Special Curriculum
At the high school and middle school levels, about 110 students are participating in a class called Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge (BLACK), a five-day-a-week course where they learn about African-American history, literature, and leadership development. One session a week is spent on tutoring and helping the students with other academic work. Students and instructors are all referred to with the honorific “king.”
The class was developed in conjunction with a professor at the University of Minnesota. The district’s teaching and learning team helped to shape the learning targets for the curriculum.
On a recent day, a group of boys in the class at South High School was preparing for an assignment to interview teachers about their expectations and perceptions of black boys. In a middle school class, students were working on autobiographical essays.
The classes are taught by two black “community experts,” a special designation given by the Minnesota Board of Teaching for individuals who are not traditional educators. Having the classes taught by African-American men, Walker said, allows black boys to see teaching as something to which they can aspire, and nonblack students get to see black men in a professional setting.
Simultaneously, the district is working to cut discipline rates. Last year, it entered into a voluntary agreement with the office for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education over disparities in how it disciplines black students. According to the OCR, black students made up about 40 percent of the district’s enrollment in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, but accounted for 74 percent of recorded disciplinary incidents and 78 percent of out-of-school suspensions. There were also disparities in how black and white students were punished for the same infractions.
In September, the district announced that it would eliminate suspensions for students in 1st through 5th grades. Last year, it officially ended suspensions for pre-K-1 students who got into trouble for nonviolent infractions, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune found additional incidents in which such children were sent home. A principal on special assignment is also working with teachers on strategies to reduce discipline referrals.
“We think it’s important to recognize that [inequity] exists, and begin to acknowledge it, and begin to tackle that issue directly, and that’s why we created Michael’s office: to acknowledge it, and also give opportunities to talk about the positive things about our black males,” said Goar. “Because the narrative is singular in nature, which is, if you are a black boy, you are going to go to jail, you’re going to fail, or you’re going to get suspended. We want to change the narrative.”
For Walker, the job was a natural fit. An assistant principal upon his appointment, he had developed programs for at-risk young people as the youth-development director at the YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities. He spent the first days on the job asking the community—people at barbershops, hair salons, and malls—about their experiences with the school system and what they wanted from the office.
What he heard was that black boys felt there was a double standard in how they were disciplined at school. They spoke about racism and stereotypes, and that they felt that some teachers didn’t expect much from them. Parents told him they did not think educators were fair when dealing with black boys. Educators didn’t believe they had all the tools necessary to help black boys to be successful, he said.
There are not a lot of data yet to show if the programs are working, Walker said. Anecdotally, he points to a drop in disciplinary incidents, increased attendance, and positive engagement for the students who participated in a pilot of the BLACK classes last year.
Helen Hunter, a single mother of four, said that she appreciates what the classes are doing to help her two boys, Glen, 14, and Glentrel, 13.
“Hopefully, we’ll see some results,” said Walker. “We’ll see it getting better. We’ll see it changing.”
Article Appeared @http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/28/minneapolis-anti-bias-efforts-focus-on-black-males.html