TO THE FACULTY, STAFF, MEMBERS OF THE SCHOOL BOARD, AND SUPERINTENDENT OF SOUTHAMPTON SCHOOL DISTRICT:

The mission statement of the Southampton Union Free School District states that “Southampton School District, in partnership with our diverse community, will educate students in a safe, supportive environment and equip them with the knowledge, values and skills to become responsible citizens in a dynamic global society.” This statement, while well-intended, strays from the reality of how systemic racism and structural inequality, the very foundation of our society, are touched upon (or rather, not touched upon) in our schools. As a group of alumni and current students, we have come together to create a call to action for our district to foster a supportive environment for all students in the wake of George Floyd's death and the inadequate manner in which it was addressed. We refuse to passively stand by at the expense of our Black, as well as indigenous students and non-black students of color, who have long experienced both overt and covert forms of racism within the Southampton School District via a White-washed academic curriculum, macro and micro aggressions, and glaring racial divisions within and outside of the classroom. Moreover, we refuse to allow our White faculty and students to evade their responsibilities as privileged actors in an education system that has both directly and indirectly distanced themselves from the realities of racial injustice and implicit bias at the detriment of the development and personal attainment of Black students. 

It is simply not enough to decry racism. Southampton School District must strive to be actively anti-racist by addressing the societally, as well as individually engrained ways in which race and racism manifests itself. This process ultimately starts by reevaluating how White and non-black students and faculty realize their privilege, as well as the way in which we honor Black lives and the pervasiveness of institutional racism in our society, including within the school. Racism is not just an individual character attribute or chapter out of a history textbook. Its formal definition encompasses the socioeconomic and political structures, actions, and beliefs that maintain an unequal distribution of privileges, resources and power between White people and people of color. If there is anything the last few weeks have taught us, it is that education and the exposure to unknown truths serve as one of the most powerful tools in formulating people’s world views and implementing positive change. Because we believe in the potential of Southampton School District to begin dismantling these systems of oppression, we are calling for the following actions be taken at the K-12 level:

1. Implement a culturally relevant curriculum which includes a mandatory racial studies class as a graduation requirement. This class should be taught by one Black faculty member and one White faculty member so as to put different lived experiences in direct conversation with each other and guide students on how to appropriately do so. Understanding and engaging in self-reflection and discussions about privilege is an essential step to addressing individual and systemic inequities in our society. We must normalize being aware of how our personal perspectives come with implicit biases that in turn may contribute, even unintentionally, to prejudice, inequity, isolation, and violence. This course would present an ideal context for helping to guide conversations and learning opportunities for students in a safe and non-hostile environment. The class should be discussion-driven to facilitate engagement among White and non-black students in a way that is mutually beneficial to White students and Black students, as well as indigenous and non-black students of color. In order for Southampton to achieve its mission of creating future generations of empowered learners and engaged citizens, it must equip students of all grades and ages with an understanding of how central race is in our society today and how foundational racism is to our history. This immersion requires that the racial studies course teach not only about the brutality of enslavement and Jim-Crow laws, but also about police brutality and the prison industrial complex, the civil rights movement and the social movements it has inspired since (women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, etc.), redlining and Long Island’s racist history, voter suppression, and employment discrimination. By learning to draw historical parallels, students would be directly informed about the causes and effects of systemic racism and how it continues to privilege White people and continuously limit the advancement of Black people. We understand that discretion must be taken when determining how this course will be taught to students of different ages. Thus, we have created a list of resources that include teaching material for various age groups. Of course, with any text, students must be taught to interrogate material and develop arguments along with counterarguments that give life as well as statistical context to words on a page. The following resources would provide an ideal footing for facilitating such discussions:
   Children’s Books
   Skin We Are In, Sindiwe Magona, Nina G. Jablonski
   Let’s Talk About Race, Julius Lester
   Why is Nita Upside Down? Roxana Bouwer, Sarah Bouwer, Emma Hearne
   Louise’s Gift, Irene Smalls
   A Kids Book About Racism, Jelani Memory
   The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
   I am Not a Number, Jenny Kay Dupuis & Kathy Kacer
   Novels
   Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
   The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
   Between The World And Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
   Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, Jonathan Kozol
   White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
   The Color Purple, Alice Walker
   So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijema Oluo
   Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon
   Articles
   “America’s Racial Contract is Killing Us,” Adam Serwer
   “Who gets to be Afraid in America?” Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
   “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh
   “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” Jose Antonio Vargas
   “The Intersectionality Wars,” Jane Coaston
   Podcasts
   1619, Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times
   Code Switch, NPR
   Films and TV Series
   13th (Netflix)
   America To Me (Starz)
   Selma 
   Fruitvale Station
   The Hate U Give
   Dark Girls
   Roots 
   Taking Aim: The Story of the American Indian Movement
2. Extend the culturally relevant curriculum to all other classes from the sciences to the arts and humanities. Teachers should seek to include Black voices and perspectives in their teaching material and be aware of how their teaching styles affect students in the classroom differently. That being said, we see the most dire need for reform in U.S. history classes. Teachers must educate students about the people that fought to make the ideals of our democracy true and about the darker side of our nation’s history, one that is built on Black and Native American subjugation and exploitation. This teaching must be done in a way that goes beyond brief chapters on enslavement, mentions of the Trail of Tears, and putting founding fathers as well as presidents who were slaveowners themselves on a pedestal. Given the rich Native American population within the Southampton School District, the exclusion of thorough Native American history and lack of regard for their stolen land upon which this country continues to be built is detrimental to their emotional development and educational experience. Moreover, this exclusion allows White students to maintain a dangerous sense of ignorance about their peers' past and present lived experiences.
3. Mandate that all faculty, including security personnel, attend implicit bias and cultural sensitivity training with outside professionals at the start of each school year. Undergoing this type of training helps teachers and faculty become aware of the factors that might be influencing their students’ learning process, as well as how some of their implicit biases may, even when well-intended, contribute especially to the decline in Black, Latinx, and Native American student engagement and mental health. This training would also help faculty in charge of discipline improve their relationship with Black students and non-black students of color, who are disproportionately suspended, targeted, and maltreated by school security personnel and White faculty. This discrimination has resulted in a disturbing national trend known as the school to prison pipeline, in which Black students are unduly funneled out of the school system and into the criminal justice system. 
4. Undertake a third-party, holistic review of the curriculum, hiring process, and student body administration to search for areas of potential improvement in the fields of equity, inclusion, and diversity. Increasing diversity in Southampton’s hiring is especially critical to the development of Black students and other students of color. According to researchers at John Hopkins University, Black students who'd had just one black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college—and those who'd had two were 32 percent more likely. 
5. Ensure that faculty, like students, are held accountable for discriminatory conduct. The Southampton School District should establish a clear zero-tolerance policy for instances of racism or discriminatory conduct including but not limited to: racially charged language, racially motivated actions, and the overgeneralization of marginalized communities. This policy should also state that racially-based discrimination occurring outside of the classroom (sporting events, field-trips, school-provided transportation, cyber-bullying, etc.) is also subject to equal punishment to discrimination occurring solely on school grounds, as the effects of such victimization are carried into the classroom. Students should feel comfortable with reporting a teacher’s behavior (or inaction) without fear that speaking up will affect their class experience or grade. As such, we call for the delegation of an administrator of color in each school (school psychologist or social worker) to be the point of contact for students to report an incident. This administrator will vow to keep a student’s identity anonymous if they wish. 
6. Invite speakers to present on the topics of the Black Lives Matter movement, Native American history,  racial injustice, immigration, and White privilege. In addition, we are calling for an increased support system for Black students, indigenous students, and non-black students of color. We recommend forming a peer to peer tutoring, or teacher to student tutoring group that can mitigate some of the barriers to academic success black students and other students of color face in and outside of school due to an unequal share of resources. Finally, we call for faculty to allow Black students, indigenous students, and other students of color to form their own student affinity groups that allow them to spend time with one another and/or discuss some of the issues they face on a daily basis without fear of rejection or external bias. If they wish to use these safe spaces as opportunities to discuss with members of their own race only, or whether they extend that invitation to allies, faculty and students should respect those wishes.

The goals and strategic plans to uphold the Southampton School District’s mission directly highlight the responsibility of our local school system to prioritize this push for anti-racist education at all ages. In order to truly give Southampton graduates the tools to become responsible citizens in our dynamic society, it is our obligation to raise a community of children who grow up to be effective allies and actively work to end racial injustice. We believe that by focusing our district’s efforts on concrete plans to address our community’s shortcomings, we can contribute to a more equitable and just future for all. Thank you.

 

Written by Cecelia Scheuer, edited and endorsed by: 

Trevon Jenkins

Amira Nation

Caroline Palumbo

Alexis Jenkins

Arianna Dozier

Camryn Highsmith

Belle O’Shaughnessy

Ayanna Ray

Asia Cofield

Ashley Bedoya 

Jesse Scanlon

Brigid Grealish

Indi Muñoz

Adonis Hutchings 

Carly Cenzoprano

Taylor Pike

Lucy De Los Santos