VOLUNTEER FOR BEU AT BROOKLINE DAY
Sunday, September 23rd 11- 3
Help us remind the Brookline community that a strong BEU is good for our schools.
Volunteer for an hour or two at Brookline Day at Larz Anderson Park on Sunday, September 23. Greet the community, make pinwheels with children, set up, or clean up!
Sign up here:
https://goo.gl/forms/
At their May 14 meeting, the BEU Representative Council will discuss and vote on whether to endorse an upcoming Brookline Town Meeting warrant article calling for a name change for the Edward Devotion School. BEU members will be discussing the question in their buildings in the coming weeks so they can share their viewpoints with the reps who will decide on the BEU position.
The call for a name change has been gaining momentum. A growing number in the Brookline community are considering the implications of a history that a transition to a new building provides one reason to examine. Edward Devotion rejected the anti-slavery creed and was a slave owner. Wealth derived from the labor and treatment as a commodity of a human being became part of a bequest to the town that was later celebrated with the naming of the school for the slaveholder, Devotion.
The campaign has become a powerful opportunity for the Brookline community to disclose the hidden exploitation of people of African descent in Brookline’s history and beyond, and to finally ask how this exploitation can be redressed and ended in our time. The union has joined this effort.
HERE ARE MATERIALS FOR DISCUSSION CREATED BY MEMBERS OF THE CAMPAIGN TO CHANGE THE NAME OF DEVO:
Frequently asked questions about the name change
Historical Chronology of the Edward Devotion school name
Why a name change matters–presentation to the School Committee by Deborah Brown
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Join other MTA members and community activists from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27 at the MTA headquarters in Quincy, 2 Heritage Drive, 1st Floor. Learn about and share ideas with other MTA members about organizing strategies in the fight against high-stakes testing. We will hear from:
This meeting is the fifth meeting with a focus on planning for the fall and next year. All are welcome, from PreK- 12 to Higher Education colleagues who want to support these efforts and/or opt their children out of high stakes testing. |
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| LOCATION | MTA Headquarters Quincy |
| ADDRESS | 11 Heritage Drive Quincy, MA 02169  |
Over the last few months, BEU educators have been engaging in a dialogue with Superintendent Bott about what they see as insufficient support by the district for educators of color. The BEU is pleased that at a June 16 meeting with these educators, Andrew committed to answering in writing a set of questions that the educators gave Andrew and their principal. Here are some of their questions below. We look forward to the answers as they will contribute to the work of achieving racial justice and equity.
One of two black classroom teachers disappeared [in our school] with very little explanation to the students. Being a black student in Brookline can prove challenging. It can be difficult for these students to feel that it is their community. What is your plan to make these students feel a part of an accepting and nurturing community?
Obviously it’s important to recruit and retain staff of color [in our school] and in the district overall. Recognizing that it’s difficult to attract staff of color to Brookline, what’s your plan to give the additional support needed to help retain staff of color?
Why is it so difficult to attract teachers of color to a district like Brookline? What is Brookline doing about this?
What steps are currently being taken to retain teachers of color?
What is your understanding of the special / specific pressures/stresses that a young Black female teacher is apt to experience in a school that a white, class privileged male, or female might not experience?
More specifically, can you imagine that such a teacher might be treated differently by a parent? What specific training in cultural competency will you give principals to ensure that they are sensitive to the effects of white and class privilege that an educator of color might face from a parent, or a supervisor or other senior administrators?
Do you think that discipline of teachers by the administration should be race blind? Why or why not?
How would you respond to the argument that a failure to acknowledge white privilege in otherwise race-blind disciplinary procedures represents unconscious racial bias?
Will you commit to writing (and bringing to the School Committee) a document that explains what supports educators can expect from administrators? Will you put in writing how white privilege in disciplinary practices will be checked in all investigations of educator wrongdoing, and how this will be measured?
Are you open to acknowledging that a lack of recognition of the unique experience of educators of color reinforces white dominance in the act of making judgments and making universal claims about what behavior is, or is not, defensible and justifiable in the part of a staff person of color?
More than 4000 gathered on Boston Common to oppose education cuts. Read the Boston Globe article HERE.
MTA News