Black Lives Matter. Our Students' Lives Matter.
The Primary School was started to help children, regardless of background, become happy, healthy, and productive adults. The horrific and unrelenting violence against Black Americans in our communities threatens that vision for our children and for too many children across the country.
We see our students in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others. We fear for the safety of their bodies. We worry about how emotional growth, academic learning, and healthy development can happen when the world tells them they don’t matter.
Their lives do matter.
Black Lives Matter.
We are angry and grieving because we don’t want our students to inherit a country where police threaten and kill Black Americans. We don’t want our students to inherit a country whose President promotes hatred and incites violence against people of color. We don’t want our students to grow up afraid that going for a run, or going to the park, or simply sitting in their homes could mean a death sentence.
Though we are angry and grieving today over the recent acts of violence in our country, we should be angry every day because we know that violence and injustice have roots that are far older and deeper than any one individual act. We know that children and families will continue to suffer for as long as the institutional racism that provides wealth and privilege to some at the expense of poverty and injustice to others persists. We should recognize that inequity, call it out in our daily lives, and work to eradicate it at every possible step.
We have to stay angry so that our children don’t have to be. They deserve the chance to grow and learn and dream in a world that loves them for who they are. To get to that future, we must confront and tear down racist, white dominant systems and keep standing up for justice. We know that it won’t be easy, and we know that we will stumble, but we have to keep doing the work. We have a moral imperative to keep fighting for our children’s future.
So, today, and every day, we recommit to the fight and our role in it.
At the core, our role is to create a space in which children feel a sense of safety within our walls. It is creating a space where children build deep and consistent relationships with adults who bring a trauma-informed lens, and who support each child to thrive. It is centering the voices and experiences of people of color in our curriculum. It is creating spaces where children practice social-emotional skills that will help them navigate the world. It is seeing children not just as students, but as whole people who are part of whole families. It is engaging in courageous conversations about identity and celebrating our many cultures and traditions as a school family.
Beyond that, we recommit to reflecting on our role as an organization and as individuals with our own privilege, traumas, cultures, and identities. We will do everything in our power to build a community where every child, parent, and staff member feels secure and valued, and where they can work, learn, live, and thrive without fear.