Quick summary:
This week’s newsletter covers a range of education stories. We start by reflecting on the tragic school shooting near Atlanta. Amid this somber news, we highlight stories of students advocating for change as they face systemic racism in their schools, featuring stories from Kansas City Defender, Prism, Sahan Journal, Epicenter NYC and others.
The back-to-school stories I’ve read this week have filled me with both hope and fear. We’re seeing stories of youth creating safe spaces to discuss politics and the issues that matter most to them. Yet, we’re also hearing stories of students unknowingly drinking water contaminated with lead and facing unfair treatment for standing up against injustices.
We’ll be diving into these stories and more in today’s newsletter.
But first, we want to acknowledge and offer our condolences to the students, families and school administrators affected by the tragic shooting at Apalachee High School outside of Atlanta this week, which left four people dead and nine injured. Mass shootings have become an all too familiar reality in the U.S.
We hope you stay informed about what’s happening around the country with URL Media, so you can make informed decisions this school year, which coincides with a critical point in the election season.
In Oakland, California, a public school district marred by years of lead contamination in its waterways has driven a group of educators and concerned parents to condemn district officials for failing to address the issue across several schools, reports Prism. Lead contamination, which is associated with numerous dangers — including damage to children’s brains and nervous systems, slowed growth and development — is an extreme health hazard to any student exposed to it, stresses Stuart Thompson, a sixth-grade math and science teacher at Frick United Academy.
“This enrages me because that means that students were drinking from these water fountains for a month and a half of the remainder of the school year,” Thompson said. “And then we had a big summer program where 80 students were drinking from these water fountains all throughout the summer until the first day of school.”
In April, the school district published a report indicating that 21 schools had lead levels exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s action threshold of 15 parts per billion, with another 20 schools showing levels between 5 and 15 parts per billion. He and his colleagues were informed of the lead contamination on the first day of the new school year, despite the district having known about the issue since April.
Plus: Back to school: An easy guide for the 2024-25 school year (Epicenter NYC)
Recently, Sahan Journal provided a major update on a story that captured national attention last spring when protesters across the country demanded their institutions divest from Israel due to its ongoing war on Gaza.
Last month, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents voted to reject calls for divestment from investments tied to Israel, and instead adopt a “position of neutrality” regarding the university’s endowment. The board stated it would consider future divestment requests only in rare cases where a “broad consensus” within the university community existed. It’s important to note that the board’s vote on the neutrality stance was not unanimous.
In response, the board’s president released new protest guidelines, setting restrictions on how the campus community can organize demonstrations in the future. The rules prohibit tents, require protests to end by 10 p.m., limit gatherings to one megaphone, and mandate that any group larger than 100 people must obtain a permit.
Fae Hodges, an organizer with the UMN Divest Coalition and member of Students for a Democratic Society, voiced their disappointment at the regents’ decision. “This university has shown it is not willing to stand on its own principles,” Hodges told Sahan Journal. “We know that in order to get stuff done — last spring made it clear — we have to disrupt the function of this university.”
URL Media partners extensively covered the protesters’ demands across 100 college campuses this spring and throughout the summer. This latest story from Prism reports that returning students vow to continue pro-Palestine protests this fall, despite their schools’ threats of disciplinary and legal consequences. It’s a story we’ll continue to follow and keep you informed about.
Plus: Asian American enrollment drops at Yale & Princeton (AsAmNews)
Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Missouri, The Kansas City Defender is covering the story of a Black high school senior and football player who was recently placed on a week-long suspension after confronting a white peer who called him the n-word and threatened to rape one of his female classmates. The student, Colby Barker, told the digital news site this week that he initially notified school administrators about the white student’s threats, and was “left with no choice” but to take action after they failed to intervene.
“I went up to him, you know, very friendly,” Colby recounts. “I told him, just stay away from her. That’s it.”
The exchange soon escalated.
The white student responded with a racial slur and said he would “have his way” with Colby’s female classmate if given the chance. Enraged, Colby says he had pinned the student to the wall for about 20 seconds. Another classmate saw the confrontation and intervened.
Following the incident, The Kansas City Defender reports that the administration’s action toward Barker was swift and severe, and subsequently so has been the student body’s outrage. Since then, a series of petitions calling for Colby’s reinstatement, the expulsion of the white student and the firing of school administrators have circulated online. Also, other female students who have been harassed by the white student have come forward to share their experiences.
“I’ve been assaulted by [the white student]. He gets away with it and it isn’t okay, the trauma he has caused for me and other students. He has sexually assaulted me personally and I was the one who got in trouble,” one student wrote on the petition.
Colby shares, “The worst part about it is, the school is literally punishing me for speaking out against racism and sexual assault,” he said. “I shouldn’t be getting punished for this. Everyone has to step up and play their part to stop these kinds of things. And now I’m taking all the consequences for stepping up.”
The outlet’s latest update states that more than 100 students participated in a mass walkout to protest the school’s failure to protect students from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and hate speech. It has also been reported that the school locked students in the auditorium with law enforcement officials to prevent them from joining the protests.
More: Hundreds of students walkout, occupy school & chant “Free Colby” after Black student suspended for standing against racist & sexual violence (Kansas City Defender)
On a lighter note, here’s a story from high schoolers in Queens, New York, that makes us proud. Two best friends, who have now graduated, started a political awareness club in their senior year to create a safe environment for other students to discuss politics and issues they care about but hadn’t seen addressed on the national or local political stage — topics like gun control and women’s rights.
The club’s leaders cited political activist Angela Davis as the inspiration behind their approach. “I was amazed by how Davis gave me a lens to see the world through her eyes as a Black lesbian, and that core value of critical thinking and open-mindedness translated to the club,” the student leader told Epicenter NYC in an email.
Soon, the duo partnered with Let’s Talk Democracy (LTD), an organization that shares the Youth Informed Club’s goals of educating citizens and promoting inclusive civic participation. Through this partnership, they received guidance from LTD’s co-director, Ida Messana, who taught them how to structure meetings, do outreach, and mobilize people.
Here’s an insight from the club’s co-leader, Salma Baksh, about what she learned while running the club: “… Like all the other events we’ve done, there is always, always a knowledge gap. It’s hard to overcome that often because you want to talk about this, but is everyone going to know what that means? So I think that’s why civic education is really important, because that’s where people get started.”
As we navigate these complex and challenging times, it’s stories like these that remind us of the resilience and determination of our youth. Stay tuned for on-the-ground reporting from URL Media partners at url-media.com.
