June 15, 2020
Dear PON Members and Partners:
The Parent Organization Network (PON) denounces structural racism in all of its forms, in particular the culture and practice of police violence that continues to have deadly consequences for communities of color. We further denounce the forms of structural racism in education systems that condone and promote the school-to-prison pipeline[1] and produce gaps in student achievement, higher education attainment, income, wealth, and quality of life.
We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and send our condolences to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the many other families who have lost a loved one at the hands of the police or vigilantes perpetrating hate crimes in the name of community policing.
As a network of parents and advocates of color we are angered, heartbroken, and overwhelmed. At the same time, we are inspired by the movement building from people across generations, cultures, states and countries and are hopeful for change.
The pandemic has revealed how racism is rooted across systems (i.e., criminal justice, health, education, housing, employment) all designed with similar barriers, policies, cultures, and practices to maintain White privilege and subjugate people of color. The compounded effects of inequities in the educational system alone inevitably result in African Americans being at the bottom of most indicators of academic success (i.e., student achievement outcomes, graduation and college preparation rates, and college admissions). African American students, on the other hand, continue to be grossly over-represented as targets of disciplinary action in school and in special education placement. All of this takes an enormous social-emotional toll as evidenced by dramatic increases in suicide rates among Black children and youth, beginning at age 5
[
2
]
. Other children in communities of color unfortunately face similar barriers to healthy development and academic excellence.
This is unconscionable! It is time to re-design systems with families and communities as partners to provide the opportunities and the necessary supports for all of us to thrive in life.
Education and family engagement are at the core of PON’s work and as such we will continue guiding our work by the aspirations and principles our organization was built upon work with parents, parents, students and educators to eradicate educational inequities based on race, class, income and citizenship status, and transform education systems so these:
- Value parents as integral partners of their children’s educational process;
- Uphold all children’s rights to an equitable and quality education;
- Respect diversity of all children and families;
- Embrace every individual’s worth, dignity, and uniqueness;
- Prioritize relationship building to create foundational conditions (i.e., trust and respect) for children and adults to achieve their fullest potential; and
- Eliminate the hostile practice of labeling parents who have a sense of urgency in advocating for their children as "disruptive persons" and barring them from school grounds.
As dream-keepers for our children, we do everything in our power to overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We rely on our collective wisdom, strength, creativity and resilience to make a more just society for all our children and families. To this end, we will engage with our members and partners, especially those who are most underrepresented, to reflect and identify concrete actions PON can make, internally and in broader alliances, to contribute to this movement.
In the meantime, we want to affirm our support to reform policies that criminalize youth in the education system through the implementation of unfair school discipline policies and practices and parents who may find themselves banned from their child’s school for their advocacy and threatened with police if they return.
We want to uplift the work of two PON members that have worked on these issues for many years:
CADRE
and
Gente Organizada
.
Please consider supporting their work as we look to this moment in time as one that will result in thoughtful and meaningful changes to bring about actual change for African Americans and other communities of color.
Sincerely,
Adrián Sandoval
, Advisory Board Co-Chair
Joyce G. Watts
, Advisory Board Co-Chair
Araceli Simeón
, Project Director
