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Op-Ed: For the Love of All of Our Children

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This past weekend, I attended a conference on the campus of Princeton University in New Jersey, and had to field numerous questions regarding whether Richmond is as racially oppressive as it is portrayed in the national media. I stood up for our city, and assured the conference attendees that both of my sons grew up in Richmond, attended RPS, and are doing just fine. I explained that I do not step outside of my door and get greeted with blatant racism on a daily basis. I got the feeling that they were listening, but remained mostly incredulous.

I had not yet heard about what happened at Albert Hill Middle School this past Thursday, and I am sure that the exchange between those young students and the RPD police officer who told them that when they turned 18 “their asses” would be his made my defense of this city much more difficult to believe.

Growing up African American in deeply rural Caroline County, Virginia, I honestly cannot remember having one encounter with the police; in fact, I was barely aware of their existence. We had no security or resource officers in our schools; conflicts were largely (and quite effectively) handled by our school administrators. The mention of entering their offices literally struck fear in each of our hearts.

I’m not perfect, and admittedly, I visited the principal’s office in elementary school several times. Once, while pursuing the entrepreneurial aspiration of making enough money to buy myself a bicycle, I got caught selling popping caps (a mild explosive) to kids in my fourth-grade class before school one morning. I was selling strips of five for a nickel, nickel bags of caps, and the kids were buying. Chaos ensued. My classmates went wild. Seemingly disembodied desk-chair legs and textbooks slammed and danced, in an effort to elicit the reward of the seductive single pop and puff of smoke that each tiny circle on the strips promised.

I’m not sure who it was –my memory is blurred; I’m not even sure I knew then — but an adult entered the room and demanded to know who brought the caps. In a flash, every index finger in the room pointed at me. The speed with which those kids ratted me out was dizzying. The adult then told me to return the money, and those traitors hovered like vultures. From the plastic bag I held tightly, they took not only the money I felt I’d rightfully earned, but my lunch money, too. Then came the perp walk to the office.

I sat on a wooden bench outside my principal’s office for what seemed like hours: nervous, but also self-righteously determined to defend my case. My nine-year-old mind had not processed the seriousness, disruptiveness, and potential danger of my actions. I had a product my classmates were willing to pay for, and they bought it. Supply and demand. I did not see the problem. Besides, they had taken the caps and all of my money; I was left high and dry. It didn’t seem fair.

PHOTO: Caroline County, VA, Historically Yours

My principal, a gentle but firm, flame-haired white woman (whom we knew was kind, but also meant business), called me into her office. I slowly walked in, tears streaming, anger brewing. She explained to me why what I had done was wrong — told me that selling things, especially explosives, in school was against the rules. She emphasized just how much valuable time the disturbance I’d caused had cost the teacher and the other students that morning. She then called my mom to come to pick me up for the day which, honestly, was punishment enough. No referrals. No suspensions. No permanent records. No police. Kind redirection. It worked.

I never sold another thing at school again. I understood that the principal cared enough to take time to explain why I was in trouble, and I begrudgingly agreed that calling my mother was an appropriate penalty. There was no permanent record of the encounter, but I remembered the lesson forever.

As a child, I had the good fortune of having authority figures who cared more about nurturing our spirits as young people than about criminalizing our behavior. Men and women, white and black, who taught us how to self-regulate, to use reason as a means of determining appropriate actions, and who modeled the moral behavior that helped us to later determine the difference between right and wrong. We were disciplined with love; we thrived.

It appears as I’ve grown up, and now have sons of my own, that my experiences in Caroline County were as much an aberration as they were idyllic. Though I have worked hard as a teacher myself to carry on the tradition of loving discipline, and to fiercely protect my students from the harsh, punitive society we live in (especially for black, brown, and disabled children), it appears that many public school systems do not subscribe to this philosophy.

An op-ed piece from The Washington Post published in October 2017 asserted that in Virginia, “staggering numbers of students, who are often preteens in elementary and middle schools, are referred to police and the courts — a wildly disproportionate response that can stigmatize children at school and, in some cases, be a stain on their records for years.”

In fact, while researching and writing this piece, I encountered case after case of young children in Virginia, particularly of African American descent, being referred to the criminal justice system for issues that could have been effectively handled within the school, even within the classroom, without involving law enforcement. In one case, an 11-year-old autistic African American boy in Lynchburg received two misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges: the first for throwing a tantrum, the second for reacting in fear when a police officer grabbed him around the chest.

U.S. Department of Education data shows that in most states black, Latino and special-needs (disabled) students get referred to police and courts disproportionately, and a report released by the Legal Aid Justice Center found huge disparities in many school districts between the percentage of black students who received short-term suspensions, and the percentage of white students, as well as the percentage of students with disabilities suspended, compared to those without. It also determined that the vast majority of suspended students are punished for behavioral offenses, like having a cell phone, minor insubordination, and disrespect.

I personally spent four years teaching for Henrico County Public Schools, one of the school systems where disparities were found, and witnessed many instances where black children were disciplined for minor infractions more often than their white counterparts. I witnessed black children being called to the office much more frequently for dress code violations — short skirts and sagging pants somehow seemed to be more offensive on black bodies than on any others.

PHOTO: Albert Hill Middle School, NBC12

I once witnessed a white female student of mine walk out during an assembly, right past a teacher monitor, and a black male promptly get stopped when attempting the same thing. When I confronted the teacher about it, she stared right through me as though she couldn’t hear my inquiry. In fact, the only student who became violent with me while I was teaching there was a white male, who threw a 10-pound literature book at me in front of the entire class because I insisted he stop sleeping. I cried. To my knowledge, that student was never asked to take responsibility for his actions.

I recognize that I am tying together the problem of school suspensions with issues of encounters with police and the criminal justice system, but as researchers Kerrin Wolf and Aaron Kupchik report in their 2016 study, School Suspensions and Adverse Experiences in Adulthood, “being suspended increases the likelihood that a student will experience criminal victimization, criminal involvement, and incarceration, years later, as adults.” It appears that the two are inextricably connected.

It is because of this that, as a now-30-plus-year full-time Richmond resident, I find what happened with the Richmond City Police officer and the young students of Albert Hill Middle School so extremely dangerous. The officer told the children to wait until they turned 18, at which point, he suggested, their “asses” would be his — as though one day, he could own their bodies. This communicates that their bodies are not, and never will be, their own — and that they will never be protected by those like him. That idea itself can cause long-term psychic trauma.

The officer did not attempt to de-escalate the situation, to communicate that his role was to protect and serve them — to, as my elementary school principal did, explain why they should make better decisions. If the students were engaging in disrespect, there are many ways the officer could have redirected their behavior without the use of threats. But perhaps it ultimately does not matter what they were doing. A police officer is a public servant, who should be expected to adhere to a certain code of ethics, whether written or implied. Richmond City Third District School Board Representative Kenya Gibson said it best: “I can’t think of any circumstance in which talking to a minor in that way is an acceptable thing to do.”

There are many dedicated people out there working to love our kids, and they are making inroads toward disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline — their work should be commended. But not until our country is ready to recognize that bias against black, brown, and disabled bodies is virulent and real will we see all children as worthy of protection and love. Until then, even changed policies will fail.

My hope for my children, for all of our children, is that we get close to what I remember of those days at Ladysmith Elementary school, where we ALL knew we were valuable, and that the adults in our lives could be trusted to guide and protect us, even during our worst moments.

Shame on that Richmond police officer. There is no doubt that what he said to those children was, as Gibson states, “unacceptable and disappointing.” But let’s also recognize that he represents a larger, more insidious culture of devaluing that which we should all so deeply love.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect RVA Magazine editorial policy.

Top photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

Environmental Education in Central VA Shows Signs Of Hope But Has Long Way To Go

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In this era of worldwide climate change, environmental education has become more important than ever. Over the past 50 years, scientists have observed increasing occurrences of summer heat waves, winter freezes, tornadoes and tropical cyclones that have devastated our earth. Experts have recorded warmer and more acidic ocean waters, a pattern of global warming and grave disturbances in the habitats and ecosystems of our planet.

Still, there is hope where there is knowledge. We can mend the global issues plaguing our planet — but we must first understand the damage we have done. We did some investigating to see how related programs here in Central Virginia address this need.

“We’re going in the right direction, but the future holds a lot of different pressures — one of which is not being aware of your own environment,” Nat Draper, Education Director of the James River Association, said. “That’s one of the reasons environmental education is important. If you’re not aware of how humans have had an impact on the environment, you can’t take steps to fix it.”

So how does Richmond’s public education system measure up? Rising ocean temperatures, global warming, flooding, pollution — how do Richmond schools inform students about these issues?

Photo by Landon Shroder

With Richmond’s proximity to the James River, and the pressing global consequences of climate change, it has become increasingly important to ask these questions. The answers, though, are often disappointing.

“For K-12 education, some states like Maryland require that students take a course in environmental studies before they graduate,” Draper said. “Virginia requires finance classes and so many other courses, but we don’t require environmental education. That’s something we should consider in the future.”

Climate change, according to new and stronger evidence presented in the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, is a product of human activities — particularly the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent release of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere and in excess have led to a gradual global warming.

Chris Weigard of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a non-profit group focused on national climate change policies, is also a strong advocate for environmental education. He emphasized, in particular, the importance of awareness among younger generations.

“People my age, in their 60s, are not going to have to deal with the most extreme consequences of climate change in their lifetimes,” he said. “Young people will see more, and their grandchildren will see more. Global warming is a cumulative issue.”

According to the third climate assessment, climate change will continue until our kindergarteners become college students, and will only escalate with the continuation of human activity that burns fossil fuels and releases heat-trapping gases.

For many, this is a difficult burden to bear. Climate-change denial continues to exist in the U.S., and with the impending withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord by the federal government, it has begun to gain traction once again.

This ignorance is not singular among politicians — the JRA, Richmond’s most prominent environmental group, gears most of its programs toward children and teachers, but has found that many students lack any environmental knowledge at all.

“When students come out to our ecology school, or to other programs, it’s all new to them,” Draper said. “Everything that we talk to them about, from food chains to water quality testing and pollution, it’s all new to them.”

In places like the Florida Keys, fishermen, locals and park rangers face the eventual flooding of islands sitting just one foot above the water — day by day, they watch as the tree-filled hammocks of Big Pine Key are infected with saltwater, bleaching tree limbs white and destroying wildlife. And yet, only 57 percent of Floridians are somewhat worried about global warming.

Photo by Colombia University

Amy Moore, an environmental science teacher at Deep Run High School, has taught in classrooms from inner city Richmond to rural Virginia. For Moore, this pattern of ignorance is something she has observed for years.

“There are enough people who don’t know anything about the environment,” she said. “They’ve never been educated — because so many people have never even taken a course on any sort of environmental topic. They’re completely in the dark.”

Moore also underlined the vicious cycle of miseducation in Virginia, which circles endlessly from parent to child, generation after generation.

“There’s so much data out there to support climate change — carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to global warming and there are so many people who just aren’t educated about where carbon dioxide comes from,” she said. “So many of my students, to this day, will say that humans emit carbon dioxide, enough to make this climate change. And where do they get this information from? Their parents, who also aren’t educated.”

Stephen Nash, a renowned science journalist and visiting senior research scholar at University of Richmond, believes that by moving toward alternative forms of energy and actively educating and engaging citizens, our planet has a chance to become healthy and whole again.

Right now, we are undergoing global changes that threaten human health with low air quality, low water quality and extreme weather. These changes have impacted agriculture, economy and the naked infrastructure of our society, menaced by rising sea levels that continue to swallow our land. It is essential to understand this. “We must inform the public so it can make decisions that will help us move towards sustainability,” Nash said.

Societal sustainability — whole countries acting through an environmental consciousness — can only be achieved through widespread education about global changes, according to Nash.

The sad reality for Richmond public schools is that money and level of experience, unfortunately, separate schools that are able to provide a comprehensive environmental education from those that are not.

“You have to have resources for many of these things, unfortunately,” Moore said. “The east end of Richmond versus the west end of Richmond is very different. Many teachers at other schools simply don’t know the [science] material that well.”

Deep Run High School offers seven environmental classes and eight biology classes. It has the highest number of students taking AP Science courses in Henrico County, and is one of wealthiest student bodies in Richmond and Henrico’s school districts, with a reduced price lunch rate of just 5 percent.

Highland Springs High School, on the other hand, has a free/reduced price lunch rate of 64 percent, and test scores, year after year, fall far below the state average.

“I taught in Highland Springs  for four years… they were some of my favorite kids,” Moore said. “They were very, very difficult to reach. I never saw a single parent for parent-teacher conferences when I was there. The students–you really had to get their attention. They had so many other things in their lives going on, school was their last thought. A lot of them had children themselves. But when you could get their attention, they would work really hard for you.”

Indeed, Richmond educators have not given up, despite outside limiting factors. Although public schools in Virginia have a long way to go, teachers with passion and drive continue to do their best at inspiring and informing their students about environmental issues.

According to Moore, a colleague at Highland Springs has started a GoFundMe for her environmental science class of just eight or nine very excited students, who signed up to learn all about the environment.

The James River Association has also received half a million dollars from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of a 3-year grant, to provide professional development for all sixth and seventh grade science teachers in Richmond middle schools.

The group, formed in the 1960s, gained a passionate following after the governor at the time declared the James so unsanitary and unhealthy that he shut down the entire river.

For years, the JRA carried on the grueling process of cleaning up the river, making the James safe to swim and fish in again and, most importantly, educating the public about pollution and the environment.

The grant will fund a program called “Experience the Park,” coordinated with Richmond schools and the JRA — it will include in-class visits to all 1700 sixth grade science students.

A field experience will bring all students to study watersheds at the beloved James River, the center of recreation, tourism and beauty in this blossoming metropolis. Ask any Richmond resident, and they’ll tell you how much they love the natural beauty of their river city. The JRA hopes to create a Richmond where every citizen, beginning with these sixth graders, works hard to ensure that future generations can say that for a long, long time.