Defend Bruce: Sign the Petition

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.

Published by Washington Ethnic Studies Now

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