Something I am grappling with is the move of Seattle Schools' Lowell APP program to Thurgood Marshall and Hawthorne. The move is from Capital Hill to the South end, and from a building that is 68% white to predominately people of non-white backgrounds. Two things strike me, and I am having trouble understanding:
First: One of the criteria looked at in moving the program is that, if in a building with general ed students, the building should look mirror the demographics of the program in socioeconomic status and background. Hmmm...
Second: I've been reading other blogs, as well as watching the news, and there is this sort of "I wouldn't send my kids there" mentality. They don't necessarily mind moving, but not to either of those schools. I will drop any pretense around understanding school closures, as I haven't been there, so I grapple...
The way I am making sense of it is be smelling the classism and racism in the air. What will happen to the APP kids in a predominately African American building? Is that bad for them? I thought we valued diversity, so I am a bit stumped. If they don't want their kids to go there because they fear the black kids, then say it. Let's call a spade, a spade and stop dancing around. I'm appalled and really angry. I've done after school programming in the Hawthorne building, and the kids are great. Instead they are maligned as inferior to APP kids, and should be avoided.. oh wait, that is the building to avoid, not the kids. They won't say that either... I'm stark raving mad.
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I know you're fired up! Interesting also, is the two schools within one building- the "advanced" and "standard" program- sounds like a mirror to the set up that we read about in Schooling Homeless Children...
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