Open Letter Addressing Race in Point Pleasant Beach
April 21, 2021
Dear Point Pleasant Beach School District Administration:
As you are well aware, the recent events surrounding two students’ public project entitled “Whitepower” spelled backwards has caused a large upheaval in the Point Pleasant Beach community. This act of racism, while certainly not an isolated incident, has demonstrated the critical need for action on behalf of the administration. We are deeply disheartened by the school’s response to these events.
On April 14th, 2021, superintendent Dr. Will Smith publicly stated that the school “will not tolerate acts of discrimination, bias, or bullying”, yet he excused these students’ very acts of discrimination with their age, impulsivity, and lack of worldy experience. This is precisely why the administration of Point Pleasant Beach must do more to combat racism. In order to prepare students as “productive global citizens”, as stated in the school’s core mission, the administration must commit to concrete actions that develop the student body’s cultural competence to a level far beyond the Point Beach Bubble.
We are reaching out in an effort to propose some changes we believe the Point Pleasant Beach school district should consider implementing to build upon diversity and inclusion efforts in our schools. We are grateful for the opportunity that the administration previously provided us with in June to begin an open discussion regarding these matters. Our hopes in providing this letter are to express openly and more concretely our ideas, as well as to open up further discussions regarding these initiatives. We intend for this to be a long-term collaboration and continued discussion, as it is an area in which there can always be more that we as community members strive to do and improve upon.
The following suggestions have built upon our previous conversation with Dr. Grosshandler, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Stecchini, and Ms. Weber, as well as feedback that our initiative received from parents, school faculty, alumni, and current students. We have also taken efforts to deepen our own understanding of these topics, as well as draw upon research in the field and examples taken from precedents set by other schools. It is our hope that these suggestions will contribute to the conversation surrounding diversity and inclusion in our schools, and we can work together to implement them.
Recommendations
One of our top priorities is the advocation for a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee that continues the discussion surrounding racism, bias, and discrimination throughout future generations of Point Pleasant Beach. The development of cultural competence is an ever changing challenge and must remain a continuous conversation. According to the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS), students by the end of grade 12 are expected to be able to convey “attentiveness to multiple perspectives and understanding [of] diverse perspectives.” The implementation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee would allow for the continual overseeing of other actions implemented by the school surrounding race and discrimination, thus ensuring that students are effectively educated on developing their worldly views.
We recommend that this committee include members from the Board of Education, administration, faculty, parents, alumni, and current students. This will allow for extensive representation of all individuals involved with the Point Pleasant Beach school community.
Additionally, we recommend the hiring of specialists trained in racial bias to help facilitate the implementation and continuation of this committee. In order to develop the school’s global perspectives and cultural competence, it is critical that we begin to include individuals outside of the Point Pleasant Beach district.
In 2018-2019, the New Jersey DOE reported that 83% of support-services staff, including guidance counselors, are white. Research shows that African American and Asian/Pacific Islander students are more likely than white students to say that their guidance counselor was the most influential person in considering their post-secondary education plans (Cholewa, Burkhardt, and Hull, 2016). We strongly recommend that the administration hire guidance personnel of color, who will provide essential counseling and guidance to BIPOC students and help them navigate the college application process and other post-secondary educational and vocational opportunities. We also recommend that the guidance department schedule visits with admissions representatives from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
We recommend that in addition to the current SafeSchools training currently mandated and provided to school faculty, the district provides supplemental and instructive workshops on teaching anti-racism in the classroom. While SafeSchools is valuable in providing an element of training discussing sensitivity toward marginalized communities, our suggestion is a result from our conversations with members of school faculty who felt teachers could benefit from more direct and practical skills on how to facilitate and lead conversations surrounding anti-racism in the classroom. These trainings could take the form of online resources commonly used by many universities (ex: Everfi) or in-person workshops led by professionals specialized in this field.
Additionally, we have compiled a selection of various organizations nationwide which have stepped forth to provide free and instructive online resources for educators on facilitating conversations addressing anti-racism in the classroom. Among these organizations are Teaching Tolerance, Common Sense Education, Teaching for Change, National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Project Implicit. While this list is not exhaustive, it is our hope that these organizations may provide supplemental tools and resources for teachers on addressing anti-racism in the classroom.
In light of the current nationwide conversation surrounding racism, many schools are embracing an intentional shift in focus toward culturally responsive curriculum. Examples of such curriculum are outlined by the New York State in their “Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education” framework, which encourages teachers to “utilize tools . . . that encourage students to engage with difficult topics (power, privilege, access, inequity) constructively.” The NYC Culturally Responsive Education Working Group has also furthered work in this realm, creating a guide for teachers: “Transforming Our Public Schools: A Guide to Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education.”
A primary component of the feedback we received from the community – specifically past and current students – was a desire for more diverse and inclusive content in courses such as Language Arts and a more analytical and comprehensive discussion of structural racism as it pertains to United States history and present day events. We believe there are excellent opportunities to embrace and facilitate this material more in the classroom through various ways, such as the inclusion of modern young adult novels in English curriculum which commonly explore themes of diversity and inclusion through a topical perspective. Another way in which culturally responsive material can be further incorporated, at little to no cost, is through the use of online resources such as PDFs of diverse narratives and short stories, which are easily accessible to teachers and students.
The members of Peer Leaders are considered to be strong representatives and role models of the student body. It is for this reason that we strongly recommend that Peer Leaders undergo diversity, equity, and inclusion education in addition to their current training at the start of each year. We believe that this will not only allow incoming freshmen a safe and comfortable transition into high school, but it will also begin to set a new standard for how the students of Point Pleasant Beach should act.
We also feel that as student leaders and representatives, Peer Leaders are well-suited to lead discussions surrounding diversity and inclusion with their peers. We propose that activities addressing these topics are incorporated into Peer Leader activities with the student body to help normalize and actively engage students in the conversations.
In order to provide students with a realistic understanding of the diversity within the workforce, we strongly recommend for there to be efforts to include numerous BIPOC guest speakers of a variety of careers to participate in the annual Career Day. Additionally, we encourage the guidance department, administration, and Board of Education to incorporate guest speakers at Career Day to give presentations on topics such as racism in the workplace, race-based employment discrinination, or other topics that will allow students to capitalize on not only learning about future career options, but also to become acquainted with pressing issues that exist in areas that they may be pursuing.
We strongly recommend that the administration and guidance department devote resources to curating and matching BIPOC students to scholarships for which they are applicable on the National, Statewide, and County level.
We strongly recommend that the administration host assemblies led by guest speakers who are racially and ethnically diverse and are specialized in leading discussions on race and social issues and bias training with students. The administration has the opportunity to draw upon the multitude of organizations and individuals specialized in leading these conversations in high schools nationwide, and such assemblies would provide an important opportunity to bring in valuable outside perspectives. Examples of current assemblies being offered in high schools nationwide touch on topics such as social psychology, helping students understand their biases and actively break them, as well as educating students on the history of inequality in the U.S. and current events.
Point Pleasant Beach School’s mission currently states:
The Point Pleasant Beach School Community will strive to prepare all students to meet the challenges of today’s world and become productive global citizens through an effective and supportive learning environment. Our students will become life-long learners empowered with 21st century skills necessary to adapt to our ever-changing world. We will cultivate and promote self-respect, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the individual differences in others.
We strongly recommend that the administration follow the examples of other high schools and universities by amending the Point Pleasant Beach School District’s mission statement to include language more directly calling out and denouncing acts of racism and discrimination. Such an action would demonstrate a formal commitment on behalf of the district to addressing these concerns and would help to prioritize continuous action taken to address this issue.
Closing Statement
We would like to acknowledge and thank the individuals of the Point Pleasant Beach community who have spoken out against the issues heavily ingrained our schools, as well as those who have shared their own personal experiences through our Community Feedback Form. We must continue to have these difficult conversations, whether it be with our peers, our families, or our superiors. We must learn, change, and grow.
While this initiative was started by a group of alumni, it is the responsibility of the administration to enact these changes. Unless immediate action is implemented, the administration remains accountable for the destruction of the safety and well-being of its BIPOC students. We implore the leaders of the Point Pleasant Beach school district to consider our recommendations and to continue the conversation.
Sincerely,
PPB4BLM
References
Common Sense. “Social and Cultural Literacy Resources for Classrooms.” Common Sense
Education, 2 Feb. 2021, www.commonsense.org/education/articles/social-and-cultural-literacy-resources-for-classrooms.
“Diversity High School Assemblies.” TheDiversityorg,
www.thediversity.org/diversity-hs-assemblies.
Everfi. “Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Training.” Online Cultural Diversity Training For
Your Workplace, 16 Dec. 2020,
Learning for Justice. “Use the Tools of Science to Recognize Inequity in Science.” Learning for
Justice, www.tolerance.org/.
New Jersey Department of Education. “Adopted 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards
(NJSLS).” New Jersey Student Learning Standards, www.nj.gov/education/cccs/2020/.
“ProjectImplicit.” Education, implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html.
“Talking About Race.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2 June 2020,
nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race.
Teaching for Change, www.teachingforchange.org/.