by Shira May and Betty Reinhart
What happens when students have the opportunity to engage with a curriculum that is built on principles of anti-racism, cultural competence, and a focus on relationships? Many leaders in the Rochester area have engaged with this question. Three recent local initiatives are described below:
In 2009, Joy DeGruy, author of the book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, began visiting Rochester over the course of several months to facilitate professional development seminars with Rochester City School District staff. This initiative led to the development of the Victorious Minds Academy curriculum, coordinated by Susan Goodwin of the Rochester Teacher Center.
Victorious Minds highlights several key elements:
- Recognizes the lasting impact of historical trauma, in particular slavery, on students of color.
- Culturally responsive — in particular, recognizing that students of color may learn differently from white students.
- Based on building relationships with both the child and the family rather than just sharing knowledge.
- Builds on students’ assets rather than pointing out their deficits.
Another result of this partnership was the formation of the Community Task Force on School Climate, which developed a new code of conduct based on restorative practices principles. Other initiatives that emerged include the formation of the RocRestorative Team, the use of Help Zones, and monthly Professional Learning Community meetings.
Studies have demonstrated the positive impact of these initiatives, including a steep reduction in suspension rates and a reduction in courses failed by students.
Eight years ago, Shane Wiegand, a 4th grade teacher at Rush-Henrietta school district, was challenged by a student who wanted to know if there was a civil rights struggle here in Rochester. As a white teacher, raised in a white suburb, and lacking meaningful contact with black educators and experience from grade school to graduate school, he was unable to answer. This question sparked an extraordinary scholastic effort to learn and catalog our local history and develop an engaging curriculum for his students. The organic growth of this one teacher’s mission has been remarkable. Starting with only ten fourth-grade teachers in his school district, Shane has now educated over 200 teachers across five districts: Rush-Henrietta, Webster, Rochester, West Irondequoit, and Pittsford.
There is a hunger to learn about this vital history and to take aim at the roots of structural racism. This curriculum has nourished the civic consciousness of students who’ve already taken action to seek justice in their community. In order to scale the success of this project Shane has partnered with the PathStone Foundation to formalize and strategically implement this curriculum across grade-levels throughout Monroe County. In June of 2020, Kellie McNair, former Principal at Longridge Elementary School in Greece, and currently Executive Director of Accountability at RCSD, joined the team to co-lead the Antiracist Curriculum Project. She led the Greece district’s Culturally Responsive Education Training team and has over 20 years of experience as an educator, administrator, and leader in anti-racist policies and social justice in education.
This year, the curriculum team expanded its reach to young emerging leaders in the Rochester community to provide input and guidance on the curriculum. Four Teen Empowerment activists who are involved in Free the People Roc were paid as consultants to provide feedback on the curriculum, and they were also involved with developing and facilitating teacher workshops highlighting current activism in the community. Based on the model of the Clarissa Street video, these youth will also be interviewing Black leaders and producing videos to accompany the curriculum materials. The curriculum project has also expanded its reach with other organizations, recently presenting to the Monroe County sheriff department, as well as leading restorative circles afterwards.
Shane has become a champion for Restorative Practices through his training at PiRI. He attended both a Community Building Circle Training and a Train the Trainer session as a 4th grade teacher from Rush Henrietta. Since this time our partnership has grown and it is exciting to know that restorative circles and philosophy are used in this Antiracist Curriculum Project and in fact the teacher’s role is one of a facilitator throughout the lessons. In this reciprocal partnership with PiRI Shane has also offered workshops at PiRI and supports our use of this antiracism curriculum in our trainings.
A new initiative for a curriculum showcasing local contemporary Black leaders is “In This Moment: Revolution, Reckoning, Reparation.” Created by Amanda Chestnut, Curator, and Jeanne Strazzabosco, Coordinator, in association with the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW), this project will produce a chapbook series highlighting the work of ten Black leaders in Rochester, with profiles created by local Black writers and photographers. The goal of the project is to make these chapbooks available for free to Rochester city residents, and to promote their use in schools across the region.
PiRI is currently collaborating with the In This Moment team to submit a grant proposal to the Feinbloom Supporting Foundation. If funded, our role would be to lead curriculum writing, professional development, and dissemination of these resources to educators, using the chapbooks as a primary resource.