Dear Families:

As we celebrate the end to our school year and the class of 2020 begins their high school journey during these unprecedented times, we recognize and carefully listen as citizens across our nation stand up and speak out against the great suffering from systemic injustice and racism in our communities. 

While all in the Woodland community are processing and grieving the devastating, senseless, and wrongful deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd among others, these events have brought us to a critical inflection point. It is in this moment that we must accept our essential responsibility as educators to teach, to learn, to communicate and to collaborate on actions beyond thoughts, prayers, and hashtags. We share a message with all in our community that we are OneWoodland, we stand in solidarity, against systemic racism, against violence towards Black Americans, and as an institution committed to racial justice. 

We recognize the opportunity to renew and elevate our strong commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity at Woodland. As we continue to listen, we continue to work on supporting our community of stewards in dismantling systems of inequity and injustice beyond our classroom walls. We will show our courage as we address racial justice and reimagine how to exercise our virtues of resilience, equity, and integrity. We will support organizations in our community and nationally that uphold racial justice.  

As communities around us continue to process, we would like to offer our families resources to educate themselves on these issues and better facilitate conversations at home. With these resources, we highlight organizations and opportunities for action to address the urgency of this moment. At Woodland, we believe compassion endures through inhumanity, courage through ignorance and fear, and resiliently we stand together for a better tomorrow.

Sincerely,

RESOURCES FOR FAMILIES

Campaign Zero
Black Lives Matter
Facing History and Ourselves
Are your kids too young to talk about race?
NPR: Talking with Young Children About Race
NPR: How to Talk to Kids About BLM
NPR: Preparing Kids for Police Interactions
NAIS: What White Children Need to Know About Race
Aha! Parenting: Talking to Kids about Racism, Police Brutality, and Protests
Tips for Talking With Kids About Differences
Teaching Tolerance
Books for Building Perspective: Coretta Scott King Award
Medium: What Can White People Do For Racial Justice?
Equal Justice Initiative
Human Rights Watch