Helen Roth

Dear Students,

We, the undersigned, support the “Open Letter” from the members of the Student Justice Council (SJC). We acknowledge that structural and interpersonal racism permeates the ASL community. We endorse your call for creating visible, immediate, and effective change in the school’s approach to anti-racism work, and we believe we have a part to play in that process. Your letter is a clear sign that the school is failing to do the anti-racism work necessary for providing its students with the safety, educational experience, and cultural competence it aspires to develop in global citizens and critical thinkers. 

Addressing racism in our community is a safeguarding issue. Our students have the right to be safe and to have the adults around them proactively address issues of racism urgently and competently. Feeling safe at ASL should never be a struggle, especially in a school that centers student safety and well-being at the core of its mission. As educators, we know that the primary need of any learner is physical and emotional safety.

In order to stop this pattern of ignoring and excusing racism, we must make our school culture explicitly anti-racist. The lack of a coherent anti-racist plan at ASL contributes to a school culture where anti-racism work “begins and ends with students”. It is our responsibility to partner with students, colleagues, and families to build an anti-racist environment in all areas of school life and in the education we co-create. We acknowledge that the failure of adults to disrupt, address, and competently facilitate conversations about race and racism contributes to the racism in our community. It is each teacher’s responsibility to proactively foster safe classroom environments. We welcome the opportunity to develop channels of communication by which students can reflect back their experiences to teachers in ways that feel both empowering and safe.

Students should never have faced the racism and ongoing complacency, complicity, and inaction that prompted your letter. This letter bears witness to the reality that as an adult community we have a long way to go in terms of fulfilling our share of the work. Devising a plan to develop and implement the recommendations suggested in the Open Letter is a step towards achieving change. Each of the community members below recognizes they have work to do in creating change. We offer this letter as a step toward accountability, a commitment to changing the status quo, which cannot stand.