districts to discuss the challenges of implementation and learn more about best practices.

• Include in the final presentation of the code to the school councils and, eventually, school committee, a promise to share publicly all discipline-related data, by race and ethnicity, on an annual basis. That data should be accompanied by a plan for improvement, whether that be better training of personnel, further revisions to the code, greater partnership with related and interested groups, etc. 

Sincerely,

Deborah Keisch, Jenny Bender, and Tom Chang (REAL co-leaders) on behalf of REAL