Pride Month is celebrated in June each year to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States and was led by two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In 2020, during the 50th anniversary of Pride, presidential candidate and current President Joe Biden stated the following, “Pride has come to be recognized as a global movement of love, self-expression, and community - resilient in the face of oppression and fear and hopeful for a better future. This month, let us recommit to those principles of Pride and remain steadfast in the fight for justice and equality.”

Each year the Board of Education adopts a Resolution in support of LGBTQIA+ Student Safety affirming the District’s committed to safety, inclusion, and affirmation for all students through developing and coordinating activities, training, and opportunities for the SDUSD community. A month of observance is one critical component of our ongoing collective resolution to continue dismantling racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist dynamics and other forms of oppression within our school system in order to maximize the accessibility of our educational spaces and facilities for ALL students.

Each July students, families, and staff from SDUSD walk in the San Diego Pride Parade. Mrs. Buell is a regular part of the SDUSD contingent, although this year she will be out of town during the parade. If you would like to walk in the parade with SDUSD check out the flyer below...

Juneteenth is the oldest celebration of the emancipation of African-American slaves. Juneteenth celebrates the final emancipation of slaves in the United States and the persistent drive and determination to seek freedom, liberty, and equality in accordance with the Emancipation Proclamation issued January 1, 1863, and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery, except section 1, ratified by Congress on December 6, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation effective January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in the South. On June 19th, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and enforced the president’s order, freeing the final African American slaves two and a half years after it was first decreed.

Through other systems of oppression, such as sharecropping, Jim Crow, redlining, Black Codes, mass incarceration, exclusionary policies, police violence, and segregation, the exploitation of the Black community continued past slavery and persists to this day, affecting the physical and mental health, safety, and education of the Black community. Liberation from these systems of oppression must include a commitment to dismantle policies and practices that perpetuate systemic racism and replace them with anti-racist educational systems that center BIPOC voices, stories, healing, and joy and create new structures that require critical self-awareness, deconstructs white supremacy culture, and interrupts anti-blackness.

The accurate representation of the contributions and experiences of the African American community were, for generations, and continue to be, systematically excluded from and misrepresented in history textbooks, mainstream media, and classroom discussions teaching San Diego Unified students about Black history and contemporary events is a critical affirmation of the fact Black history is American history. The San Diego Unified School District opposes and rejects any form of oppression and pledges to support the Black community and their intersecting identities by working to achieve genuine equity, access, and success for our students, employees, and communities which we serve.

SDUSD offices and school sites will be closed on June 19, 2023 in observance of Juneteenth. There will be a special Juneteenth flag raising on June 16th, check out the flyer below for all the details...

June

12 - Kindergarten Promotion: 8:30 am in the Auditorium

12 - UTK Promotion: 1:00 pm in the Auditorium

13 - 5th Grade Promotion: 8:00 am in the Auditorium

14 - Last Day of School - Minimum Day

16 - Last Day the Office is Open (Enrollment can continue online while the office is

closed, then finalized when the office reopens in August)

August

8 - Office Opens

18 - New Student Orientation

21 - First Day of School!