We say to every person in our district: we can unite around our children’s need to be valued just as they are. This is how we overcome our differences. This is how we turn away from division and hatred and move toward mutual respect and hope for the future.

The conflicts raging around us are complicated, but our children’s needs are simple: to be accepted, even cherished, and to be educated to their highest potential. We can meet those needs—for EVERY child, for ALL of the children.

The crusade to undermine our public schools using divisive and harmful rhetoric that takes aim at our teachers and most vulnerable students.

It’s a strategy being used by the wealthy and powerful to eradicate a vital institution foundational to our shared democracy, and put profits into private hands.

In this post we share the work of Tony Nabors, Owner and Principal Consultant at Racial Equity Insights and Nicole Cardoza, Founder and CEO of Anti-Racism Daily, who are fighting for racial equity and bringing Black History into American History and into the awareness of all Americans, where it belongs in ALL the months of the year.

Pictured above: Historian Carter G. Woodson initiated the first celebration of Negro History Week in 1926 which led to Black History Month. Source: The Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”

– Elie Wiesel, The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” Thomas Paine

(We know that Tom P. would amend that statement now to include ALL American citizens. ALL those who love freedom must undertake the effort to support and protect it.)

We need to return to school board meetings, to letter-writing, to talking with friends and neighbors, to public comment.

And it doesn’t stop there.

We need to branch out to committee meetings.

On Monday we will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was born on January 15, 1929 and was assassinated on April 4, 1968. In less than forty years on this earth, he inspired millions and changed the course of history.

Dr. King had some important things to say about education:

“The richest nation on Earth has never allocated enough resources to build sufficient schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies. We squander funds on highways, on the frenetic pursuit of recreation, on the overabundance of overkill armament, but we pauperize education.”

Case in point: yesterday’s Basic Education Funding Commission Report: “Pennsylvania needs to spend $5.4B to close gap between rich and poor schools”

We propose two unique service projects for MLK Day 2024. Continue reading to learn how you can participate.

Lets make 2024 the year we join together to build a more just, inclusive, and equitable 21st century society, comprising ALL Americans.

As we go forward, AFIE will continue advocating to make our schools places where children of all races, genders, religions, abilities, and backgrounds are free to learn all that they—and our nation—need to reach their highest potential.

Continue advocating for vibrant learning communities that meet the needs of ALL CB students. We’re looking at inclusive policies and curriculum, strong academics, honest and accurate history, books in every library that every child can see themselves in, media literacy education, civic learning, district-wide anti-bias, anti-bullying program, good training and support for faculty and staff, and an atmosphere of challenge and support for every kid (okay, we know that’s an ambitious list, but we are here for it!)

Continue to defend public education and fight harmful rhetoric that takes aim at teachers and vulnerable students and seeks to divide the community.

Help bring the community together around our shared hope for the brilliant future of our schools and our democracy, which in turn will deliver a beautiful future for every young person in our schools.

To those of you who made a candle: we hope they burn bright in your homes over the winter break. We hope they bring a sense of hope to your celebrations, whatever they may be, and that they inspire you to keep on working on behalf of our district, our community, our public schools, our democracy, and above all, our precious children.

ALL of them!

The new board is seated, and we commence work to protect and strengthen our community schools so ALL CB kids can grow and thrive to their highest potential. The past two years have shown us that the fight for public education is at its heart a fight for American communities and a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy itself. And there is no more immediate demonstration of democracy at work than vibrant learning communities where everyone feels welcome and has equal opportunity to pursue their interests and passions.

We are profoundly grateful for the leadership that will help our community schools thrive and flourish, becoming vibrant learning communities for ALL our students.

In America, we believe in the rights of ALL people to an outstanding equitable public education that embraces diversity of all kinds. And now we must turn that belief into healing, listening, learning, and working together to develop ideas into tangible solutions.

Voters reject fear, intolerance, and division to send a resounding message about education: Our children should all have the freedom to learn, to pursue their dreams, and to access a quality education that prepares them for success in a changing world.

If you were out and about this week you probably saw the new misinformation campaign scattered about Bucks County. You know: the ones where it looks like anyone wants porn in our schools and young children are now asking their parents what that even means.

These fear-mongering tactics only serve to divide and upset. They’re meant to distract us from the real issues impacting our kids’ education and our collective power in deciding what solutions might look like.

It’s crucial that we as a community step in and offer our support to protect our kids’ rights to access information and diverse perspectives.

In a pluralistic society, we must make clear that ALL the families are welcome in our schools: all faith traditions, all races, all ethnicities, all abilities, and all identities of every kind. Our schools do not choose which kids are more welcome than others; they welcome them all. Our variety is beautiful, vibrant, healthy, and a source of strength. And those different kids need different books to reflect and amplify their different experiences.

Transgender students, like all other students, thrive when they’re treated with dignity and respect. When school officials recognize that a transgender girl is a girl during the school day, but then reverse that acceptance to insist she’s a boy when sports practice starts, the student suffers. This is not equal treatment.

This follows a concerning pattern we have seen over the past months. A pattern that obscures some issues, and delegitimizes some claims of wrongdoing, making it hard for our community to consider many complex multifaceted issues independently and thoughtfully.

Image: Dave Hallmon, MidJourney, Style of MC Escher

To disregard the book as a whole (as if an image or a passage can ever represent an entire story) is a grave mistake because it paves the way to censorship in our community.

The compulsion to depict opponents as low and immoral is dangerous. It harms all of us. It destroys fruitful debate. It closes minds, poisons hearts, sows the seeds of anger, deters anyone from speaking up to voice their concerns. 

We call for a return to good policy with principled deliberation, research-based decision making, and a commitment to the best interest of all our students.

We call for strong leadership that sets an example by refuting the demonization of those with whom we disagree, maintaining order, quelling chaos, and settling in to the hard work of governing our schools.

We call for rational debate on policies that will revive our schools and enhance our children’s ability to learn and grow to their highest potential.

If our schools could continue their great work, to thrive and grow to their highest potential, what would that look like?

It would mean that every family and every child felt a sense of belonging in their neighborhood school. It would mean that the adults in our community would center the needs of ALL our children and communicate about ways to protect and care for the values, rights, and freedoms of every child. It would mean that ALL parents would know that their values mattered to their children’s educators and would be honored and respected, even while their child met and pondered values different from their families’.

ALL students have the right to equal participation in sports and we must work to find ways to serve all athletes in the best ways possible.

We call on CBSD to work together to offer the important benefits of sports—community, connection, social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development—for all young people including transgender youth, who want to participate on the team according to their gender identity, which is who they are, not their sex assigned at birth, which is who they are not.