Racial Harm Workshop

Date will be determined June 2023.

Remember when we used to say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Well, that’s not true. Words do hurt. They trigger historical trauma, instill fear, and impact the very essence of who we are as humans.

Over and over again, we are witnessing instances of racial harm in our communities. It is so painful and overwhelmingly frustrating that we are still fighting this battle of hate based solely on the color of one’s skin. The impact of our history runs so deep. Racial harm has to stop.

School administrators must create an environment where every student is allowed to express

their authentic self in a safe and caring space. This means that every time a student or person violates a policy that impacts a student’s ability to feel safe, especially because of verbal racial violence through social media or otherwise, and it impacts the school environment, we will act swiftly and intentionally.

But many districts don’t know where to start, or what to do, or take too long to convene the leaders that can make decisions to address the incident. This only exacerbates the problem, leaving the perception that we don’t care, not a big deal, not our problem.

We do care, and we need to do better; we need to make sure that all students don’t just feel welcome but are welcome and are protected by policy and the law. Every student is entitled to the same benefits of an education; a safe, caring, equitable and racially culturally affirming environment.

We know that racism, for our BIPOC students, is a lived experience that leads to poor academic performance, isolation and even suicide.

As a leader, you know that you are required and committed to stopping racist behavior.

• How do we take immediate action when incidents of racism occur?

• How do we hold students accountable and make sure we communicate to our community that we are taking strong corrective action?

• How do we stay compliant with the law and still be unapologetically aggressive to stop the next act of racially verbal and/or social media violence against our students?

• How do we navigate our own vulnerability for saying or doing something that will make us the target of backlash?

• How do we hear our students-understand the fear and anger, listen to the trauma, how it shows up and channel it in a way that heals and comforts our students?

• How do we respond and appropriately support a student’s right to protest in a safe way?
  

To answer and effectively address these tough questions, join us for this two day collaborative workshop where we will co-create a model template for your school district to move from crisis to action and healing whenever an incident arises that threatens the school environment and student safety around issues of race and racism.

The two-day workshop is for you if you are:

• Committed to equity and anti-racism in your district.

• Ready to lean in and make tough changes-even in resistance.

• Willing to model and share results with other districts.

• Be true about where you are at, not where you want to be and willing to move the needle faster and unapologetically.

• Willing to create the container for supportive and transformative work.

• Willing to embrace allies, who want to lead and need the support from the BIPOC community as much as the BIPOC community needs allies.

• Want to learn new tools that will help you measure and focus your resources on impactful diversity and inclusion goals. The Equimetrics team will be here live to help us.

During the intensive we will:

• Learn from education lawyers, students and other professionals who are committed to equity and are finding pathways to help guide our work more affirmatively.

• Cross pollinate ideas with districts to create a model template that goes from reactive to proactive.

• Walk away with a crisis response template and workbook, that you can immediately start to implement in your district to address racial harm.

This intensive will be offered at The Quora Education Center, 70 County Rd. B2 W. Little Canada, MN 55117. The cost of the program is $3,500.00 per district team.

If you have any questions please contact Paula Forbes (651-247-9101) or John Schultz (612-638-1525).

This important workshop will be hosted in partnership with Forbes Solutions PLLC, Metro ECSU, AMSD and Equimetrics.