The LWSD is, frankly, doing a terrible job protecting BIPOC teachers and staff, especially those who are creating anti-racist classrooms. The district’s own Equity & Family Engagement page calls for bold, anti-racist teaching, for disrupting the status quo in education, but teachers who do so are being targeted.
You can help by:
- Resharing these slides on social media!
- Share our Facebook post!
- Retweet us!
- You can share our Instagram post by using a third party app such as Repost, or by downloading our Instagram slides and posting them yourself!
- Writing the school board and administration before 3 pm Monday to have your letter part of the meeting’s public record!
- You can also make a live comment to the school board; just email djenkins@lwsd.org before 1 pm Monday and tell her you want to speak, and she will send you a Zoom link.
Letter-writing template:
Feel free to use this template to help you write the LWSD School Board, as well as school and district administration. HOWEVER, template letters hold less value to the board than personalized ones, so please add your own language and stories whenever possible to personalize your message.
As a LWSD [community member / parent with students at _________ school], I am concerned about the recent events at Eastlake HS and the district’s response. After a district wide e-mail was sent, there has been no follow-up communication or transparency.
The district’s response at all levels to EHS’ Patriot Day failed to include the lived experience of many students and families, particularly Muslim, Sikh, Brown, Black and those perceived as Muslim. Not applying an equity lens to decisions and communication opened the door for threats and attacks to be directed at teachers and students.
Not resolutely defending teachers, not holding accountability of those who have caused harm, nor acknowledging the harm, in hopes it simply goes away, upholds the status quo.
When teachers are afraid, when students cannot process their emotions from the impact, it is impossible for teachers to teach effectively and students to learn.
This affects the whole district when this happens at ANY of our schools. This cannot be siloed; the impact has and is still being felt and we must do more to protect all teachers who are willing to follow the LWSD Equity and Family Engagement Vision and Mission:
- Commit to the legacy work of racial, gender and ability equity for all and the intersectionality therein.
- Disrupt the status quo.
- Be unified in the community of unrelenting abolitionists working to intentionally achieve
educational and social justice to ensure that all students have freedom to choose their paths in
the world. - Engage in intentional, strengths-based legacy work by pushing boundaries through storytelling
and abolitionist teaching. - Disrupt the system that threatens the educational freedoms of our community.
- Work to harness and include the power and wisdom of historically marginalized communities.
- Push boundaries and decolonize my curriculum and mindset.
All students have a right to a truthful education that challenges and expands their thinking and
prepares them to engage authentically and fully in the complex world we inhabit.
I urge the administration to:
- Make a districtwide statement on how the Superintendent, Director of Equity & Family Engagement, and Asst Superintendents of School Communities, will strongly stand with and protect all administrators and teachers who commit to this LWSD Equity and Family Engagement Vision and Mission.
- Ensure the EHS Leadership team conduct a postmortem and develop a plan forward that allows students and teachers to reflect on Patriot Day through an equity lens. Begin and follow through with a restorative justice approach with those who have caused harm to take accountability and restore trust with teachers and students.
- Adopt a decision methodology that supports equitable and inclusive decisions.
- Consult and contract with an outside group experienced with approaches of restorative and transformative justice through an equity lens focus.
Thank you,
[your name]
Check out Indivisible Kirkland’s Letter of Support: Protect Teachers: