On April 25, the District 200 high school board voted 5-1 adopting a Strategic Plan for the next five years that continues to prioritize racial equity efforts at OPRF High School. In doing so they rejected a call from a single board member who asserted it was time to stop prioritizing racial equity because that emphasis detracted from the equity needs of other students, especially gender non-conforming students.
As a community member who worked on drafting the racial equity policy and procedures from 2018 to 2020, I will outline some of the history of how and why the board’s decision was the correct one.
The engagement of the community in drafting our racial equity policy and subsequent action plans five years ago was very clear about a central, guiding principle. In concluding that racial inequities were the most sweeping and historic inequities facing OPRF, the policy was also intentionally inclusive in declaring the importance of addressing inequities tied to class, gender, ethnic identity, disability, and sexual identity.
With programs focused on racial inequities still in their early years, it is vital to seek unity around addressing all forms of inequities while understanding why race is prioritized. This strategy must continue.
And when other inequities require attention and new initiatives, D200 must take action. The district did this last year in its massive capital improvements plan which addressed the facilities’ accommodation needs of disabled students, and provided gender neutral bathrooms and physical education locker rooms for gender non-conforming students.
In 1994 when the first significant community plea for racial equity took place in D200, the Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Alliance (OPALGA), Students for Peace and Justice, African American Parents for Purposeful Leadership in Education (APPLE), and the Oak Park chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) formed the coalition Building and Renewing Institutions Dedicated to Good Education (BRIDGE). The coalition called for the district to conduct a comprehensive qualitative review of OPRF to identify what was working and what institutional structures and culture features might be limiting the academic and social-emotional well-being of students.
In a manner similar to D200 committees that formulated the district’s racial equity policy and procedures, BRIDGE did not view equity exclusively as a goal focused on Black students, even as they understood and agreed that racial injustice in education was the dominant historic and current issue facing OPRF. BRIDGE knew lesbian and gay faculty and students suffered inequities and harm as well.
In doing so, they shared the belief with equity allies that no one group of children or adults should take a number and wait in line for justice. In prioritizing race, BRIDGE believed our school community should and could at the same time in varied ways address other inequities. In fact, the intersectional dynamic of the BRIDGE effort contributed a few years later to OPRF becoming the first school in Illinois to adopt a policy to protect the human rights of lesbian and gay faculty and students.
The standard that BRIDGE embraced in 1994, and that the community asserted in drafting today’s racial equity policy, still applies. It has guided curriculum equity in freshman restructuring, community collaboration for the last six years in hiring and retaining a faculty that reflects the racial and cultural diversity of our students, and in creating classrooms and other spaces that are safe, welcoming, and culturally inclusive.
D200’s ongoing efforts tied to racial equity harken back to Dr. Jackie Moore, board president, when the district adopted its policy and protocols around racial equity. Moore wisely and resolutely reminded us that racial equity is not a zero-sum game where one group of students loses while others gain.
In fulfilling both the letter and spirit of the renewed goal of racial equity at OPRF, D200 must be responsive to any members of our community who might be experiencing unrecognized inequities and harm. We need to face that situation and take corrective action, but not by diminishing our long-delayed efforts to address racial inequities endemic to Oak Park and River Forest and our nation’s social, economic, and education history.
John Duffy is a member of the Committee for Equity and Excellence in Education, a group of Oak Park and River Forest residents advocating for racial equity at OPRF High School.