By Cheryl Conway
Three Mt. Olive alumni returned to the Mt. Olive Middle School in Budd Lake last night to ask leaders to create a supportive environment for students of color, provide an anti-racist curriculum and a clear focus on inclusion.
Temi Akanbi, Afreen Fahad and Geraldine Ojukwu, alumni from the class of 2015, spoke during the public portion at the end of the Mt. Olive Board of Education meeting held Monday, July 27. The former students were there representing a group they formed in June- Mount Olive In Color- and presented the board with a petition with 500 signatures calling for change.
The first in-person meeting since COVID-19 closed all the school buildings in March and triggered virtual meetings, the Mt. Olive BOE met at MOMS at 5 p.m. for its regular board meeting. Attendees had to fill out a health questionnaire and get their temperatures checked before being admitted to enter the school’s auditorium.
Attendees were designated to sit separately, in every other row, with few people per row, and had to wear masks. Aside from social distancing concerns, BOE members were presented with a petition as well as letters from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) sharing their experiences they faced within the school district.
With the outcry throughout the nation, following the killing of George Floyd and other innocent black lives, local former students started their own conversations looking into individual experiences growing up in Mt. Olive. These conversations have enticed some young activists to speak up for change.
“We were processing our own grief and essentially discussing what were our own experiences growing up in Mt. Olive namely the school district,” explains Ojukwu. “While doing that we realized how normalized some of the microaggressions and discrimination faced frequently. We realized that our peers were also having the same conversations and that these issues are widespread.”
So she and her friends organized a collection of students’ experiences.
Ojukwu explains: “We decided to speak up for ourselves; collect responses in one place; our priority was to create a forum where people could feel comfortable to share their experiences.”
Fahad says they asked for letters from their peers and the community and in doing so were surprised to receive more than 100 responses that exposes “how common” these experiences are for BIPOC.
They went ahead and created a group- Mount Olive In Color, explains Ojukwu, “To push for change centered around awareness, conversation and accountability.”
Their goal is to “Address the route, provide infrastructure for long-term solutions.”
They introduced their petition to BOE and provided a copy to the board secretary.
They also requested to have “a more detailed conversation in following weeks” with the BOE.
BOE President Dr. Anthony Giordano suggested to the group to set up a meeting with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zywicki to go over concerns.
Curriculum Planned On African American Studies
During the public portion of the BOE meeting, Akanbi questioned the BOE on its plans for a school curriculum on African American History.
Zywicki explains the African American curriculum planned for the high school and school district.
He says it will be “Team taught and team co-written,” with Mr. Zindel, who was board approved at the last meeting to be part of the process. He is working with Amistad Commission, says Zywicki. They were both invited to the Department of Education Black History Month event as “one of the inaugural Amistad Journey School Districts.”
Zywicki says they “Will be working hand in hand with the Amistad Commission” on a “Series of best practices when it comes to teaching African American studies," which he says, is “Not supposed to be just about trauma but also culture and things like that.”
He also made connection with a group out of Ghana that does a series of live video chats, on current African culture, economics, politics, keeping in mind the “need to infuse those things in elementary grades.”
He says there will be “tremendous number of scholars” who will “be vetting our curriculum before presenting it to full board approval."
This process is happening right now and in the next couple of weeks, he says.
He also placed an ad this week seeking a teacher in African American Studies, “as he wants a person to have a background in that.”
Akanbi says she appreciates the effort everyone has been putting into and researching the curriculum.
She says, “as someone who is the child of two African immigrants, born in America” she stresses that African History and African American History need to be two separate classes.
“That is the issue that we are missing in a lot these classes,” says Akanbi. “We are always talking about African and the slaves… Black people have come way farther than when they were slaves. We should focus more on the rich and beautiful black American history that has been in this country for decades past Africa.”
“I would concur with you,” says Zywicki, who took 12 credits of African American studies and African History at Syracuse University.
African studies for elementary schools will include African culture, history and art. The African American Studies course, however, is a high school elective. For middle school students in seventh grade and eighth grades, African American studies will be “infused throughout” in world history, world geography, world literature, in ELA. in text.
Other MO School District Actions On Race
Zywicki noted the following on his daily blog:
“In January 2019, after I first addressed the full MOTSD staff I was struck by the lack of diversity in our teaching staff. Subsequently, we launched the Applitrack online hiring system and a recruitment plan to deliberately increase the diversity of our application pool. In December 2019, the Board of Education approved the Human Rights and African American Studies electives for the 2020-21 school year. Following the Murder of George Floyd we held a student-driven teach-in to discuss the issues of systemic racism and police brutality in our nation. While we have made recent strides towards equity and the celebration of diversity in our schools, these are first steps in a much longer journey to fully address these issues in MOTSD,” wrote Zywicki.
“On 8/31, Dr. Tyrone Howard will be addressing the full MO faculty and staff to kick off our examination of the relationships between bias, race, culture and the impact it has on our student's learning, development, and sense of belonging,” he continued. “Dr. Howard's visit is over a year in the making having been invited to the district in June of 2019. The entire Mount Olive Community is invited to participate in a virtual book club to read and discuss Dr. Howard's book "Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools.”
BOE Commend Students
BOE members commended the students who spoke up at the meeting.
One of the reasons newly elected BOE member Nolan Stephens ran was to encourage a greater voice among the students. He thanked the group for attending the meeting.
“Thanks all of you for being a part of that,” and speaking up for change, says Stephens.
“Mount Olive in Color team, thank you for coming up,” says Dr. Antoine Gayles. “Truth to power; hold us accountable, that we do what we are elected to do; to learn, to grow and become a more inclusive school community.”
Giordano recommends that everyone read the book “White Fragility,” by Robin Diangelo, as a way to educate oneself on the issue of racism.
Mount Olive In Color
Mount Olive In Color started back in June around the time of the protest, says Akanbi, who stresses that she did not help develop the page but instead helped with the tasks.
“I've been working with Mount Olive In Color to draft the petitions released so far and also putting together all of the letters people have been sending in regarding their experiences as POC in MO,” says Akanbi.
The idea and the development of the group “was founded by two MO alumni who are good friends of mine from school.” They wanted to remain anonymous up until the BOE meeting last night.
“The purpose is to expose the disparities POC face in town because everyone thinks it doesn’t happen,” explains Akanbi. “The plan is to expose and then rebuild with understanding and better experience for POC that come to live here.”
Mount Olive in Color is a page on Facebook used to disseminate information from Mount Olive in Color and share stories as it’s not a Facebook group format. The group welcomes and encourages discussion in the comments and any posts on the page.
In addition to the BOE petition, the group has circulated another petition for the Mt. Olive Police Department.
There is no deadline for the police petition, they say. Two weeks ago, they attended a Zoom Town Hall meeting with MOPD Chief Stephen Beecher “and we walked away with more questions than answers,” they say. “After presenting our petition to the BOE this week, we will be able to give all matters related to the PD the attention it deserves.
As far as signatures, "We have a little over 100 on the MOPD one and close to 500 on the MOTSD one.”
The Zoom call with Beecher was held on July 14 at 7 p.m. and was facilitated by the MO Democrats.
“I appreciated him taking the time to hop on the call,” says Akanbi. There were about 26 of us. Most of the call was statistics and what jumped out at me was the consideration of body cams for MOPD and the stop statistics. MO shouldn't be funneling money into body cams when it could be used for other things. And the chief read some stats from over the last few years that black people stopped by MOPD range between 15-20% right along white people but black people only make up 5% of the community. That's a problem.”