Race and Equity

It is not enough to simply denounce racism. Brentwood School District is committed to ensuring all students in our care, as well as their families and our staff members, are treated with respect, love, and care whatever their race, gender identity, orientation, religion, or socioeconomic status. As our mission states, we see each child and support them on their individual pathway. Racism has no place in our community, and we will not tolerate actions or words that make any members of the Brentwood family feel unsafe or uncomfortable. It’s imperative that we go above and beyond to make sure all of our students, especially those who have been historically underserved, have our support. This is not the kind of work that happens once and is over. This will be a continued focus for us and this strategic plan will help outline our current goals and progress surrounding race, equity, and inclusion.

Race, Equity and Inclusion Resources

Addressing Racialized Violence with Students

Resources for Educators

Resources for Teachers

Resources for Students

Resources for Parents

Organizations

ADL: Anti-bias resources for educators, parents, and families
EduColor: A place where the voices of public school advocates of color on educational equity and justice are elevated
Project Lit Community: Literacy movement empowering students, teachers, readers, and leaders to bring diverse perspectives into literature in schools
Teaching Tolerance: Free resources for schools and educators to help educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy American School Counselors Association: School counseling resources on race and equity.

Conversation Starters and Guides

Talking to Kids Early and Often About Racism: Detailed, informative article from the New York Times about talking to children about racism. We like this one in particular because it outlines the different conversations you can have with your child based on their developmental stage and abilities. Great starting point!
From CNN: How to Talk to Your Children about Protests and Racism: This article offers some great resources but we like that it highlights some of the impact of social media, television, and other media sources on our experience of contemporary events.
Doing Good Together: An online toolbox put together with the goal of helping parents today raise an anti-racist generation of young people. Includes specific questions and lessons to discuss, data-driven research on race and development, and much more!
Anatomy of an Ally (for TEENS): Learn about the idea of allyship and suggestions for ways white individuals, teens and adults, can become better allies in the fight against racism.

Recommended Reading and Listening

Books for older teens and adults:

Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey

Raising White Kids is for families, churches, educators, and communities who want to equip their children to be active and able participants in a society that is becoming one of the most racially diverse in the world while remaining full of racial tensions. While a great deal of public discussion exists in regard to the impact of race and racism on children of color, meaningful dialogue about and resources for understanding the impact of race on white children are woefully absent. Raising White Kids steps into that void.

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.

Podcasts

From NPR’s All Things Considered: “Raising White Kids” author Jennifer Harvey discusses how white parents can talk about race with their children.
Code Switch from NPR: This entire podcast is excellent, but this list of episodes especially highlights which ones are appropriate for children to listen to on their own or with their parents to engage in a shared dialogue.
Talking Race with Young Children via NPR: Tips on how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children.
Seeing White: Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars, in this series released between February and August 2017. It won the prestigious Peabody Award that year.