By Cliff Cawthon, The Seattle Medium
On Monday, April 5, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) re-opened to Pre-K through 5th grade students after a year of remote learning under state mandates to do so. Across the country as vaccines continue to be rolled out, and policymakers are moving swiftly to enable in-person learning. Here in Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee has ordered school to re-open to all grades by April 19.
At Southshore K-8 school in Seattle’s Rainier Beach area, Principal Justin Hendrickson says that he and his staff are trying to welcome their students back with love and open arms.
“It’s just been a huge shift. We have been out of school for a year,” says Hendrickson about returning to in-person learning. “We’re [going to spend] the first week or two getting students re-acquainted with in-person learning.”
Students have been hit hard when it comes to their ability to stay stable and learn. In an October 2020 essay by education advocates Ann Ishimaru and Regina Elmi, they noted a myriad of concerns that parents and educators of color have had with the school system; such as microaggressions from students or staff, lack of reliable internet access and a “racially subtractive” environment that left students of color behind. In response, parents of color have formed collectives to co-tutor each other’s children despite the devastating impact of the pandemic on the economy, jobs and housing and their fight to mitigate how this affects their students.
According to some experts, families of color have also gleamed several benefits from to remote learning. These benefits include students being happier without the pressures of assimilation into the dominant culture in the school and society, and parents and communities being able to have a more hands-on approach with supporting their students. Considering this, Elmi and Ishimaru’s message to the district was a call for cooperation by taking a que from the families’ efforts moving forward:
“Learning from families and communities should be the first order of business in schools,” they stated in their essay. “Many families we have talked to are willing to share their ideas and experiences with educators and decision-makers and ask questions like: Can districts help families develop co-ops like the ones some Black families have formed in districts elsewhere in the country? Could we identify instructional assistants, substitutes, or other educators from agencies to work with children online or in community spaces? Can we reimagine more flexible online learning? Is there a way to pay parents, many of whom lost or had to forgo their jobs to stay home with children, for their critical labor?”
Many Southshore parents, who were dropping their kids off at school for the first-time last week, were optimistic about the return to in-person learning.
“Person-to-person interaction is the most important thing,” says Kenyatta Frasier, who has been looking forward to his son, Lennox Fraiser returning to the classroom.
Jason Rodriguez, whose daughter, Jonae, also attends Southshore, believes that returning to the classroom is good for his kids’ social development.
“[They] liked school online, but they were complaining that they didn’t have any friends,” says Rodriguez. “If there’s a good opportunity for her to communicate with other kids then that’s a good thing.”
Dr. Mia Williams, the director of the Seattle School District’s Office of African American Male Achievement (OAAMA), also expressed excitement to have students return to school and her office’s effort to address inequities of the past and present.
According to Williams, OAAMA’s work is designed to, “[change] broken systems and undoing legacies of racism in public education. By actively becoming an anti-racist educational system – and ensuring students furthest away from educational justice thrive – conditions in Seattle Public Schools will improve for all.”
“Our role is to reconstruct the system and the role of students,” says Williams. “We must include students [in the conversation] and elevate their voices in these spaces.”
As there is a move back to in-person education, the SPS is confident that it can meet Governor Inslee’s deadline of April 19th without any major issues.
This article is one of a series of articles produced by The Seattle Medium through support provided by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to Word In Black, a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media outlets across the country.
