Black parents feel the Upper Grand District School Board didn’t adequately address instances of anti-Black racism they said their children faced in school.
Nia James has two daughters and within the last couple of years say they have faced microaggressions at Rockwood Centennial Public School. She has advocated for her children on a school and board level through phone calls, emails, and meetings.
When her eldest daughter was in Grade 5 at Rockwood Centennial her class read a book called Apple in the Middle that has the n-word in it. The teacher had got copies of the book from the resource centre.
“There's no trigger warning for him to even know that this could potentially be in the book,” James said.
The students read the book on their own, came across the word and brought it to the teacher’s attention, she said.
Her daughter told her that when they went outside, her teacher asked if it bothered her, "and she absorbed that as he was asking her, she's the only Black kid in the whole class,” said James.
She emailed the school’s principal about the book.
“I'm not here to answer these questions over a weekend, like through email, but I had to set boundaries. You need to ask the people who are in charge of handling anti-Black racism in your board to help you,” said James, was her reaction to the discussions she had over email with the principal.
James contacted Parents of Black Children to orchestrate a meeting with about 10 people, including superintendents, her and the principal. Parents of Black Children is an advocacy group which aims to support families, and Black children to aid in equitable outcomes.
“The principal did a really good job to really own it,” she said.
In March 2023 her eldest daughter’s hair was made fun of by another student at school. She had asked her mom to pick her up from school. She did and didn’t go back to school for nearly three weeks due to the situation.
James pointed out to her daughter’s teacher and the principal that comments about her daughter’s hair were a microaggression.
There were meetings and many emails about this incident. There was a safety plan for her daughter for when she came back to school but James said the only solution as part of the plan was for her to call home.
Alicia Ralph is the equity and human rights commissioner with UGDSB and started with the board ahead of the 2023/2024 school year.
Ralph didn’t address specific students or families experiences because she said she didn’t want to put them at any further risk, or any other harm or maltreatment within their environment.
As a social worker by trade she said maintaining a psychologically safe environment for students is important. This is why she wanted to refrain from commenting on individual cases.
Individual concerns can help inform system level change on “... how sustainable we are in regards to addressing human rights complaints,” said Ralph.
UGDSB brought in a third party called the Canadian Congress on Inclusive Workplace Equity Initiative that led a project on anti-Black racism from Sept. 1 to Jan. 31. It’s one of the professional development opportunities UGDSB provides.
Ralph explained it's important to consider individual and systemic change so it becomes long lasting and sustainable.
“So thinking about how we can apply learnings of anti-Black racism, not only to individual contexts, but also to … the broader Upper Grand environment where we know, anti-Black racism, you know, continues to exist,” said Ralph.
The initiative would present its recommendations to the board, James said.
“I think the community engagement piece was done extremely poorly,” she said. There didn’t seem to be any formal data collection done either, she said.
What she thinks UGDSB should do now is “do all of the things that you were trained not to do.”
“Don't make things hard for people to get what they need to support their children,” James said.
She wants the board to stop creating so many barriers and pretending like they’re not.
“I think the progress that I find has been super helpful is the collectivizing of Black communities,” she said.
“We're out here where we're a lot more dispersed and kind of separated and kind of isolated,” James said.
But now we’re connecting with each other, she said. “The network is growing,” and the pressure is building, she said.
“I feel like they do have an advocate, like I'm here to advocate to them, I'm here to be a voice to them. The school and the board know who I am,” said James.
She feels her children are more protected than maybe other children whose parents work odd hours or who don’t know how the school system works.
But she wants all children to be okay.
She wants the board to take accountability and ownership of how it handles instances of anti-Black racism.
“I just don't want parents to have to keep doing this, like this is ridiculous. Which is why I'm looking at it from like a systemic view,” she said.
James’ sister Nyesha Ward has her own experiences with her daughter who goes to Harris Mill Public School in Rockwood.
A couple years ago a student made a comment about her daughter’s skin. They said it looked like feces. Ward said she was satisfied about how it was dealt with partly because at the time the school had a Black principal.
Ward received a call about the incident right away, she had a conversation about it with the principal and it was clear she knew the implications of the comment.
In the fall of 2023 a different student made a similar comment about the colour of her daughter’s skin but it wasn’t handled in the same way.
There was no call. Ward and her husband only knew what happened when her daughter told them when she came home from school.
Ward reached out to the principal and then had a meeting at the school.
She reiterated it was unacceptable “given the nature of what happened” that she didn’t get a call about it from administration.
“I shouldn't have to be chasing people, and having conversations with people about this, like, I shouldn't be telling the principal what the next steps are,” she said.
This is nothing new for Ward; she knows she lives in a predominantly white area and also grew up in one so these kinds of situations aren’t uncommon.
“The stark reality is like, I honestly expect these things to happen. People are ignorant. They say and do stupid and ignorant things. I think … the job of the board is to have a plan in place to help the children to recognize to not say and do these things, that's one piece of the puzzle,” said Ward.
The second piece is for the board to have some accountability for when situations like her daughter’s happen. She feels she shouldn’t have to track down the principal to ask what should be done to help her daughter. The principal should reach out to her instead.
UGDSB is implementing a Human Rights, Equity and Accessibility office and it will be led by Ralph.
Human rights is the foundation and lens of work she does with the board.
“And I think that's the important piece, because if we're not doing it from a human rights lens, I find the work or any activities is not sustainable. Because sometimes activities or it can be performative in nature. So I find that challenging any human rights really helps frame accountability,” said Ralph in an interview.
At this time there is no board-wide strategy for anti-Black racism but anti-Black racism is one of the spokes in the foundational human rights work being done.
“So I think the first part of any sort of anti-Black racism strategy would be around the work that we're doing around, you know, being intentional around our, our naming of anti-Black racism, to actively identify and disrupt it as it as it exists,” said Ralph.
The UGDSB policy that relates to anti-Black racism is Policy 504 Equity and Inclusive Education. It recognizes people in the school community “regardless of age, ancestry, colour, race, citizenship, ethnic origin, place of origin, creed,” and more markers of identity.
The board is developing a human rights policy. It will help develop and implement further strategies so it can be responsive to what students and staff need, said Ralph.
Colin Samuels has two daughters who go to Rockwood Centennial. They previously attended Harris Mills.
There is a systemic problem within the school board, he said.
Samuels’ daughters often change their hairstyles since it's part of their culture. Whenever they do change their hairstyle other students will touch their hair without their consent. It’s happened to them both over 10 times each with the majority of instances occurring at Harris Mills, said Samuels.
He lets his children make their own decisions, resolutions and he helps guide them. If they want him to get involved to resolve the issue he will.
“The public school system, my whole thing is that we talked about change. If we acknowledge it, that's the first thing, then you have to do something about it,” said Samuels.
He’d like to see more Black teachers and principals in schools. At Harris Mill Public School there was a Black principal and having her as the principal in a predominantly white community, spoke to him. When she was principal Samuels’ daughters would tell him they wanted to be a principal or teacher.
“She took the time out to speak to them because she knew that she was a rarity,” he said.
“If people don't feel represented, or if people don't feel that the institution is really being proactive. It's lip service. When it becomes lip service people are not going to want to join the school board,” he said.
Ralph and trustee Alethia O’Hara-Stephenson are Black women who have roles within the board.
When we think about the human rights work “that we're doing, we want to think about trustees' work. Having diverse trustees; that's huge,” said Ralph.
What Samuels, Ward and James want is for systemic change around anti-Black racism so their children can learn in an environment where they don’t have to face microaggressions and racism.
