Ask a Farmington or Farmington Hills resident why they moved here, and they will likely tell you it’s because they love the small-town feeling of our caring, diverse, and neighborly community.

Events of the last several years have challenged many school districts, and Farmington Public Schools are no exception. As a community, we have spent countless hours listening and debating at meetings. Our public officials have made tough calls.

Through these honest exchanges, many neighbors and our students and staff have shared how they were impacted by the pandemic. They’ve shared their individual experiences and how those were shaped by their race, their religion, and their sexual orientation.

Our school board has fostered and encouraged these conversations and has taken measures to make the entire school community safer, more equitable, and more inclusive for all students and staff. Yet recently, these efforts have been met with the wrath of a small minority of residents.

Now our school board trustees are being targeted by anti-equity agitators outside of our school community. A few have even sought to block our elected officials from performing their duties, and when their efforts fell flat, they’ve turned to national media like Breitbart, targeting our trustees through opinion pieces and DC-based funding. As a result, our school board has received hundreds of threatening emails and phone calls from around the country.

They’re trying to make an example of FPS. To intimidate our school leaders and send a message to all of Oakland County that if you stand up for things like tolerance, inclusion, and kindness in public education, there’s a target on your back.

That’s not OK. These trustees are our neighbors, and these values are things we ourselves hold dear.

And as neighbors and community members, we seek to continue respectful discourse with our elected officials. We ask that our elected officials be permitted to carry out their sworn duties without threats and intimidation, and without the interference of outsiders with larger agendas to divide us, neighbor against neighbor.

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IF YOU WANT TO HELP

The next FPS board meeting is on Tuesday, January 11, 6PM, at North Farmington High School: 32900 W. Thirteen Mile Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48334. GOP activists and outside agitators are being recruited to attend and protest the board’s efforts to increase equity in Farmington schools.

Want to help? Here are 3 things you can do.

1/ Add your name to this letter. It will be read at the Tuesday, January 11 meeting.

2/ Share this petition with friends in Farmington, Farmington Hills, and the nearby area.

3/ Attend the meeting to support our students, families, community, and elected officials. You can speak at public comment or sit in the audience in solidarity. Event link here. Please wear a purple shirt (purple is the FPS color) to show that we support FPS in their efforts to be equity allies, that we reject racism and bullying, and that in our community, diversity and inclusion are cherished.