***We encourage you to select 'display my name' and include your connection to the M-A community and/or to the issue: ie. Sally Jones, parent***

To the Menlo-Atherton community:

Our school is majority students of color, and yet, we are required to take a year-long class on “western civilization,” but no class — not even a semester or quarter— centralizing people of color. M-A’s curriculum pushes people of color into the margins of history while refusing to discuss racialization and oppressive institutions. We need an actively anti-racist curriculum now.

Dr. Tyrone Howard warns of the consequences of “color-blind” curricula, or learning material that obscures the social construct of race and continued systemic oppression under the guise of ‘neutrality.’ He posits that curricula like Menlo-Atherton’s “perpetuate racial inequality and reproduce racial and cultural hegemony in school practices” (de los Ríos, C., López, J., Morrell, E., 2015). White-washed curricula are strategic erasures that work to maintain oppressive structures.

A Eurocentric curriculum taught primarily by white teachers serves to reinforce structures of white supremacy. It teaches students to have an uncritical acceptance of the unjust status quo.

We reached out to the administration with the demands below on May 31, 2020. As of June 5, we had not received a response.

•Implement a mandatory Race and Ethnicity course taught by diverse faculty. 
•Organize annual guest speakers, assemblies, and workshops on topics related to race and ethnicity for all grade levels. 

If you agree that M-A should implement a mandatory Ethnic Studies course that centralizes the experiences, histories, and perspectives of BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color), please sign this petition. We need mass public pressure for them to listen.

Please reach out to either of us if you have any questions.