BLM at School week of action
December 27th, 2022
Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action 2024
February 5-9, 2024
The Black Lives Matter movement is a powerful, non-violent peace movement that systematically examines injustices that exist at the intersections of race, class, and gender; including mass incarceration, poverty, non-affordable housing, income disparity, homophobia, unfair immigration laws, gender inequality, and poor access to healthcare.
Source: BLM at school
For the BLM's transparency message
Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action aligns with the core beliefs of The Bellingham Promise. In Bellingham schools, we will focus on the universal application of BLM's guiding principles, Black history, and Black contributions to our collective community, while shifting energy towards improving the school experience for Black and Brown students.
Bellingham Public Schools continues to actively address the BLM demands by implementing restorative justice practices, recruiting and retaining Black and Brown teachers, strengthening our ethnic studies program, and expanding student access to counselors and mental health resources.
BLM at School Week of Action: BPS Outcomes
- Increase knowledge of the history of Bellingham.
- Determine how BLM principles apply within our learning environments.
- Increase belonging and sense of community for each student.
adapted from Seattle Schools
Monday
Focus: Restorative Justice, Empathy, and Loving Engagement
- Restorative Justice is the commitment to build a beloved and loving community that is sustainable and growing.
- Empathy is one’s ability to connect with others by building relationships built on mutual trust and understanding.
- Loving Engagement is the commitment to practice justice, liberation, and peace. Learning
Tuesday
Focus: Diversity and Globalism
- Diversity is the celebration and acknowledgment of differences and commonalities across cultures.
- Globalism is our ability to see how we are impacted or privileged within the Black global family that exists across the world in different regions.
Wednesday
Focus: Trans-Affirming, Queer-Affirming, and Collective Value
- Trans-Affirming is the commitment to make space for our transgender community by encouraging leadership and recognizing trans-antagonistic violence, while doing the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black transgender folk.
- Queer-Affirming is working towards a queer-affirming network where heteronormative thinking no longer exists.
- Collective Value means that all Black lives, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status or location, matter.
Thursday
Focus: Intergenerational, Black Families, and Black Villages
- Intergenerational is a space free from ageism where we can learn from each other.
- Black Families creates a space that is family friendly and free from patriarchal practices.
- Black Villages is the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the “collective village” that takes care of each other.
Friday
Focus: Black Women and Unapologetically Black
- Black Women is the building of women-centered spaces free from sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness.
- Unapologetically Black is the affirmation that Black Lives Matter and that our love and desire for justice and freedom are prerequisites for wanting that for others. These principles are the blueprint for healing and do not include, nor do they support, ignoring or sanitizing the ugliness and discomfort that comes with dealing with race and anti-race issues.
Recommendations for teachers
- Familiarize yourself with the BPS outcomes for BLM@SWA.
- Scaffold the lessons, collaborate with other educators for support.
- Consult with your instructional coaches.
- Update lessons, if reusing from previous years.
- Prepare for diverse perspectives.
Reflection questions for teachers
- What is our school’s relationship to the local Black community and community organizing? Do we have relationships with local movement organizers? Do they see our school as a place that believes in their mission? Do they see our school as a place to connect with local families?
- How are school-wide policies and practices – especially disciplinary practices – applied across categories of race? Do problematic patterns emerge when we look at how policies are applied to Black students and when we consider the intersections of gender, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability with Blackness?
- How are the voices, accomplishments, and successes of Black folks uplifted in my lessons, units, and curriculum? Rather than focus on singular events or individuals, does my approach highlight the everyday actions and community organizing that will lead to change?
- In what ways do our practices erase the histories of our students and prevent them from bringing their whole selves into the learning environment?
- How do I understand the role that local/state laws and policies have on the educational experiences of my students? What is my role in working to change policies, regulations, and practices that harm Black students and families?
Learning Outcomes
Increase knowledge of the history of Bellingham
Apply the BLM principles to every classroom and every subject
As we think about discussing big ideas with our scholars, consider adjusting language as needed to ensure all students can grasp the concepts we’re introducing and incorporate these ideas and language into their own thinking and conversation. While adults can obviously talk about any of the principles (and many of us already do) without mentioning the Black Lives Matter movement, we can also mention the movement as a group of people who want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of the color of their skin.
For example, offer something along the lines of, "The Civil Rights Movement, with people we know about, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, worked to change laws that were unfair. The Black Lives Matter movement is made up of people who want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, because, even though many of those laws were changed many years ago, some people are still not being treated fairly."
The idea of police violence is frightening to young children, and the same way we don't discuss the violence which met Civil Rights activists, I would not discuss this kind of violence with our youngest children.
Adapted from Laleña Garcia