THE CASE FOR CHANGE
FCPS must live up to its responsibility as an organization to grow and meet the needs of our diverse world by changing the organization and changing practice, both with an anti-racist lens. We recognize that this antiracist work is not a destination, but a journey; by embarking on it, we express our willingness to continuously learn and grow. We are setting out to embed antiracist and abolitionist practices at every level of FCPS and declare these grades on the scorecards a starting point for further work. For students, we aim to create better outcomes and empower them to be the next generation of individuals who will have a level of conviction and commitment to ensure that the inequalities we experience today are no longer experienced. For communities, we desire to partner with all stakeholders, including families, community leaders, educators, policymakers, business leaders and faith-based organizations, to ensure we are creating a space that empowers their voices in this process to co-create a vision for a more just society.
HOW TO USE THE SCORECARD
This scorecard comprises four sections where we highlight criteria that embody an antiracist and abolitionist system that should function within FCPS. Our grading marks are based on sources that are proven to drive systems toward antiracist outcomes. Our intent is to review this scorecard annually not as a punitive, but as a corrective measure. We want to work with FCPS to create better conditions, and we welcome constructive dialogue and practices that could lead to improved results in the future. This scorecard can also be used by community stakeholders to assess their individual school communities or pyramids. Our criteria is not mutually exclusive or exhaustive. Our goal is to describe a current snapshot of our school system and work with FCPS to produce better outcomes system-wide.
Updated on 1/2/22
FCPS must live up to its responsibility as an organization to grow and meet the needs of our diverse world by changing the organization and changing practice, both with an anti-racist lens. We recognize that this antiracist work is not a destination, but a journey; by embarking on it, we express our willingness to continuously learn and grow. We are setting out to embed antiracist and abolitionist practices at every level of FCPS and declare these grades on the scorecards a starting point for further work. For students, we aim to create better outcomes and empower them to be the next generation of individuals who will have a level of conviction and commitment to ensure that the inequalities we experience today are no longer experienced. For communities, we desire to partner with all stakeholders, including families, community leaders, educators, policymakers, business leaders and faith-based organizations, to ensure we are creating a space that empowers their voices in this process to co-create a vision for a more just society.
HOW TO USE THE SCORECARD
This scorecard comprises four sections where we highlight criteria that embody an antiracist and abolitionist system that should function within FCPS. Our grading marks are based on sources that are proven to drive systems toward antiracist outcomes. Our intent is to review this scorecard annually not as a punitive, but as a corrective measure. We want to work with FCPS to create better conditions, and we welcome constructive dialogue and practices that could lead to improved results in the future. This scorecard can also be used by community stakeholders to assess their individual school communities or pyramids. Our criteria is not mutually exclusive or exhaustive. Our goal is to describe a current snapshot of our school system and work with FCPS to produce better outcomes system-wide.
Updated on 1/2/22
1. CURRICULUM
An anti-racist curriculum is grounded in the pursuit of BIPOC liberation, criticality, excellence, and joy. White supremacy is present in every facet of our curriculum, from the state-mandated standards, to the county-written resources, to the pedagogical approach to teaching and assessment. A liberatory curriculum includes facets of important educational perspectives including multicultural education, culturally-responsive pedagogy, and social justice education. Currently, the county is undergoing a review of some social studies curriculums and plans to continue reviewing social studies content in all grade levels, but does not have a timeline to do so. This is only minimal, and the county should review and rewrite curriculum in all subject matter and at all grade levels. Though the county had set forth a timeline and community input process towards creating an Anti-Bias, Anti-Racism Curriculum Policy, the draft that was set to be released in Summer of 2021 has not been shared or discussed in any School Board Meetings since May 2021.
2. HUMAN RESOURCES & LEADERSHIP
Free & Antiracist Minds stands for the dismantling and removal of hierarchies that promote white supremacy and inequities. FCPS’s current structure of superintendent, regional superintendent, principal, etc., lends itself to systems of control, limiting of community voice, and stagnation. We have the long term vision of decentralizing hierarchies and power in the county and individual school systems. We are in favor of more community-based schools, shared leadership, a school system run by students, families, and the community. The purpose of this is to create consensus-making structures where decisions are made as a community as opposed to top down. The best option is to have community-run schools, decentralizing power and reinvesting that power into students, teachers, and families.
3. DISCIPLINE
There are police officers placed at every middle and high school in Fairfax County Public Schools through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) between the Fairfax County Police Department and the School District. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors allocates millions towards this program. FAM recognizes that this program and any collaboration between the police and school, creates racist outcomes for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students. Beyond the scope of police, we also know that our schools have adopted policing measures without the police and these racist practices should also be abolished.
Schools should leverage liberatory practices rather than punitive measures to create harmonious classroom environments. An example of this is Abolitionist Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL). Abolitionist SEL is not an isolated lesson. It is a way of being that informs all aspects of teaching, learning, and relationship building with students, families, and communities. FCPS should integrate Abolitionist SEL rituals and routines that welcome the full range of emotions and provide tools to support students in processing and asking for support. Funding from the SRO program should go to the schools to strengthen these practices over disciplinary measures.
Schools should leverage liberatory practices rather than punitive measures to create harmonious classroom environments. An example of this is Abolitionist Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL). Abolitionist SEL is not an isolated lesson. It is a way of being that informs all aspects of teaching, learning, and relationship building with students, families, and communities. FCPS should integrate Abolitionist SEL rituals and routines that welcome the full range of emotions and provide tools to support students in processing and asking for support. Funding from the SRO program should go to the schools to strengthen these practices over disciplinary measures.
4. INSTRUCTION
Teachers at FCPS have had minimal professional development on critical issues of race and equity in education. As of 2020, teachers received 6 mandated 1 hour-1.5 hour modules on Cultural Proficiency and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in the past 5 years. Class size averages are currently 22.4 students at the elementary level, 24.6 for middle schools, and 25.6 for high schools. There are a variety of pedagogical approaches to instruction throughout the county. Additionally, students are tracked from an early age, in 2nd grade, into the Advanced Academic Level IV Program that leads to Honors, AP, and IB classes at the middle and high school level. The current FCPS policy creates parallel and racially, linguistically, and culturally segregated school systems from primary grades through graduation.
GLOSSARY
Abolition/Abolish- Ending the prison industrial complex (prisons, surveillance, policing).
Antiracist- One who supports policies or actions that dismantle a system of institutionalized and legal control that empowers and benefits one racial group while oppressing and disadvantaging other racial groups.
Bias- A personal favoring of some ideas (or people) over others.
BIPOC- Black, Indigenous, People of Color. The term BIPOC recognizes that all POC face marginalization, especially POC from Black and Indigenous communities.
Racism- A system of legal and institutional control that benefits one racial group with power and privilege while disadvantaging another racial group or groups, regardless of individual actions or intentions.
Restorative Justice- A set of practices that aim to heal damage caused and restore a relationship.
SEL- Social Emotional Learning that advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation.
Spirit-murdering- “The denial of inclusion, protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance because of fixed, yet fluid and moldable, structures of racism”
Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press p.38
Transformative Justice- Addresses the root system of the harm so that the harm is no longer possible; a way of responding to violence and harm that does not cause more violence and harm.
Barnard Center for Research on Women (2020) What is Transformative Justice Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-_BOFz5TXo
Translanguaging- “Translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential”
García, Ofelia (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp. 128-145
Antiracist- One who supports policies or actions that dismantle a system of institutionalized and legal control that empowers and benefits one racial group while oppressing and disadvantaging other racial groups.
Bias- A personal favoring of some ideas (or people) over others.
BIPOC- Black, Indigenous, People of Color. The term BIPOC recognizes that all POC face marginalization, especially POC from Black and Indigenous communities.
Racism- A system of legal and institutional control that benefits one racial group with power and privilege while disadvantaging another racial group or groups, regardless of individual actions or intentions.
Restorative Justice- A set of practices that aim to heal damage caused and restore a relationship.
SEL- Social Emotional Learning that advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation.
Spirit-murdering- “The denial of inclusion, protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance because of fixed, yet fluid and moldable, structures of racism”
Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press p.38
Transformative Justice- Addresses the root system of the harm so that the harm is no longer possible; a way of responding to violence and harm that does not cause more violence and harm.
Barnard Center for Research on Women (2020) What is Transformative Justice Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-_BOFz5TXo
Translanguaging- “Translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential”
García, Ofelia (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp. 128-145
REFERENCES
Abolitionist Teaching Network (2020) Abolitionist Teaching Network Racial Justice Guide Retrieved from: https://abolitionistteachingnetwork.org/guide
American Civil Liberties Union (n.d) Cops and No Counselors Report Retrieved from: https://www.aclu.org/report/cops-and-no-counselors
Barnard Center for Research on Women (2020) What is Transformative Justice Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-_BOFz5TXo
Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Communication and Community Relations (2020) Racism and Hate Have No Place in FCPS Retrieved from:
https://www.fcps.edu/blog/racism-and-hate-have-no-place-fcps
Fairfax County Public Schools & Fairfax County Government (2020) Countering Stigma and Racism Retrieved from:
https://www.fcps.edu/blog/countering-stigma-and-racism
García, Ofelia (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan
Love, B. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.
Major, A. (2020) How to Develop Culturally Responsive Teaching for Distance Learning KQED Retrieved from:
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55941/how-to-develop-culturally-responsive-teaching-for-distance-learning
Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (2019) NYU Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard Retrieved from:
https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/atn293/ejroc/CRE-Rubric-2018-190211.pdf?_ga=2.3288824.910612418.1597266473-936596943.159726647
NOVA Equity Agenda Coalition (2020) School Resource Officers Violate Student Rights, Studies Find Retrieved from:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gWXKPOgzChKYjggcFRWk0pvmunWPjaEmJ7ftw1aU1Ic/edit
Saint Louis Public Schools (2020) Anti-Bias Anti-Racism (ABAR) Plan 2020-21 Retrieved from: https://www.slps.org/Page/6363
American Civil Liberties Union (n.d) Cops and No Counselors Report Retrieved from: https://www.aclu.org/report/cops-and-no-counselors
Barnard Center for Research on Women (2020) What is Transformative Justice Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-_BOFz5TXo
Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Communication and Community Relations (2020) Racism and Hate Have No Place in FCPS Retrieved from:
https://www.fcps.edu/blog/racism-and-hate-have-no-place-fcps
Fairfax County Public Schools & Fairfax County Government (2020) Countering Stigma and Racism Retrieved from:
https://www.fcps.edu/blog/countering-stigma-and-racism
García, Ofelia (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati Panda, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan
Love, B. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.
Major, A. (2020) How to Develop Culturally Responsive Teaching for Distance Learning KQED Retrieved from:
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55941/how-to-develop-culturally-responsive-teaching-for-distance-learning
Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (2019) NYU Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard Retrieved from:
https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/atn293/ejroc/CRE-Rubric-2018-190211.pdf?_ga=2.3288824.910612418.1597266473-936596943.159726647
NOVA Equity Agenda Coalition (2020) School Resource Officers Violate Student Rights, Studies Find Retrieved from:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gWXKPOgzChKYjggcFRWk0pvmunWPjaEmJ7ftw1aU1Ic/edit
Saint Louis Public Schools (2020) Anti-Bias Anti-Racism (ABAR) Plan 2020-21 Retrieved from: https://www.slps.org/Page/6363
YOUR TURN!
Use the button below to download a blank version of our scorecard document. Add your own grades and reasoning. Include examples from experiences and any other pertinent information. This can be done at the school or district level. Use this to drive learning, action, and change in our school system. Please share with us too!
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