Monthly Archives: March 2023

A new-to-the-profession education, Jessica Dunker, taught a lesson on racial slurs to her English language learners. She was caught in the conservative crosshairs because of a still shot of the lesson that went viral.

Yes, we need to continue to teach about racism even when we make mistakes, and yes, we are going to make them – even educators of color.

The following was written by Jessica in response to the hateful media attacks against her by right-wing domestic terrorists. It is a call to those of us who want racial justice in our schools. We must show up to support young educators of color who are being vulnerable and doing the work we claim we want. It’s a call to those who may judge too quickly and harshly based on snap shots and conservative mischaracterizations.

We will make mistakes, and we must give grace.

This statement letter is in response to the recent incident that took place at Marysville Middle School on Tuesday, October 25 and Wednesday, October 26, 2022, involving pictures of our class that were spread through a student via Snapchat.

Many have seen this photo, and others have likewise shared the photo. In the photo, I am pictured with the white board reading two words: one racial slur and one racially charged word that has been reclaimed by the Black community. These two words were used as an example during our class conference on anti-racist education and anti-rascist practices we can implement as students and individuals.

I compared these two words on the board to avoid saying them aloud, and I apologize for the harm and damage these photos have caused upon sight regarding racial equity and racial justice. I made a mistake in writing them down, and in hindsight, I realize I took a chance with our intermediate multilingual learner students in their social and emotional understanding of topics concerning race.

I chose to have a week-long conference on anti-racism with my multilingual learners, because in our first week of school, several Latino students told me they felt some teachers at Marysville Middle singled them out because of the color of their skin. As upsetting as this news was, I held onto it. I sat in the uncomfortability of hearing these words from a 13-year-old boy. I asked who felt the same way, and I held on to the feeling of seeing the faces of my students who raised their hands.

My first thoughts then were to address the racism felt by our students, and I did. I spoke privately with our principal, Mary Ingraham, about the worrisome reports of racism coming from our students of color. Mary and I agreed that we needed to take action, and soon, but in order to have these hard, meaningful conversations, our school community needed the time to build the trust and rapport needed in a secure learning environment.

Talking about anti-racism practices in school is a necessity, not only for the equity of our students of color, but for the equity of our students who are being bullied in the halls with this hate language. I have 6th graders who have expressed their discomfort at hearing older students use this hate language with each other, some of them saying they were targeted by other students with this language. Other students have felt encouraged by the use of this language, so I have heard 6th graders using this hate language too.

Meaning, Latino students are calling other Latino students racial slurs, slur words that have not been reclaimed. Black people are calling other Black people racial slurs, words that have not been reclaimed. I have heard racist slurs and hate language from Latino students targeted at Middle Eastern students. I have heard Latino students mocking Indian accents. This is unacceptable behavior from our students.

These offensive words are coming directly from our middle schoolers, aged 11-15 years old, despite the backlash students receive from teachers and their peers when this hate language is used in school. Still, the hate language persists.

In an effort to address this rising concern in our school’s student population, I chose to take a step back from my regularly scheduled content and focus on the psychological security and well-being of our intermediate, multilingual learners in a week-long conference.

In our discussion on Tuesday, I underlined the importance of understanding the history of hateful language and slurs used against minority communities. We discussed how word reclamation has been normalized in our society, but misappropriated by our students. We discussed the impact of using hateful language against one another and how these words should never be used, especially not from one student of color to another.

Word reclamation is not a new phenomenon. Word reclamation is a process whereby a minority community repurposes a slur word historically used by the majority to degrade and dehumanize the minority people. The most prominent word that has been reclaimed today is the “n” word, which is used by the Black community in casual, contextual conversations in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).

The act of word reclamation is to distinguish the differences in connotation between the historic use of the racial slur. In this case, I was noting the extreme difference between the “n” word ending with “-er,” and the reclaimed word, ending in “-a.” In order for word reclamation to have an impact, the word being reclaimed requires a society to acknowledge and understand the history of the word – its former connotation and its current connotation – for the minority community.

I posted the summary of our class conference in my meeting notes, which is posted on my Google Classroom for families and students in that class to access and review on their own.

While this incident has certainly challenged me both personally and professionally, I remain committed to the cause of promoting equity in our schools. I remain steadfast in this belief, because as a person of color, I have been directly affected by racism and the inequities of the American education system, and I have far more privilege than many of my students do.

I believe it is my job to ensure our students have an equitable chance at success, and that begins with their self-esteem at such a young, impressionable age, many in vulnerable circumstances.
I know anti-racist education has stirred up controversy in the news nationwide, and I believe America is at a turning point. If we, as educators, do not discuss the realities of all our students, then we are choosing to ignore the systemic issues that our students often carry by themselves. We, as educators, need to rise to the challenge of anti-racist education in order to address the inequities in our schools and communities. Leadership begins here.

by Max Ratza

Max is the recipient of our Youth Scholarship Essay Contest for the 7th and 8th grade. They are an 8th grade student at McClure Middle School in Seattle.

Their essay below is in response to the prompt created by the WAESN Youth Advisory Board (YAB): Tell us about a time you broke the rules and why. Max’s essay was selected by a vote of the WAESN YAB.

In the beginning of June 2022 I was to take part in a student production that was directed and written by my history teacher. This teacher had been causing unreasonable problems for the last 1-2 years, including outing children to their parents, guilt-tripping and swearing at students, etc, but every time something happened it was quickly blown off. My class had been seeking some way to advocate for ourselves, but this teacher was also somewhat manipulative, and while she was everyone’s enemy in some way, we all loved her. She finally pulled the last straw on June 7th, when she sent several students into tears and almost canceled the play that we had been working on for months.  

My class had been working on a play called Bound for Glory about homeless children’s experiences from the Great Depression since November of 2021. Finally, we were going to put it all together and then go home for the summer. The play was going fine, and until the last night, the only other thing that happened regarding my teacher making poor choices, was that she put all of the trans kids into the same dressing room without asking our opinion.

On the last night of rehearsal, I requested to change one word that directly misgendered me, and made me feel very uncomfortable. The word was girl, and I suggested it be changed to child. My teacher gave it the okay (in front of a witness) saying “Fine, but I am only doing this because it makes it more inclusive.” The word was changed while we rehearsed it for the last time. It went smoothly, however after we finished, my teacher was not happy with how it went. She said that she had not agreed to the change in script. This was first approached politely. I tried to explain how being referred to as a girl made me not just mentally, but physically uncomfortable, however she continued to gaslight me and the witness, arguing that she never agreed to anything. 

The other cast members were aware of what was happening very early on, and due to their past experiences with this teacher, many of us ended up in a circle backstage conspiring against her, talking about ways we could protest the next day (our first show). While a few others did not join us, there was one cast member who was unable to stand with me, in fear of what the teacher might do to her and her family. She was crying as she explained her reasoning. I was crying too, and as I looked around, everyone was in some way very hurt by this teacher’s actions, whether that came out in anger or tears. It wasn’t just about my teacher disrespecting my identity; this was just where it all piled up. Everyone was angry, and unlike before, there was no one to keep peace. 

I went to my friend’s home to spend the night. Her mother was working with our teacher backstage, and she helped us communicate what we needed to in a calmer way. After a few hours of trying to reason with her through emails, my teacher still wasn’t willing to change the script. The options given to me were give up my solo (where I got misgendered), or continue to be called girl. After a lot of thinking, I gave up my solo and the scene. It was a very difficult decision, but I still think it was the right one. The next day, my teacher wouldn’t even look in my direction. In protest of her trying to silence me and the trans community at my school, I wore a gray KN95 mask on stage for our first performance.

I feel that this experience has changed me a lot. I am now capable of standing up for myself and others without feeling scared or worried about the outcome. That teacher may never change, but that night gave my class a voice, and that night gave my community a voice, and I will never forget how powerful that was. 

Many other details were not included due to several individual’s privacy.

written by members of the Seattle Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (SCORE)

*Signing the petition sends an email in your name to Seattle Public Schools administrators and board directors. You can read the message by clicking on “Read the Petition” in the box below.

During Black Lives Matter at School week on February 9, 2023, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) unjustly fired a Black educator, Bruce Jackson. Bruce and his allies are building a campaign to get his job back.

Donate to Bruce’s Support Fund Here

       Bruce Jackson is a long time educator and activist with 38 years of experience working with young people and people with disabilities. He has spent the last 17 of those years working at Aki Kurose Middle School, where he helped create a successful distinct program for students with high levels of physical and behavioral needs. In those 17 years, Bruce received no complaints and has been held in high regard by his colleagues and supervisors. As part of the Aki’s wonderful community-based skills development program that Bruce helped create and maintain, he would take his students to different community spots throughout the week to build up practical social skills. They established a routine; Mondays was a visit to the public library, Tuesdays was swimming at the community pool, Wednesdays and Thursdays were all about cooking delicious meals, and Fridays was a trip to the Dollar Store. Bruce did all of this to give those students a foundation of skills that would help them grow up to live more independent lives. This is what makes Seattle Public School’s (SPS) accusations against him, that have currently led to his removal from the program he helped to build, so shocking to those who know Bruce and have spent years working with him.

       At the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, Aki Kurose’s distinct program was hurting. Staff turnover and unfilled positions have kept the program from being able to function like it has in the past. SPS responded by bringing in a private company Behavioral Institute to “support” the high behavioral needs of one student. For much of the first three months of school, one or two Behavioral Institute employees isolated the student in the room for six hours a day. Bruce knew this was not in the best interest of the student, so he voiced his concerns. In response, a SPS supervisor pushed to have him take over supporting that student. Bruce was reluctant, knowing that the three months of isolation had created even more behavior issues he would need to address, but eventually was pushed into the role. 

       Not long after stepping in, Bruce had a complaint filed against him by Marcus Woods, a supervisor from the Behavioral Institute, which led to his firing. Woods alleged that Bruce was unnecessarily physical and repeatedly swore at the student. Two other witnesses are on the record saying Bruce did not swear or use unnecessary physical force against the student. However, neither of their eyewitness accounts were included in SPS’s case against Bruce. Bruce ensured that all students in the class remained safe and would support students to become calm by using strategies, such as deep breathing, engaging in other tasks, or finding other outlets for their aggression. The accusations against him from Woods, sounds much more like Bruce is a scary Black man who is trying to hurt children. 

       Bruce has now been fired from the program by SPS. In addition to Bruce being a remarkable educator who has spent his life supporting young people with disabilities, he is also a tremendous activist. He was a core part of the original movement to build Black Lives Matter at School, has been instrumental in the fight for ethnic studies, helped with implementation of the Racial Equity Teams throughout Seattle Public Schools, and has consistently spoken out against SPS when they have tried to roll all of these efforts back. So in firing Bruce, the District not only gets to pin the blame on him for a program they grossly mismanaged, but they also can get rid of someone who has aggressively pushed against the status quo, something the SPS has done many times in the past.

Click here for more information on this story and ways to support Bruce.