by guest contributor Natasha Sky
My oldest two children are eligible to attend public kindergarten next fall. They have been home full-time since birth, with their dad or me, pretty much living the play-centered life. I began making phone calls to the school in January–we knew this was going to be a complicated process. Our town only offers a full-day kindergarten program, and the school district is known for its focus on test scores. My oldest daughter (age 5) is reading HOP ON POP and GREEN EGGS AND HAM outloud. Her brother (age 4) is not far behind. We’re not worried about academics (the opposite of many parents, I imagine). We are considering school so our kids can hang out with other kids, make friends outside the children of our parent-friends.
I made that first phone call with a bit of optimism (Why? I don’t know . . .) thinking maybe there were a bunch of families of color (okay, not a bunch, maybe just a couple) that we hadn’t met in town yet. The principal returned my phone calls in mid-February. I asked about the flexibility in the schedule (not much), the amount of free-play during the day (not much), and the racial and ethnic make-up of the elementary school. For that third questions, this is the answer she gave me:
According to the principal, the school has about 10 minority students. (Over dinner, my husband and I counted them off–we know them all.)The princial went on to say that the school has “students with white skin, students with brown skin” and “students with different eye structure” who are a sub-set of the white-skinned students. Oh boy. When she later said “students with different eye shape,” I realized she meant Asian students. She’s trying to be uber-PC, I thought. So I prompted her, “Our family is multiracial and has Native American, African American, and European American heritage. Multiracial and multicultural knowledge has been a big part of our children’s education at home.”
“We treat all children the same here,” she told me. And then in the next breath, she informed me that my brown-skinned children would not encounter any racism at school, if anything, they would be treated “better”.
I asked if her school had received any cultural competency training. The principal said they do not have enough minority students for such a training to be needed. Clearly this was going nowhere. I thanked her and said goodbye.
I called the Supervisory Union and asked if they had a diversity coordinator. The woman didn’t know what a diversity coordinator was, or what one would do. She tried to transfer me to the ESL coordinator. My children are American, I told her, and they all speak English. Well, she said, then they couldn’t help me.
I called the high school, and was told by the front desk that no one in the school had diversity/multicultural/cultural competency training–but maybe someone in guidance could help me. The woman who answered the phone in the guidance office said that she had cultural competency training a couple years ago, and she believed she was the only one in the school with this kind of training. If a student of color had a race-related issue, they would be sent to her. Okay, so I had found the right person. Maybe.
She said that she didn’t see a school-wide training happening, because (and I quote) “We don’t have enough minority students for there to be a race problem.” As in–the non-White students are the “race problem”. And then she blew me out of the water. She warned me that the people I needed to be most concerned about were the “old-school” families. She could just hear what her father still calls (and I quote again) “colored people”.
I was silent. I was shocked. After a minute, she covered. “You know what I mean, Black people.”
I was done. I got off the phone shaking. I hadn’t heard that term in 15 years. My kids have never heard that term. Here it was coming out of the mouth of the one woman in the school district that had completed cultural competency training. We were in bigger trouble than I had thought.
I put in a call to the district superintendent. And then a second call. And a third. In April, he called me back. Right away he told me he had lived most of his life in the South, and had just moved up here three or four years ago. He said that the school district treats all children the same, “whether they are green, blue, purple, or polka-dotted.” (I relayed this part of the conversation to my husband over dinner. Our two oldest kids said, “People aren’t green or blue or purple or polka-dotted!” My point exactly. We’re not talking about Muppets here.)
I told the superintendent about the “colored” comment. I said the district needs training. He said he did not see a need for training, and unless I felt my children had been discriminated against, and I wanted to file a formal complaint, there was nothing more he could do for me. He suggested that the principal was the right person for me to be talking to. I sent the principal an email outlining my specific concerns:
We feel strongly that the teachers, administrators, and staff of the school district need cultural competency training. This is not a concern just for me as a parent of children of color, but a need for all the students served by the district. The state standards talk about diversity, and we would like to know how the elementary school is addressing this portion of the standards.
From our first conversations, I still have some concerns. First is your description of the student body as “children with brown skin,” “children with white skin,” and “children with different eye structure or eye shape”. It is important for adults and children both to be comfortable with racial and ethnic descriptive words such as African American, Native American, Asian, Latino, Black, or White. Nobody really has white-colored skin, and mixing color descriptions (brown or tan skin) with racial terms (White or Black) is confusing for children. Asian people have a wide variety of both skin color and eye shape. Describing someone as having “different” eye shape or eye structure implies a “normal” eye shape.
My second concern was your response to my question about whether you or your staff had taken part in cultural competency, multicultural, or diversity training. You said no, that because the school has so few minority students there was little need for such training. This statement concerns me for two reasons: first because it implies that the need for multicultural training is directly related to how many perceived-to-be-non-White students the school has; secondly because it completely disregards our children’s basic needs.
She never replied.
When I first got the principal on the phone (back in February) I wanted to talk about the unique issues of multiracial families and multiracial people, how the racial identity my children carry is not outwardly apparent, how my son appears to be monoracially White, but in fact has Cherokee heritage. But we never made it that far. Instead, I am still trying to get this administrator to use terms such as African American or Black (instead of brown-skinned) to describe my family, and Asian (instead of different eye structure) to describe someone such as my daughter’s Korean god-mother.
I want my children to go to school somewhere they can be friends with (and eventually date) people of a variety of races and ethnicities. I want a school where the head administrator has a basic knowledge of racial descriptors. Where she or he can say Black and Asian without stammering. Where the administrator may be Black or Asian–or both.
I am leaning towards homeschooling.
Natasha Sky is a writer, an artist, an activist, and a multiracial woman, as well as the mother of four multiracial children under the age of six. Two of her children joined her family through domestic open adoption and two of her children joined her family through homebirth. She writes about multiracial family life at My Sky ~ Multiracial Family Life.
Oh MAN. This is so similar to the response I got when I was looking for preschools. They couldn’t guarantee my daughter wouldn’t be the only kid of color in her class, but they love! diversity!
Then to prove how much they loved it, the director told me about how they “all made kente cloth to celebrate Kwanzaa!” the week before. The thought of a bunch of white teachers teaching a bunch of white kids how to celebrate Kwanzaa as a nod to “diversity” made my eyes roll so far back in my head they still haven’t recovered.
The director went on to say she didn’t understand why more kids of color didn’t come to the school. She told me to let all my friends know how pro-diversity their preschool was so they could get some more diversity there.
We ran the other way as fast as we could.
Wow, I don’t blame you for wanting to homeschool. I can’t believe the principal didn’t respond to that email. Maybe a follow-up is needed with a CC to the superintendent. Is there a school committee, or a school board you could approach about starting a system wide training?
Seriously. Is there ANYWHERE besides NYC, Chicago, SF, Portland and maybe Seattle that would be OK for a multi-racial family to live? And NOT have to deal with this crap?
Seriously.
Wow.
This kind of crap is exactly why we homeschool. If the school will not bring a healthy, diverse, culturally competent environment to your kiddos, homeschool them so you can take them to healthy, diverse, culturally competent environments of your choosing. You can do it!
By which I do not mean to hijack your excellent post and turn it into a homeschooling post. Homeschoolers get excited like that.
If you want them to say yes to your proposal, don’t give them a reason to say no. Find a grant, offer to write it, find some people who provide the training you want, etc. Which is not to say that they’ll go for it in the end, but if it is very important to you to have your kiddos go to public school, try thinking like a salesperson. What’s in it for them?
Sorry so long…
That is horrible! We are adopting our next son from Ethiopia and, while we’re very happy with the diversity in the daycare he will eventually attend (our biological son attended it and he was one of 5 white kids out of a class of 19, with teachers of all races who had clearly had diversity training), the preschool and school districts have me very worried. I would also consider homeschooling in those situations.
I will second ephelba, and ask that you offer a language and incentive for this intransigent, ass-backwards organization to come to realize exactly what IS in it for them.
I have had to walk with the big stick, as well as place the words in waffle cones and serve it up frozen yogurt style to make the school (not even talking about the district – for them it’s the big guns) understand that as I will not go away, they will make an about face and recognize that, well, they’d better ‘recuhnize,’ that they have a service, a duty, and the honor of having access to what will one day be a growing number of children of color.
Developing a language for acknowledging the different ways we present (wow…colored…mississippi, 1953), and the various forms of transmission of ‘old school’ biases and ideas, as well as ignoring the impact of attaching a normative standard to any one group, is just the first, most conscious and active change the school can implement.
Truthfully, this sounds too scary to actually let them have any type of classroom contact with your children right now.
Yikes! I’d probably want to homeschool too with those attitudes, and my family is white. Just wouldn’t want to deal with those attitudes.
I love my daughter’s preschool. The class itself is primarily white, with one half white, half black boy, a girl adopted from India (on a guess, haven’t asked), an Asian girl, and the teacher is Asian too. Not the ideal mix to me, I’d love to see more, but things look to improve in other grades.
And then the kids learn to interact with people who are different from them. They have a preschool for autistic children, and they have them interact with the other kids regularly. The teachers for the autistic children adore my daughter because she can get them to interact quite a bit with her. I love it because it has taught my daughter patience with people who aren’t the same as she is.
I’m so sorry that you were treated that way by the school district. Sadly, I cannot say that I am surprised, but I do commend you for the amount of time and effort you put into making your concerns heard. We currently live in a very non-diverse area. If were to bring up concerns about cultural or diversity sensitivity training, the school district would probably laugh in my face, so I can understand your frustration and anger.
BTW, we will also be homeschooling our children (our oldest is preschool age, we are officially starting this autumn). We have many reasons to homeschool, but the main concern is the diversity issue and the lack of a multicultural study in the schools. The only thing is, I feel like a bit of a loner in my homeschooling journey in regards to finding others who are similar to us (asian american and secular).
Amber–I am reluctant (okay, that’s an understatement) to allow my children/family to be the guinea pigs for a school that doesn’t already “get” diversity. I have a post on my blog about the unit on Africa the kindergarten does–don’t even get me started.
Denise–Unfortunately, I have already spoken to people all the way to state-level Department of Ed; no help there. Only the one sort-of diverse city in this state has any district-wide training (and that only happened 10 years ago after a federal Human Rights investigation).
Shelli–We’re thinking about moving to Ithaca, NY, but I’d love to hear anybody’s suggestions. We’re hoping to stay medium to small town or semi-rural.
Ephelba–I’ve been on the homeschooling bandwagon for a while (who has to worry about “socialization” with four kids within four years). Just the thought of my five year olds sitting for 6+ hours/day in a cinder-block room with 2 small windows and 2 short recesses freaks me out. But the total lack of training–or willingness to get any–is ruling this school out for us.
Natasha, I have an online friend in Ithica, and she raves about her kids’ school. She has 4 young ones too, and when I see pictures of school trips and such, it looks like a very diverse area… and more importantly, a happy area! Let me know if you want me to put you in touch.
Forget Ithaca. Come to Maplewood, NJ. It’s a wonderful place to raise your kids.
At least Ithaca does have a substantial minority population so your children would see people who look like them. It also has a nice diversity of cultural groups and socio-economic levels. Good luck as you search for a good school for your family.
carosgram, I am intrigued by a principal posting. what an honor.
I live in Maplewood, NJ as well. Note my comment to Carmen’s “Mom’s Night Out.”
My apologies that should read Jae Ran Kim.
First… Maplewood, New Jersey IS a fine place… I was raised in the next town over, Union, although I haven’t lived there in 26 years.
Second… we live in Prince William County, Virginia… about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C. I’d be surprised if ANY class in ANY school in this county didn’t have some multiracial/ethnic child in it.
Third… regarding the “children with white, skin brown skin, different eye structure…” comments: Isn’t it a shame that school administrators have to try so hard to not offend anyone that they wind up doing exactly that?
Fourth… what the heck is diversity competency training?
Cheers,
GF
Sure it’s fine just not free from racial issues.
South Orange, NJ here, shouting out to Dawn and Colleen. Dawn, this is Noah’s mom. (Karen’s friend). Ladies, e-mail me off-blog. I’m not great at organizing stuff, but I’d like to get a regular play group and/or a Moms group going if either of you are interested…
Whoops, I forgot to include the e-mail address – you will need to remove the spaces to make it work…
p s y c h o b a b b l e r @ v e r i z o n . n e t
Sounds like a plan!
“Location, location, location” is definitely NOT the answer here. If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me “But you live in Berkeley! I can’t believe that happens there!” . . . Being in a more diverse environment definitely WON’T erase the race issues, though it will ease them some. (At least there will be people who have some clue of what you’re talking about.) But some real diversity definitely will make life a lot easier for your kids — the “only one” experience is a damned hard row to hoe for little ones.
I’m a CC mom with two AA children. I am also a teacher living in deep south TX. We, my children and I, are all minority here. The population in my school district is 98% Hispanic. I can count on two hands the number of CC and AA children that attend my school. Whatever diversity competency training is, we have not had it, I can assure you. Am I worried about any of this? NO! My neighborhood is made up of Hispanic, AA, and Chinese kids who all play together as friends, n0t members of 3 different cultures. Our little united nations neighborhood should maybe teach the adults in the world a little something.
We recently moved to a “nice” town in lower Westchester and it’s nice and all…but I’ve been cruising by the local preschools and I have yet to see one kid who looks like my son, even as I do see kids in town who are some variety of asian but I guess the asian parents don’t send their kids to the local preschools? He’s only a year old and we’re still evaluating whether or not we really want to settle down here permanently but it’s not necessary for our kid to be the dollop of color sprinkles on a ginormous vanilla ice cream cone, so to speak. On the other hand I don’t want to wind up living in a town where the schools are 30%- 50% asian either.
“CC”? Can you tell me what that stands for?
As a college professor, who teaches about race, I can assure you that the vast majority of high schools do not give any sort of diversity training to their students, and I would also expect that this extends to their teachers.
I’m also not the least bit surprised by the whole majority white areas don’t need diversity training mentality because I have heard it before.
However, I’d like to give a dissenting opinion on the homeschooling issue. First, homeschooling is generally going to limit the diversity our kids are exposed to. Being around mostly their other siblings is a very undiverse environment. Now if a person wants to homeschool for educational purposes so be it, and I can understand the idea that a parent would want to control the curriculum. However, we simply can shelter our kids from racism. I know on some level we want to do that, but it is not possible at some point in their lives they are going to be exposed to racism. My 7 year old step son already notices people staring at us in public places–if I wanted to avoid racism, he and I would have to stay in the apartment all day with the TV off. What’s important for me is that he learns how to deal with racism. When he gets older and is in the workforce, when he starts dating, when he goes to college, and when he is just out in any public places, as a black person he’s going to have to deal with the potential of racism.
I certainly understand wanting to minimize racism exposure, but I worry that in minimizing this I would be hurting him in the future.
I am NOT defending the racism and ignorance of the school district. I strongly agree with Natasha’s tactic of demanding answers from them. I would suspect that they have never had a parent ask them these questions, so at the very least she has planted the seed in their minds. If enough like minded parents got together, they may actually be able to change the school.
Moreover, being in a diverse neighborhood may help keep a child from being racially isolated, but as someone said up thread, it doesn’t eliminate all of the problems. I happened to be in a restaurant near the high school in my very mixed race suburb, and I noticed as the children walked in that nearly all of the children hanging out at the restaurant were black, (and I saw a group of white girls with Catholic school uniforms). I gleaned from this that the kids must not mingle much in their friendship groups.
So the point, I’m making is that it is impossible to get around the racism problem. We may be able to shelter out children some, and we must demand accountability from our schools, our families, our neighborhoods, mass media, and every other socializing agents.
What a . . . disheartening subject, but one that I suppose needs to be confronted all the same. De0lurking to say I honestly think if it had been me inyour shoes, I would have snapped. Or thrown up. Or maybe both. Ignorance is universal, I suppose, but what a sorry message to have to teach our children.
Still, thank you ever so much for the bits of humour to break the tension! Your comment about the children not being Muppets had me cracking a smile, and one poster’s name, ephelba, made me grin all by itself as it’s very close to Elphaba, who is the heroine of Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked, and the musical of that name. Elphaba is quite literally green; it causes some problems for her.
Thank you so much for this post.
~Andi
Vera–Re: location . . . I’d just like some other parents (and children) of color in the school–and in the community. I think that would help me, at the very least.
Mary Ellen–Why wouldn’t you want a school that is 30-50% Asian? The areas of town we are most interested in living in Ithaca have elementary school that are 25-50% Black. I’d actually like the school to “look like” our family (percentage-wise)
Kim–”CC” usually stands for “Caucasian” (a word we avoid in our family). What does “Caucasian” really mean anyway?
Rachel S.–We actually only plan to homeschool until we move (1, possibly 2 years from now), and then we’ll take it one year at a time. We plan for our kids to attend public elementary school for at least a couple years. For Jr. High, we hope to travel (who out there liked eighth grade?). We don’t equate homeschooling our kids with sheltering them; I just want their first big foray out into the world to (hopefully) be a positive experience–where the adults in charge are my children’s allies. I know I can’t shelter my kids from racism (even though we don’t have a T.V.), but I don’t want to send them out into the world (at the ripe old age of 5) literally alone, without someone I trust to support their most basic needs.
Why wouldn’t you want a school that is 30-50% Asian?
**This wasn’t me. There is (almost) no chance of this *Ever being a question whereI live. I’m the one down here on the edge of TX.
Sorry Mary Ellen! I used to live in south Texas right on the Mexican border. I miss that heat–really.
I should have asked HCG why they wouldn’t want to live in a town where the schools are 30-50% Asian. We’re at not-even-5% non-White here. Sigh.
Rachel-
Do you know any homeschoolers IRL? You may be surprised to discover that many homeschoolers actually try to make an effort to make sure that their children are aware of and exposed to diversity. Most ppl assume that all homeschoolers are christian fundamentalists who want to shelter their kids from things that the parents disapprove of.
Well, we are not like that. We are really liberal, belong to a UU church (and are secular homeschoolers), environmental, crunchy types. Our children will be exposed to all different kinds of ppl, whether they are black, white, asian, gay, straight, muslim, christian, 60 yrs old, 2 yrs old, etc.. We also want a curriculum strong in multicultural study, which neither my DH or I got from, “regular” school (I went to public school, DH went to private school).
Going to school does not increase your chance of being exposed to diversity. We are not homeschooling to try to shelter our children from racism. Racism for us is a fact of life for us, we are reminded of it as we go about our daily lives. I was the ONLY asian american in my class at school, there were maybe 2 AA students, and that was the extent of, “diversity” at my school. I want my kids to grow up with a postive self image of who they are and be proud of their ethnicity and race. Unfortunately, schools are IMO NOT conducive to this. Kids get teased if they are different, the history taught at school is so eurocentrically skewed that it is sickening the lies they teach at school, the only thing I learned about race relations at school was to feel bad about my individuality and to yearn to become, “part of the crowd,” aka a lemming. My kids really don’t need to be exposed to that, they will have plenty of time to be exposed to that for the rest of their lives and since racism is a very real part of our lives, it’s something that will be discussed with our children very openly. We get plenty of exposure to racism in our everyday lives when we are out and about, but I really don’t see how throwing my kids to the sharks is really going to be the best way to expose my kids to diversity. It doesn’t make sense to me.
BTW, homeschool students do not literally just stay at home and do workbooks. Homeschool students are actually very active and social , in homeschool groups, extracurriculuar activities (music, sports, girl scouts, etc.) and also community volunteering, so they have plenty of socialization. It is also not articifial socialization, which is what exists in the school environment. How many times in your life will you be forced to, “socialize” with peers who are the same age as you are? I doubt it would ever happen. Even in college, you make take a few freshmen courses, but pretty much it is just a mix of all different types of students in college of all different age groups, esp since non-traditional students are pretty common now. IRL, you encounter ppl of all different ages, and that is actually a very positive aspect of homeschooling in that most homeschooled children feel very comfortable interacting with children and adults of all ages, instead of feeling the need to only socialize with peers within their own age group. Many times ppl label these children as being, “weird” b/c our society no longer expects children to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with adults. If you can, then you automatically must be, “weird” or a, “nerd” or a “teacher’s pet.” I’d rather my kids be a little, “weird” and have a positive self image of themselves, rather than being “cool” and just follow the crowd.
Anyway, I am not going to make this a debate about homeschooling. However, I did want to give my 2 cents regarding your misconceptions about homeschooling. Ppl have a stereotype of what they think homeschoolers are supposed to be like. We are pretty much the opposite of that stereotype.
BTW, I am not knocking schools. I am sure there are some great schools out there. However, we feel that homeschooling is the right fit for our family. Trust me, we looked into the schools in our area. From what we had to choose from, homeschooling was the best option. Academically, homeschoolers do fine, so we are not worried about that part at all, but we were more worried about the institution of school killing our children’s creativity and desire to learn. The more I researched homeschooling (I was always very anti-homeschool before I did my own research), the more convinced I am that we are doing the right thing for our children.
Wow your post really hit home for me. We are a biracial family and my daughter is getting ready for kindergarten as well. Unfortunately the level of diversity may not make much difference. Our preschool looks like the UN. No one group has a majority yet one of the few white children still had the gumption to tell my daughter that brown people are stinky. The teachers are all “Brown” and so are most of the students. While I was really upset that she had to hear that at 4.5 I think it is good for her to learn how to deal with it and move on. I understand the need to find a haven for our kids from these views, but they will have to deal with it sometime. And the sooner they learn how the better.
Our local kindergarten has kids from 30 or 40 different countries and seems very diverse yet most of the administration is white. I think that is the problem. Where are the adult role models?
Is there ANYWHERE besides NYC, Chicago, SF, Portland and maybe Seattle that would be OK for a multi-racial family to live? And NOT have to deal with this crap?
Syracuse seems ok to me. It’s not a major city by any means, but my son’s kindergarten class is about 55-60% non-white (or not completely white if you prefer to think of mixed kids with a white parent as part-white), with at least three mixed-race couples as parents for 20 kids and several more whom I suspect might be mixed race. The principal was black (until he got promoted, and they haven’t permanently replaced him yet). Even the economic backgrounds unrelated to race are pretty diverse. The kids, from what I can tell, are forming friendships that don’t seem to be on racial lines, and the parents don’t seem interested in associating only with parents of their race. I’d be shocked to find that they’re perfect on race issues, but this school at least seems to be pretty good for mixed-race families.
It’s not even close to the top of the issues we care about for our first two, given that their autistic-related problems have to take center stage, so we haven’t raise any questions yet, but it will be an issue for #3, who is developing normally for her age. She’s still two, though, so it will be a couple years before we’re really dealing with this head-on.
My son and daughter-in-law comprise a biracial marriage. Now they have a beautiful little girl who is almost two. They reside in Philadelphia Pa and are considering moving to NYC or North Jersey.
Would you know of any communities surrounding Philly that would welcome a biracial family? I want my granddaughter to grow up in an accepting, caring environment, and I know that is what her parents want as well. I would like them to stay in the Phila. area, but that seems to be difficult for them. City people seem to be fairly accepting, but the schools are not terrific and they would like a yard and all the things we want for our children and grandchildren.
Let me know if you have any ideas.
I keep reading about how diverse New York is and in some cases it is. However being bi-racial with a light skinned blonde hair blued eyed baby has been dificult. i never expected such racism and envy (he is stunning) in New York. It started in Park Slope, Brooklyn everyday someone (knowing that he was my son) would ask if he was mine. I left after i was surronded by a group of white people accussing me of kidnapping my own child. DUMBO was wonderful and then i moved to Tribeca and enrolled by then 3 year old son in Montessri school of Manhattan on Beach Street where they taught my child who never recognized race segregation under the guise of martin luther kings birthday. i found out while we were out at a restaurant and my son looks ay me and says grandpa cant eat with us because we are in the whites only section and he has brown skin. when i asked the school about the lesson they said the books went back to the library no explanation apologys or help. it took months for my son to understand what he saw before that a persons heart is the most important thing color and beauty do not matter but a persons true soul does. he is now six i send him to a great public lottery school in NYC his best friend is korean and white and his other best friend is peruvian. the rest are every mix you can think of and its beautiful to see. growing up my family was the only family of color but in my neighborhood money mattered so i never had to see the true feelings of race until now. we have a long way to go
I am worried about this as well with my children when we return to America. My son has had a hard time in the past dealing with racism in school. When he was really small, the other kids pretty much shunned him because he wasn’t black and he wasn’t white, so it was very difficult.
Currently, we are dealing with a lot of race issues living abroad in Italy. Thus, we would like a little bit of peace once we return.