Education

School Districts, Teachers Unions Kick Off ‘Black Lives Matter’ Week Of Action

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• Several school districts and teachers unions across the country are preparing to recognize Black Lives Matter at School’s annual “Week of Action,” from Feb. 5 to Feb. 9, which pushes “restorative justice” and being “trans-affirming.”
• The Chicago Teachers Union, the Los Angeles Unified School District and Milwaukee Public Schools are among those participating.  
• “The founders and creators of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter In Schools have an agenda, and it never is what it appears to be,” Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group, told the DCNF.

School districts and teachers associations across the country are preparing to celebrate Black Lives Matter (BLM) at School’s annual “Week of Action,” from Feb. 5 to Feb. 9, which pushes “restorative justice” and encourages being “trans affirming” and “queer affirming.”

D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are among those who have announced participation. Some of the scheduled activities include a panel discussion on how to “teach and organize for racial justice” and encouraging students to wear BLM apparel.

“Centering Collective Value in the Early Years,” hosted by D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, is scheduled for Feb. 6 and involves a panel discussion on “concrete strategies for anti-racist pedagogy and abolitionist practice,” according to the group’s website.

MPS’ “Week of Action” will hold various events for both students and the community, including one on Feb. 5 titled “Intergenerational Night” where participants will hear from a panel to discuss “the principles of Black Lives Matter.” There are also “in-school” activities planned that “encourages awareness of the Black Lives Matter principles and the importance of our collective value” and asks participants to wear BLM apparel.

LAUSD in California is encouraging participants to wear all black on Feb. 5 “in solitary of Black students and families,” according to a district PowerPoint. Shoreline Public Schools in Washington state will include lessons throughout the week “that cover the themes of equity and justice in the Black community,” its website reads.

Several other teachers associations are also holding events.

CTU will hold its “Week of Action” from Feb. 5 to Feb. 16, with the first week being for preparation and the second for teaching, according to its website. The union will hold a “Virtual Curriculum Share” on Feb. 5 for teachers to become familiar with “existing curriculum resources and work with peers to either kick start or fine tune” BLM lessons, accordingto the event description.

It will also screen “Stamped: From the Beginning” on Feb. 12, which is based on activist Ibram X. Kendi’s book that chronicles “how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.”

The Boston Teachers Union will screen “On These Grounds” on Feb. 5 and encourages wearing a BLM shirt on Feb. 9 as part of a “Joy Celebration,” its website reads. The California Teachers Association, a union of over 310,000 members, is recognizing the week from Jan. 31 to Feb. 4 with the goal being “to spark an ongoing movement of critical reflection and honest conversation in school communities for people of all ages to engage with issues of racial justice,” according to its website.

The National Education Association endorsed the BLM at School Week and called for educators to “join the movement.”

BLM at School has 13 guiding principles that include being “trans” and “queer” affirming, “globalism,” and “restorative justice.”

“You don’t have to look any further than their 13 guiding principles to have real concerns about why BLM at schools should not be in schools. One of their 13 guiding principles is disrupting the nuclear family,” Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Supporting globalism, transgender affirmation, any reasoning person can look at that and wonder what that has to do with black lives matter.”

BLM At Schools teaches that “the schools are systemically racist, the country is systemically racist, and tells our children they are in a systemically racist society,” Alvin Lui, founder of Courage Is A Habit, a nonprofit that creates tools to assist parents in addressing problems at schools, told the DCNF.

BLM at School published a pro-Palestinian toolkit for children in October following the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel. The toolkit recommends resources for educators that teach the “ways in which Israel seeks to improve its dismal world image” and that Israel is not a democracy.

“The founders and creators of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter In Schools have an agenda, and it never is what it appears to be,” Descovich told the DCNF.

BLM at Schools CTU, MPS, LAUSD, SPD, NSSD and D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.