All of our kids, ready for life
Rise Up for Students is a blog advocating for racial equity and radical empathy in our schools, in Seattle and beyond
The longer you serve children in a community, the smaller the world seems to become. Eventually you start to hear certain people mentioned over and over — the after-school counselors, the coaches, the neighborhood-parents. The mentors who’ve made an impact connecting with those around them. Ms. Melba Ayco is one of those people.
Read MoreAshley is a riveting storyteller, community convenor, researcher, and media guru for organizations committed to social change. As a leader capable of compelling both the head and the heart, she bridges divides, and she has deep experience shaping perceptions within ambivalent or disconnected audiences. If you are looking for a badass communications and campaign leader, with a refined social justice lens, Ashley is your person.
Read MoreA frequent critique of the way that Black History Month is celebrated is the manner by which school teachers, librarians, corporate advertisers and others will use their platforms to narrowly focus on only a few African-American history makers during February, selectively promoting a one-sided and self-serving narrative and erasing a rich history of African American activism and dissent.
Read MoreWhen you’re a parent to Black children, finding a place for them to run free is about more than just a place where they can get their wiggles out. It is about finding a space where they are free to be young. To be loud, messy, silly and energetic, safe from judgment and bias. Melanie Granger of We Free Hearts has provided an environment for just that.
Read MoreAs a fellow Black woman in philanthropy, Ada is an important part of my support system; a co-conspirator and collaborator. She has taken on the burden that many of us have, supporting Pivotal’s work on diversity, equity and inclusion on top of her other job responsibilities. Her courageous leadership is helping to push our sector’s work forward as we call on our organizations and colleagues to more explicitly center racial equity and social justice.
Read MoreSuperheroes are a dime a dozen on the big screen these days, but they can be easy to miss in real life. Like the caped crusaders with otherworldly powers, the real superheroes around us often seem to masquerade behind a secret identity, rarely getting the recognition and thanks they so deeply deserve.
Marcus Harden is one of those heroes for not only the South Seattle community where he grew up, but for every life he has touched as an educator and a school founder, as a student and as a leader and as a friend.
Read MoreAs a midwife, Juniper provides prenatal, birth and post-partum care for families in the Seattle and Tacoma area. Research has shown that the quality of prenatal care has an impact on child development, and Juniper has cultivated a stellar reputation for the nurturing and attentive care she provided for her clients and their families.
Her midwifery practice is focused on providing a model of care that is evidence-based, equitable and accessible for marginalized groups, especially people of color.
Read MoreBlack History Today, created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond, and recognizes the people like Randy Green who are actively shaping the future.
Read More‘We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.’
-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Here we are, basking in the first fresh days of not only a new year, but a new decade. So, what better time than now to take a peek in the rearview mirror? Hindsight is 2020, after all.
Let’s revisit 2019 by taking a look back at the most widely read posts from the last year on the Rise Up for Students blog.
Read MoreLove is not always “nice.” Sometimes love requires us to be honest when others don’t want to hear the truth. As parents, our love for our children demands that we both hug them and discipline them. As citizens, our love can be displayed both by the flying of a flag and by calling our nation to account when she misses the mark or fails to meet the needs of her citizens.
Read MoreErin Jones discusses the idea of global citizenship and shares resources for raising our own globally conscious kids.
Read MoreThe Highly Capable Cohort (or HCC) program in Seattle Public Schools was created decades ago in an attempt to limit white flight from the district. It has been a driver of inequity in our school system ever since. This year, for instance, in 2019, Seattle’s HCC program is roughly 65 percent white. Less than 2 percent of HCC students are Black.
Suddenly HCC in Seattle’s schools is a topic of much conversation and much debate, because Superintendent Denise Juneau has proposed to do away with the highly capable cohort model entirely, shifting so-called “highly capable” students out of their segregated cohorts and back to neighborhood schools.
Read MoreBy far the most important race of the four school board seats up for election was the seat that current board president Leslie Harris won over Molly Mitchell. I can’t overstate how much more important this specific race was than any of the other three, nor can I possibly exaggerate how disappointing it is that Mitchell didn’t win.
Read MoreEnjoy a recorded conversation between Stephan Blanford, former Seattle School Board rep, and Brandon Hersey, who was appointed last month to represent District 7 in Southeast Seattle.
Read MoreEarlier this week, the Seattle Times’ columnist, Danny Westneat, wrote a racially insensitive editorial about the high school that both his son and I attend. We don’t need dismissal and condescending advocation. We need people who are actually ready to listen, engage, and do the work to change the system, not write patronizing articles.
Read MoreEducation tends to make the most rational people seem crazy. So, it begs the question, how do we heal in these sick environments? My go-to answer is to typically just burn it all down and start anew, but we know that those efforts usually just end up looking like a new emperor in the same old clothes.
So, where does our healing come from?
It starts with acknowledging the hurt that has been caused by systems of oppression -- and the equal importance of finding healing for the students and often-overlooked educators who bear the deepest wounds.
Read MoreA couple years ago, near the end of my term on the Seattle School Board, I used the term, “passive progressivism” to answer a question about why our racial achievement gaps actually got larger every year of my board service. I noted that nearly every person I engaged with while campaigning strongly agreed with my platform, but once in office, I faced stiff resistance from many of these same stakeholders, anytime we were grappling with a racial equity issue.
Read MoreThe Seattle School Board appointed Brandon Hersey as the new representative for District VII in Southeast Seattle.
Whether or not Hersey was a good choice, what I expected to happen is exactly what ended up happening: rather than listening to the people, the board chose the candidate they wanted. In other words, the candidate who would have been elected was not the candidate who was chosen. That’s tough to grapple with.
Read MoreSystemic racism is often hard to see in action.
It’s easy to look back and wonder, how did we get here? How do we have such deep-rooted opportunity gaps in our schools? How do we have so few Black teachers? How can there be such a thing as a “school-to-prison” pipeline? How do we have so few women of color in positions of elected leadership?
These systemic issues are not necessarily carried out by people of malicious intent. They are carried out by all of us every day as we make seemingly reasonable decisions, and through polices and processes that masquerade as neutral.
We are in the eleventh hour of one such process, but it’s not too late! Today — this very evening — we have a chance to catch the system in the act. So let’s do it.
Read MoreCheck out music from Matt Halvorson
