It was a long time ago — but then again not that long ago — that a member of the school board at Oak Park and River Forest High School publicly and categorically denied any possibility that there was even a trace of institutional racism at the school. Impossible. Insulting. Sniveling, liberal nonsense.
If black students simply conformed to the norm, there would be no academic gap, no discrepancy in discipline. Teachers did not need to change any aspect of their approach to teaching. It was all on black students and their parents to straighten up, speak plain English and get in line.
It was, even in its time in the early 1990s, a contrarian position. But it reflected a real divide in thinking about how the most central institution in Oak Park and River Forest, our public high school, should respond to the shifting racial mix of students.
Suggesting that change was necessary and possible brought remarkable defensiveness and with it the suggestion that all teachers were being categorized as racist, along with school board members and administrators. It was an intense and unproductive period.
Remarkable, then, what has ever-so-gradually followed. While issues of race, class and achievement continue to undermine all that is possible at the school, while leadership has remained too timid in taking hold on the gap, OPRF has grown to be the most introspective of all institutions at sorting out issues of what is now commonly called “equity.”
Over many years, first the school board and later others have directly engaged in profound and personal conversations about race and their lives, their fears and prejudices, their insights and their aspirations to do better. This didn’t start with policy discussions on the impact of race on discipline data; it started with brave people acknowledging that none of us are free of racial bias, that, growing up in this society, it is impossible not to be, that the only error is one of denial.
That conversation has been repeated and expanded to administrators and faculty; consultants have arrived and departed to facilitate honest talk. And in this long process, it has often been possible to have good conversations about how race relates to how we educate our kids. The school has addressed disparities in discipline and acknowledged the continuing reality that black kids are more likely to be in special ed than in honors classes.
The openness doesn’t mean answers have come easily because they haven’t, because the problems are complex and historic and societal. But until you accept that race and class are always a factor, that despite best efforts we all bring bias of some sort to the discussion, then we will always be talking past each other or at each other.
This comes to mind because the OPRF school board has made “equity policies and practices” a major goal for this year, has baked the issue into its strategic plan, and so last week met to prepare for a new effort by a new consultant to expand training further and, to quote a memo to the board, to “1. Deepen their understanding of how race affects their decision-making; 2. Develop a common understanding of equity, and 3. Frame the next stage of equity work in the district.”
There is no more important work this pool-swamped school board can do, especially as it begins its search for a new superintendent. Hiring a person who understands and embraces this race work, who can translate it into bolder efforts to create change, is this board’s greatest opportunity.
