The group meeting on June 2nd was a great opportunity for families to share their stories. It was not always easy, but the knowledge that we are not alone and that we share a desire to address these issues was very empowering.
In addition to the families and students, representatives from the following organizations were present to offer their support:
- Lynnwood Diversity Commission
- Communities of Color Coalition (C3)
- Washington Community Action Network (Washington CAN!)
- Washington Human Rights Commission
Sharing our stories was at times emotional, but the process showed that there are many similar experiences thoughout our communities. Our hope is to communicate that these are not isolated incidents, but are systemic issues affecting our students in many different ways.
We worked to identify some of these issues that our students are dealing with in school. Thanks to the Lynnwood Diversity Commission for helping to keep us on track and see past our emotions to the common issues at the core of our stories.
We used a "fishbone" structure to map out our ideas: a fish "skeleton" was drawn on the whiteboard, with each bone representing an idea or issue, such as confidentiality, low expectations, teachers, classes, cultural understanding, respect, dress & appearance, communication, accountability, security officers, training, parental involvement, discipline, and programs.
As you can see, there were a lot of ideas; it was one long fish.
The group plans to meet again on June 23rd to begin the process of prioritizing these issues and identifying the root causes behind them. We will dialogue about possible ways of working with the district to address the issues.
We thank the families, students and community members who were able to make the time to attend, and we're looking forward to the next meeting.
More news to follow!
The info for the next meeting is as follows:
Date: Saturday, June 23rd
Time: 1:00pm
Location: Lynnwood Main Fire Department, 44th Ave. & 188th St., conference room
