 for Ethics and Circumstances in school. And we started at about 26 months ago. Last year in July, there was a similar, a law that passed in part again that worked on many ethnic studies, and it says that Vermont should be the second state. So I called in all these amazing people that are already doing a lot of work in the state of Vermont that are already working with schools, working within their communities, and I said, let's do this. So what is in organic? Really organic coalition is led by people of color. We have people from all the, what we call ethnic and social groups. So people from the LGBTQ community, people from the disability rights community that are really coming together and saying, I know, we are doing some changes. 20 years ago, there was a study that was done in all the Vermont schools that found that there was, in the words of the study, pervasive racism in all Vermont schools. Then three years later, they did a follow-up study that said, well, Vermont still has pervasive racism in all the schools. This was 20 years ago. We know from firsthand, because we are the community support, that the report is talking about that, things still have not changed. And this coalition was formed to pass this legislation. It's, and Kyla and everybody can talk a little more about it, but it asks us as to begin the first very small step to look at the standards that are in all of the schools from pre-tape to 12 grade, and say, okay, where are there the bias? And when are we gonna start talking about the histories that we represent? So that our kids that are in schools now and in the future see themselves represented. We know that it's not just for the kids in color or kids from the social groups, but it is for everybody when you see that you can take pride in people that are making change and also feel proud of other people making change that we start to create a change together. And now you can see our peers as different, thinking about even ourselves. I, as an immigrant, came and never really see, so, I still have my English language problems, but really so role models in those textbooks that never respect me. So my sense of identity didn't get developed until I went to college, so I'm reading teachers of color, writers that were really getting home into my heart. And this bill is for our kids in the future, and I'm gonna pass, we're gonna, the way we're gonna create this format is we have this amazing panelist that are part of the coalition, and we're going to let you also tell us why ethnic studies and why this is so important. So, I'll start with Tanya. I really far want to go first. Just want to know the people who travel from other places. I'm staying in St. Joe's, so. I'm staying in St. Joe's. Hello, everybody, my name is Sorry, good to be in, and I'm also with the Vermont Coalition and I'm having a social equity in schools. And just want to echo a few points I'm on the shared, which is that this is a grassroots initiative that's coming out of the communities. It's something that when we came together the first time that activists from all over the state, we were able to agree on this so easily. It was such an intuitively correct idea to work towards having a social equity standard in those schools. And as we've reached out across the state, the educators, students, parents, people working in administration and state government, everyone, there's been a lot of response like, oh, thank you. Everyone's looking for a way to solve some of these problems. And what I'm really excited about with this initiative is that it's really positive transformative. It's not really against anything. It's just for bringing in some of the truth about the history of this country and all the different groups that have come together to make it what it is. And another thing that I'm excited about as like a racial justice nerd is that when we talk about breaking down racism, we talk about working at the internal level, the interpersonal level, the organizational level, and the systemic level. And I really think that when we start teaching students from a very young age and inclusive curriculum and everything that we're actually working on all of those four levels, so it could be really effective as a sort of strategy for countering structural racism. And also, the 257 Centres are children and prioritizes teaching them about the contributions of all groups. And this is going to help us address existing bias in the curriculum, which is something that many parents of color and LGBTQIA community parents have noticed that there's a lot of interesting bias that you can find in American history and other curricula. And what we hope to do is to teach the children to honor and love themselves and all of their differences and diversity and to honor and love each other. So what's beautiful about this work is that it's about lifting everyone up and particularly the first time I've been pushed down. And we're hoping that Vermont can again be a leader in issues of civil and human rights. Okay. Every workshop. A parallel. Hi, I'm Siadne Leaire, and it is an honor, a privilege and a pleasure and a long overdue to be here. I am part of the coalition. Emotional. I was one of those people who were at me 20 years ago when we introduced, I look at this as an emerging process. I come here as a parent, as an educator, as a community organizer. My child's first experience around color was when he came home and said no, they were just slaving and Elizabeth owned his names. And he was learning about civil war. This is the first time in his academic career that people of color were introduced. The African American Lions and the Northeast Kingdom started first to support parents to advocate for parents. We recognized that we needed to get into the schools because there wasn't anything happening in the schools. There was sporadic efforts around the state. Farah, Vermont's anti-racism action team, was started around 20 years ago again to meet that need. And we would, someone's like a triage, you would come in, you would talk to the parents, you'd talk to the school. But once it got past that of what was needed, doors closed, nothing happened. I come here emotionally because I'm on my second generation. I'm on my second generation where my grandson was not going to get on the school bus because of what's happening in the school. I listen to my grandson and we move forward. I listen to him read the last chapter of the path of the adventure as a couple where we've been. The great thing about that was we didn't have face-to-face history. He got the moral piece excellently and asked him how did he appreciate that word. And his response was a demonstration of the years of how do I get by. Vermont has had efforts in the past. And some of them are now coming in to review that they were not great. I was part of those efforts. I received those trainings. But then it was led by white people, people of color who were at the table. I read to children and I try to bring as much cultural diversity as possible. It's the teachers and the aides that are uncomfortable. We are working with the group in the St. John's Berry School. And how do we support communities of color? Looking at how do you create, develop a fundamental foundational language, promoting literature literacy, acknowledging the situation as is. The other day, a young boy was singing a song in Spanish. He told him to stop singing. I have square words. What's square words? I didn't know the translation, but I asked him separately about the translation. I would say the words are probably not appropriate for a second grader to sing. But there are no square words. The almost feminist way the students said in Spanish made me realize more than ever, this is so crucial, that we emerge, emerge as my new world, that we emerge and become global. My hands and both of them would have been busy. I don't know what to do. In the evening, I'm top of the floor. I'm president of the Rotterbury branch of the NAACP. And I'm going to read for you today what I would have read had he been allowed to testify like we were supposed to. So, thank you for giving us this opportunity. A teacher makes her students lay on the ground close together so that they can get a sense of what slavery is like. A student threatens to kill all the black kids at school and the school determines that it was just a joke. And the students allowed to return to school the next day while some parents of students of color are afraid to send their kids to school because they found out through their child rather than through school officials. A teacher forces kids to say the n-word while being popularly thin and is recommended but allowed to stay. A black educator leaves because district administrators do not value their expertise as the longest standing member of their department and instead asks them to mentor someone with no license in that area to become ahead of that department even though the black educator is highly regarded by the agency of education or other officials. A student is punished more harshly for the same infraction than co-conspirators of the same act. A black educator is passed over multiple times per position told that they don't have enough experience only to come to school to see that the person who got the job also had no experience. I would go on and on about the stories, experiences and complaints that I hear about what's happening in the Rutland area schools. In the years since we have been chartered the Rutland area branch of the NWACP has received more complaints about education than any other subject. Each one more larger than the next. And I know that the Rutland area schools are not alone in this which is what brings us all here today. Whether it's in disability in the classroom poor or no curricular representation unfair discriminatory labor practices or unequal treatment as perpetrators over victims in a variety of school-based infractions Vermont students of color are not getting what they deserve and neither the white children. I remember one day one of my favorite students came to visit me after visiting a friend at Boston Children's Hospital she was white. And as she told me about her experience she paused for a moment and said, Miss P, I was so scared and her eyes got large with fear so I asked her, who are you so scared? And she said, there were so many black people. Now obviously there's a few things wrong with this but let's focus on her. This young woman who loved and respected and trusted me was utterly afraid to even see people who lived different than her. No one spoke to her, no one at a cost or no one did anything at all except exist and now it's too much for her. Between lack of exposure in her life and lack of exposure in her education this young woman could not even see someone different without being afraid and this example is not unique. Now I don't think we're going to solve the problem of the lack of people of color overnight and yes that is a problem. There's so many working systems to repair that that particular endeavor will take far more time for large numbers of people of color to consider finding our state as an option but there is something we can do right now to help the repair of the gaps in our education system and that's to support this legislation. There's a quote that I love by Adrienne Mitchell that goes, when those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality should not to see or hear you. When someone with the authority of a teacher say, describes the world and you are not in it there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium as though you looked into a mirror and saw nothing. It takes some strength of soul and not just individual strength but collective understanding to resist this void this non-being into which you are thrust and to stand up demanding to be seen and heard. Vermont we can do better we must do better. Students of color are facing the same exact struggle to be reflected in their communities as I did when I left here in 1996. That is unacceptable. White students are still afraid of people of color even though because of technology our world is shrinking and we have more access to different cultures and colors and people and ways of knowing and learning than ever before. And we are to give successful people we must be a well educated people and that education must be founded in the principle of equity. Equity in treatment for students equity in curriculum and equity in representation at every level of our education system. I want to thank you for being here tonight and I want to thank Amanda and Kai for your passion and brilliance and dedication to making this piece of legislation a possibility and for commanding that all students and people and all people who make contributions to our world are seen, heard and valued. Thank you. My name is Bofit Fahor. I'm Palestinian American Muslim. I'm a member of the Monarch for Justice in Palestine and member of this coalition, great coalition when Amanda started this work definitely I felt a personal commitment to this. The reason is I am a father of food challenge, challenge and taking. And both mainly my daughter has a face in bullying on school when she told her class after writing a paper that she is a Palestinian Arab and Muslim. This bullying continue forced me even to hold her out from our public school and me and her mother are probably in school so I hold her from Kamenheim to the school and talk it by the school. This said 50 years later after the movement on Universal California and South West and Konami University where people insisted on like and letting study on the school that we come here about this subject. For the people who are sitting here if you think what you're studying in your school was that positive. What is America now? This bill is not for you. For the people who believe that the ethnic groups who are in less than 20 years going to be majority of this great nation this bill will correct the problem. Almost I will give the example about this bill about 56 years ago when the trash was all over the state and we're not going to stop to get rid of this trash to get rid of racism and discrimination we have to start somewhere. So we need your help now Kay, I need your help now that to all our representatives our senators and to start the hard work that this bill we needed to pass this legislation this time and not to push it more. Thank you for everything. Just wait one second and just reflect a little bit and we want to answer that we're not all talking maybe open it up for you to either give your testimony or make a comment and then we'll go back to a little bit panelists and I want to emphasize that this is a collective effort this coalition is really this is my work it really costs a collective effort everybody has made so I've done so much work thank you all so if anybody want to come up and say something or if not we'll have to panelists continue. My name is Victoria Pearson and I'm a member of Central Vermont showing off the racial justice and we're a group of white folks working with other white folks to help us scale up to be able to do multiracial organizing and military justice I also live on some land in a community called Openway Farm and I'm here with my family tonight I think I was asked to speak as the parent of two white children Forest and Fern I was trying to not live in our house so I was I think we were out in the garden and I was talking to Forest about this and I said hey Forest do you think it's a good idea for me to come and talk about you know how education should talk more than just about white people or how we should try to end racism in our schools and have more stories than our schools and he said yeah that's a great idea and I said well do you think actually you know do you want to say something he's like no I don't want to say something but I'll be there and so I'm looking at you and you're here and supporting me and saying this stuff so I mean I think for me I just want to talk about what the bill means to me and what it means to my family this bill means to me that for the first time I want to say in how education will reflect their lives and experience it means that the complexity of the world will not be called marginal or special or a separate thing but will be brought to the center of our educational standards it means that I as a queer woman will have some hope that the complexity of love that I feel the complexity of family that I know will be presented invisible in my children's education not just my brother and when I think about what does this mean for my family I really feel like this means that my children's education will not under this false narrative of white supremacy and to come out from under that false narrative of Eurocentric education is an incredible gift for my white children because it helps to dissolve the illusions and make it possible for them to really take their place in this large tapestry of our society yeah so really like removing this illusion that some cultures are elevated and others are and I think too it means that my children will learn and all of our children will learn that the truth and power survival and thriving through much adversity and injustice is like they'll learn about that well I should see that so the complexity of the truth of the injustices of white supremacy and enslavement and all of it that truth will elevate us all because it will show actually how we have survived and thrived through that so I, yeah that's all I have thank you very much good evening my name is Doslan I'm one of the liaisons for the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont and yes I just keeps getting through and as every community comes forward with language just finding who they are it's my responsibility because if I'm not reflecting my community back to them they're not being included I marked 15th of this year it was an LGBTQIA youth day that was sponsored during the state council I remembered the first leadership day that was sponsored here it was nothing like this year there were 65 youth who came from state life they testified before committees they got a standing elevation on the wealth of the house I also want to share with you their voices from that day they spoke with Hayat and Fenther for this piece of legislation they spoke to the governor and they held his feet to the governor they spoke to the out legislators and they spoke to me one of the things that they strongly said was that they don't see themselves reflected back in the curriculum in their schools they're not there if there's any conversation about sexual orientation or gender identity it happens in a health care curriculum and I'm about to make a very offensive statement that is taught by a well-meaning straight white woman who has absolutely no training or experience with the LGBTQIA communities so what they do is they go out to the internet to look for resources and support let me tell you the concerns I have about my kids going out onto the internet to find resources where they don't know where they exist typing in the word sexual orientation who is just waiting there one of the things that came out recently was a study from New York City University and it was about LGBTQ communities and poverty and it was a very strong statement about schools and education and what this study said is that what our youth need is a curriculum that is written by the community for the community and is taught by people who are trained on those issues or more importantly who can identify as LGBTQIA and can serve as an adult whole lot as a kid who grew up here in Vermont and I'll tell you it was in Plain Hill which is like 10 miles away I kept waiting for the person in the front of the room to use the language that said I wanted to be part of their class that I hold long and then and this which is a very short story and this is a personal experience you can imagine my feelings when I woke up after the 2016 election and then I saw the cabinet that was being created and they would have liked you much more than they would have liked me and I thought and I looked at you know okay so what are we doing here in Vermont to ensure that we keep all of those protections through the putting place is this still mine so I came with all sorts of migrations and I went through the line to congratulate them to say thank you for using the language actually in the speech that did reaffirm I was part of the community here but that's truly a relauncher I truly did the right but the most interesting thing that's happened is I was standing in line waiting to congratulate the governor I could see his security detail looking at me and sort of with this inquisitive look and I'm like okay you know it's no time and as I got closer the officer leaned in to me and said the king triangle doesn't have meaning and I looked at him and said this is what the Nazis put on gay men when they were interned during the Holocaust and I will remember his response he looked at me and said why didn't I know that and I represent basically half of the town of Bennington so the other end of the city this has been quite an emotional journey even hearing the stories it's very emotional for a lot of reasons it's not just what we're on the precipice of trying to make it happen to actualize but it's also based on lived experience from what's happened throughout my childhood and in trying to build a better future for all children including my own promise of this bill goes far beyond just what's within the textbooks it is asking for a level of community engagement and expertise that we have not seen in quite some time to ensure that what we're going to come up with in the end is something that is relevant something that is meaningful and something that is impactful that we are asking for our schools to do more than just have an awareness month or to cover this in one particular chapter but we're saying what are you doing within your school culture to change the conversation and make sure that all of our youth who we're trusting we send our babies off to school and they are there for the majority of our day and we want to know that they come back whole and that they are not traumatized that they are not indoctrinated with information that's going to leave them to misunderstand the world that they live in that's going to make them feel inadequate in any way she performed about their own lived experiences and what they know and what they've seen and that they know that they're safe because that is a requirement that when we have our schools that they feel safe my son when he was three it was one of those critical moments and we talk about this because this is not just something that happens in middle school or in high school or even just elementary school I was talking preschool and my son's preschool that he was at and there was a there were only two children who were not white in that whole class my son and one other little boy Jack Jack had a really hard time in this classroom and there were some students she was a bit of a bully she was allowed to do what she wanted to do and create social circles within the classroom that she wanted and the teachers kind of indulged her in this process and I walked in with my son who had been regressing in his development had become anxious and afraid to go to school and didn't know why until I watched this little boy try to play with other kids in the class they were all doing a puzzle and he wanted to join in and this little girl said no you can't Jack go away and this child started chanting Jack go away Jack go away and the other kids joined in and the teacher did nothing and so then Jack kicked the puzzle as a three year old boy how else do they express their emotions and their being harmed in such a way and the teacher's response was well if you do things like that Jack that's why the kids don't want to play with them and so to remedy this I had to call the director and I called all the parents we went old school everybody's mom I let them know what happened in the class so that they could have that conversation with their children but that conversation wasn't happening in the classroom so we're supposed to drown and make up for what's missing in the other parts of their life when we're trusting our children to be in these spaces for so much of their day so this built to me gives not only the promise of bringing about equity and real voices and real stories but it also is a chance to really transform our educational system and to ask for a level of accountability as to whether or not we're actually delivering on that duty care for our next generations so that we can create a society that is anti-racist, anti-victim that's the only way that we're going to do this so I'm so grateful that this coalition came together brought this forth that we fought that we've negotiated that we've worked so hard to get here and we're going to finish this with all of you so I thank you for being here I need to extend an apology to Kaia that was based on white privilege saying that the current administration would be more willing to see her than me that was decided to be white privilege I should not have diminished the impact of the racist statement of the current administration I truly applaud you We work together My name is Zamora this is Zamora DaVinci and I actually just finished my senior year in high school I grew up in Vermont school so I'm going to speak from that perspective as a child of color going through our school system where do I even begin I think that what is most important for me to bring up is internalized oppression and how that develops and I grew up never learning anything about myself anyone that looks like me I didn't see anyone in my classes that looked like me I didn't see a face that reflected my own I didn't hear experiences that reflected my own and Marlitha Kane in Rosa Parks does not meet the bare minimum and it just doesn't and the way that we even do talk about oppression of people of color it's very we just gloss over it and it's not detailed it's not even accurate and it's not a cool picture and it's very victim blaming and they belittle our experiences and I want to make it very clear that you cannot become what you don't already know is possible so if you never see yourself reflected in society if you never see anyone that looks like yourself if you're never told that you can become a teacher, a doctor an attorney, a scientist then you just want to aspire to do so and I feel like if I was actually able to learn about myself to learn about the experiences of people of color not just negative experiences because we have a collective of experiences that are valuable and worth offering up to our curriculum then maybe I wouldn't view myself differently maybe I wouldn't have gone through this entire process of self-sufficiency which I can speak on the better half of the people of color that I have met throughout my life I grew up in Vermont school they had to endure this process of self-hatred and then unpack that trauma when they were either in high school or out of high school or they're still doing it as adults and that is an experience that we robbed of them and people don't understand that internalizing pressure, it takes a toll on your self-esteem your self-worth it takes a toll on what you even think is possible what you think you can actually do as a human being what you can produce as a human being and going through school and thinking that you're ugly you deserve to be there that you're worthless that everyone that looks like you is not doesn't belong there that doesn't have a right to be there doesn't have a right to speak we really have robbed students of color from their education it's not an equal access thing we don't have equal access to our education because half the time we're fighting to for our own humanity half the time we're just reaffirming that we actually belong to be in that space in the first place we're defending ourselves against bigotry we have to stand up with no one behind us protecting us or defending us or even acknowledging that there's a problem in the first place and it's like if I'm spending the majority of my education educating other people then what am I getting in return what do I have by benefit and I don't know looking on the other side which is only a couple days because like I said it's really been a surreal process and to look at myself from before from before when I would straighten my hair every day I would look in the mirror and I would cry every single day and feel disgusting and worthless and inferior in comparison to my friends when I thought that I couldn't bring to my hand in class because I thought that nothing I would say would make a difference or would matter to anyone when I had to look at my friends and tell them that they were beautiful that they had a right to be there that they were valuable and they were capable of greatness it's like when we only go into school and we see white faces and male faces and none that reflect our own it takes a toll on who you are and then I watched my little brother and how he struggles with self-esteem and struggles to it's like I'm just watching it happen again and there's nothing I can do and it's just not we shouldn't have to first hate ourselves to learn to love ourselves we shouldn't have to endure all this to realize that we actually belong there and that we deserve to become something that we actually are going to go somewhere and we actually can go to college and we actually can graduate from my school so this bill is so important to me because I never thought that this would be possible I never thought that anyone would care that anyone would actually stand up and defend us because I spent my entire childhood defending myself and against my teachers against other students and against the administration having them justify their actions maybe excuses for their actions and then centering themselves around what was happening to me making my problems the things I was facing about death and then forgetting me somewhere in the process and nothing would ever happen nothing I've been called the Edward by male teachers it's just I don't even want to go into detail but it's like the level of ignorance and the level of it just amazes me how proud people do these things and how they just can live their lives and go on like it never happened but really it's taken a toll on everything and how I feel about myself and so I feel like it starts with education and it's like I said before you cannot become what you don't already know as possible so if you never see that and it's not just school you have to understand that when we go home and we turn on the television all we see is white faces and white experiences we are taught to value your eccentric accomplishments your eccentric contributions your eccentric beauty your eccentric everything we are nowhere in this picture in our own homes we're surrounded by people our own communities that we've created for ourselves to protect ourselves it's like whiteness still seats in everywhere we go there's nowhere in society that you will not see whiteness reflected the band-aids that you buy the dolls that you have available for your children to find the books that you have available in your library to give to your kids to read we're invisible and that's why it's important for us to actually value ethnic studies and to value this history because it shows you that you actually care about educating your students of color it actually shows that you care about us and that you see us in your classrooms and that you want to have us feel heard and you want to like actually include us and you make the time and the space to do so and I feel like this will not solve problems of internalized racism this will not solve just the self-hatred that is abundant amongst young kids of color but it is a chance for us to end it because we can actually for the first time in our lives see ourselves like people don't understand how important representation is until they don't have it imagine going through your entire life of anywhere in society it makes you feel invisible it makes you feel like you do not belong to be there and it's like the last thing I want to say is that there is no American history without our history there is no American history we're also holding back the white students in our classes because this whole world of experiences that they don't even know what they think about we're also blind to all of it because we keep that opportunity away from them and please consider that when considering our experiences too it's like they walk through this world so blindly and that holds them back that holds them back from becoming an ally from actually lending and helping hands to actually stopping this cycle and it just limits their understanding of one another and the world in general if everything is centered around you and about you and about us yeah so our history classes don't make any sense like there is no there is no America without us it's just not it wouldn't have been possible you needed us to create it so why don't we actually pay where it's due and represent us like yeah the floor for you and so this bill actually does so for those of you that don't know when we started the bill was called H794 it was in the house we did an association that I mentioned before with the agency of education and we finally came up with a final bill that reflected what we wanted it was then put on to now S-57 which is the education Islamist bill so it has been attached to that that bill has a lot of other components but what the bill does is not it doesn't bring curriculum to the schools so that was the first misconception what we're trying to do is what I said at the beginning is to look at the standards and to look where the device is and to then say okay this is what we're missing we are sure we're going to mind that a lot but also to give the framework of all the policies that are in place that will support the students of color so tomorrow something changes and then we'll start talking about people with disabilities or LGBTQA community or people of color and then a lot of things are going to start because we have been doing this education for so many years and kids are already in high school so what happens is that we know and can anticipate that all the bullying and all the things will start to come in we want to make sure that we have things in place for the educators for the administrators for the students that will help them work with what we're trying to make the bill is why it's historic because the bill calls and a community an advisory working group that will look at the standards and it includes 8 people that represents the people from ethnic and social groups that have been only represented and excluded for centuries so and we get to this is why it's historic because for the first time we are involved in that process we don't have the top administrators making the decisions of what looks like bias just like the white either woman or male who does not understand what the community is going through in the text and have the same answer so this is why it's important so we get to pick the 8 people that represent and then there is other people there that includes a university professor from one of the ethnic studies from one of the universities the agency of education the critical association and then so this community works for a year looks at the standards looks at the policies and then creates something to give to the state work for them to sign a law and that's when I doubly our next fight for the state work to say okay we are going to adopt this so you are ready but that's what it does so the action right now is to call the senate education committee and say it's important to us and then call the representatives and say this bill will be and you need to support it so now I want to look at your questions speaking of calling representatives I just wanted to highlight the representatives that we have in the room here today to introduce ourselves of those of us who are representatives I don't see any senators but I'm Deanna Gonzalez and I represent the new scheme so other representatives Charlie Kimball I represent Whitsby Kimberby Jessup I represent Middlesex and East Palm failure and I know Barbara Richardson was here earlier and she represents Burlington so I wanted to take the moment to have us acknowledge ourselves of those of us that are representatives because although you all are not having a hearing in front of a committee you are being heard and so wanting you all to know that collectively and that we are here to hear from you all of how important this is and now that you can connect faces to names if you haven't already reached out to us we are interested and we are here for that so please keep our names and faces in mind think about how you can see and how would I manage to assist thank you we have organizations like OISIS who's here ACLU and all the steering committee you can look at our website all the organizations that are involved with this effort so keep them in mind I'm a justice my memory isn't very good so I will maybe write it down I want to open the floor I have a question I'm mostly clarifying and also thank you all so much unbelievable what you were saying and I can tell you I have some knowledge of what you went through having raised to adopted African American I went through a lot of schools my question is when is this what's the timeframe on this when do we need to get to this we need to call our legislature legislator immediately yes so it's do you want to tell us so again the bill is actually it's a miscellaneous education bill with a lot of components to it including this so it's right now under review and appropriations but I believe they'll be getting that after every sort of thing but we're finding down on the session anyway so any words of encouragement are greatly appreciating to be able to make sure of that yeah so we're having in the next couple of weeks go tomorrow make the calls to the senate education committee that I want to hear from from us and all your representatives so anybody wants to share I want to say thank you it's long overdue I was lucky enough to grow up in a very rich, diverse area of New Jersey and then move to upstate to get very very white a ghetto and so I had to take my five little white kids to New York to see more of other people in the world and Vermont I love Vermont needs you and I'm so glad we're finding people to be followed with an attempt at better school teaching more diversity and I'm all with you, good luck thanks to you all so much for sharing your personal experiences and your stories my name is Kathy Johnson I wanted to echo a couple of points one, why don't I know this I just wanted to share a quick story who the tenant governor showed the movie 13th up in the cafeteria last month a man hit his hand on the table at the end of the movie let me just say 13th is a movie you can get on Netflix it's about the 13th amendment and about the current situation mass incarnation or incarceration of black people in our country and a man slammed his hand on the table and stood up and said why don't I know this he said I have two master's degree and a doctorate from some of the best colleges in this country and so one of the points is that this isn't just a little problem this is a huge injustice that the curriculum in our schools is so neurocentric telling a story from a white perspective with little to no mention the huge history of resistance the huge history of contradiction of people from so many other groups than white groups and the third point I wanted to make was you mentioned about how long people have been working on trying to get things in the curriculum you for decades and if it was easy if the agency of education and teachers would just say oh okay yeah let's do that but it's been tried and tried and tried and things are shifting or emerging they're moving and every angle that we can get to move people faster more comprehensively to recognize the urgency that we have we've got to take because as you Zamora Zamora Zamora so eloquently spoke about your personal experience your personal power which I think is such a great injustice that so many Zamora children are experiencing this that it's just not okay it's a huge injustice and we need to deal with it from every angle possible so thank you representatives and senators for your leadership for you folks for working on it because we need to give on this so this you want to go out or I I'm I work that's why we think this work is essential regardless of what happens to this girl I'm a team leader the proficiency based learning team that team is really all about equity for all so I just want to like as well I want to ask members of this organization is there a centralized place where I can give you my email I can all sign up tonight and here we can mobilize with you we want to sign in a sheet so we'll be coming around thank you and also the website is www.ethnicstudieset.org so you can sign up there and you can move the item to the list but if you sign up your name will be I want to thank you for your courage for all of you and I'm on the Religious and School Board and it's very and I got there because I would be mentored by some of the African American or some of what we have now and the parents of African American children as well and so I did engage in this work in Burlington but I had to apologize for not paying attention to what you're doing and I feel like this is the opportunity to bring resolution to the board and get support and I feel I don't know if your session will go on I'm not sure if we make it but I hope I don't have time but I do but I will do and I can't to mill that public support at the board level and what's amazing about what guilt is everybody signs on this stuff and there's a learning curve there because the intentions are good you know it clearly takes a long time and a lot of pain and a lot of car wrecks but I believe that there could be some solidarity on the school boards at least in the Burlington area so I'm also curious about the NEA and whether you all talk about the NEA and if they did sign on to the bill and if they were taking some action to promote the principals of the bill also serving on the NEA's task force on racial justice that's been working on this concept for some time now so this was fantastic synchronicity where that was one of the action items that came out of that work I was looking to try to establish support for this and 100% behind this and I was like I also want to emphasize that we have been able to bring everybody together so it's not just a racial justice but the disability rights the LGBTQ because we think that and injustice wants to do all and that we need to work together to ensure that our voices and the needs of the whole community are listening to us so we don't have Tom who was from the Burmont Independent Living Thank you we're supposed to be here but we're supposed to be here you couldn't come My name is Carolyn Wessley I live in Montpelier First I want to say I think this bill is such a great example of how when you design policy with the lived experience of people who have been historically at the margins and historically disadvantaged and with the leadership of people from those communities you design policy that is better for everyone and I think that people on the panel spoke to that really well and as a white person who grew up in the Burmont school system a lot of the stories shared about the impact of our current school system on white children really resonated and the only thing that I want to add is that I am one of those elusive people who grew up here and went away to school and to work and then came back and want to stay here and want to raise a family here and right now people seem to be very interested in who those people are and how we get them and how we get people back but my biggest fear about that choice there's so much I love about Burmont and so much I love about coming back to my kids now having a better understanding of how growing up in this homogenous community really hurt me that I don't want my kids to have that same experience I want their humanity to be full I don't want their humanity to be shared with everyone around them and so I think the point about yes we need this in our curriculum we also need more diverse people in the state and this is an economic development and a population initiative but first and foremost it's about honoring the humanity of people and we shouldn't try to sell it as something other than that but some people like other reasons to support those and if we get this right in our school system people are going to want to come and bring their kids here and young people particularly in this country the demographics are, our families are going to be more and more diverse so if we do this right we'll be toward that future process for a month that folks take so much interest in them oh okay so thank you for mentioning economics as more you mentioned too that it's time for us to get paid now I feel like if I leave here tonight without knowing this piece within the legislation I would not be doing my full duty as one of the racial justice warriors for our state the folks that will be coming to the table for education will be there getting paid right who else is sitting down there who's getting paid so everybody comes from agencies that already do this work curriculum associations, school board associations they're all getting paid to do it the people of color might receive if they're lucky a small stipend to come so I want to make sure that we're acknowledging that this is a progress but it's still at the expense of the people who are marginalized so I just want to make sure that we're recognizing that we are what is it going to be called to the table to do the work that the white people could have do and we're not getting paid for it it was a point of attention for us because some of our of the steering committee members really wanted to make sure and some of us failed that the bill will get vetoed that we will not move if we put the money so we had a lot of discussions we actually weren't supposed to put the money but after the bill was already introduced and then we had so much negotiation that the money was left to the end and then we didn't make it so it has to spike it and and my if you're not in charge no no that if you make comment on this because it is very important to understand that this bill is grossly underfunded grateful very much for the agency of education trying to develop mechanisms to try to break down the costs on this but we really need to do this to do it well it needs funding and so I know that that's a difficult battle right now but I also want to if you're going to make phone calls emails to people reach out to your federal delegates because they've all been presented with this very bill in particular hit up center late just a little little pro tip they've all been asked to try to see if there are any I mean this is crucial for our state it is absolutely crucial for our state and if we can't get the support within the building we need to build public private partnerships we need to look for where we can so as well as you represent different organizations entities educational institutions that might have an interest in investing in this type of work that money would be great or if you have money you are a data that's fine the bill number once more and what committee we're supposed to write to the center so it's now S257 and then you can mention the evidence that is bill and it's you will call on the senate education from people and then you represent it I am Stephanie Segwino from Burlington I teach economics at UVM and I have a question for you and that is what is the opposition running to what are the arguments that you've heard from people as to why they might not support this and if I could just take a couple of other comments I was recently on a spoke word with Liz and one of our greatest challenges has been hiring more teachers of color not because of the lack of teachers of color but because white hiring committees technically don't do what needs to be done and so I think in so far as this passes it's great to run up against that issue and I will provide some useful pressure to change hiring practices and I want to just talk to you a hopeful note a couple of years ago I developed a course that you can call the politically thought rate race which deals with these issues in great detail and my initial reaction to teaching the course was that my students were absolutely devoid of any instruction and knowledge of these issues in high school and I've been thinking about that for the last several months so I'm so pleased to see this and what I want to share with you is that white kids in particular have such huge discomfort in talking about race and what I saw were transform students by the end of the semester and it gives me great hope that when kids are actually in front of with knowledge that this will actually be a transformative experience and this happens especially if we take the 12 that will it will be important to change what needs to happen so thank you Hi Stephanie, thanks thanks for bringing up about teachers this really lens of a larger we have had teachers of color who come to the state and they don't stay teachers as well as other workers and I'm so glad that you mentioned about the initiative of bringing people back who are they bringing back because many people who have grown up in Vermont of color don't want to see it ever again so when we're looking at this what are our communities doing to truly welcome and ensure people leave I am so just heart because we have had so well established people who have come here and have given their energies and efforts some have moved on for professional reasons others have moved on to their mental health for their stress part of what I am Vermont too and part of what we're doing is to make people of color visible nothing to be visible but if you're not embraced by your community on every single level and schools are the heart of our community schools are what touches people in the pocketbook in their values it is the fruits of their labor and if families do not feel welcome, secure and embraced I don't want to be tolerated I want to be helped on this is the challenge in the 95% so when you leave that's in supporting the bill that's excellent but that's only one piece of the puzzle because we will have what I call this the hamster we're rotating we're putting a lot of efforts in but to have me we had another generation and continuing the only thing that has changed are the names the worst thing we are facing when we talk about this in general it is the best thing about Vermont what is it when we talk about systematic racism from policing, education health care housing the opposition they say no way in Vermont from Brazil to Vermont we have it when we talk about issues in school that we are not teaching everything actually and probably school complete but look at what they teach our children in school history, math social study music everything is white, European background, colonialist but in everything we can tell you another succeeded on this country without us the ethnic groups from somewhere else and you are trying here to protect yourself with the mentality of colonialist majority and now you are ruling us by fear that if the Latinos come over here what will happen to us so they are what now they are smugglers you mean here and education about the blacks is what they are a criminal group of us they are us, what are they they are terrorists you know this is completely fake this is the fake thing about the history of this country without those groups including and I will never forget the indigenous people of this land the natives you will never survive and for the future this is the beginning the ethnic group study is just the beginning and if you are true to yourself you have to stand with us now because we don't want to wait another 50 years to come and say did you get it very important for our kids if they are ethnic groups or what let's teach our white students the truth about this country for a change the fear of there was a lot of conversations it was that we need to be more inclusive we weren't inclusive enough because we weren't including the white males for example this is true let's talk about safety we needed to have everybody in today's island including people from European descent including males because we didn't want to meet anybody so there is that fear of why are you separating us why do you need to have your own space in a way which is not all we are trying to do we are just trying to be invisible and excluded time gets eligible to the curts and the local area and also somebody who went away grew up in Vermont schools so I wasn't able to do it and I just wanted to share a brief experience from going through this year about my English education and having read through four years of high school only five books out of 40 by women or people of color and that's the distribution and the rest were all women and so we were expected to read this canon that's just a false narrative about who's created and who has put work out into the world about what's important so I I know what everyone has said about this but the important piece on that and thank you for sharing their stories my question is just around funding and I'm glad that you touched on our kayak but I'm curious what the bill what the pathway forward looks like what are the funding needs to make this successful and then also if this bill is funded it will meet a $50 segment for reimbursement, for travel you know if that's a funding mechanism that's in place right now if we don't get federal funding what does it look like are we looking at a new bill next session that provides more funding for this and what's the momentum that's needed to ensure that it's funded so the second is it's written within the bill that's kind of standard operating for all panels and commissions in this state unfortunately that's kind of how we value the value we place on community engagement that was a critique so it's going to take public prime partnership I'm going to be honest if you want to know what's going to take what number would you like to see what number would you like to see and that's what you need to get we have seen some really innovative projects I'm putting the call out I'm throwing down the gauntlet especially in a higher education who has a best interest in this I'm putting it out to the private sector there are organizations, businesses that should have a very strong vested interest in wanting to see this type of work be very successful it's going to take more than what we can make happen here we know that our funds are held hostage in this building for all sorts of needs that need to happen and I do understand as well that money is tight everywhere but these are the types of long-range investments that have to be paid so we need to shake every trade so we'll shake the federal trade we'll shake their local trade we'll shake them all in order to get what's needed and I do want to say that the Agents of Education was attempting to enter more money to look for other funds to hire adversely coordinated efforts so we and maybe was trying to discuss around whether there was no money to be found also sorry because there was no money sometimes and in terms of money if it's going to lead towards seeking how do you run the private sector who would you guys recommend would be the best place for community members to put their money so I think because we are at this stage of the process I want to sign up to our list and then once we formulate what that will look like we have a steering committee of a lot of members that campaign partners once the bill passes then we'll shift our year into thinking how can we make this very, very good we need to make sure that we need to choose the people that are going to be in the committee which we are hoping is going to be a community effort the reason why we were pushing that once thinking our eight members was because we want to make sure that they would present the communities they say they were representing and again advocates because I could represent the Latino community the Latinx community but maybe not know anything about the history or the politics around it so that's why we want to make sure that we really have so we will then formulate what that looks like how much money we will be right now we want to support on to our website there's a lot of organizations that are in the community that are doing some of their work like Shahan the NWCP from out of Palestine that are doing work Rachel is here with justice is that for social justice in Harrowing so there's a lot of voices for women and children people that are on the ground doing their work but we will call on you when we have a budget for what that is going what's going to take on this I just wanted to speak on this is of utmost importance especially at this time and I'm Rachel Wilson by the way from stand up you know I just want to speak on how important this is going to be for the success of our students who come from communities that have been marginalized how important it's going to be for their self-esteem I can speak for myself I didn't grow up in Vermont I grew up in New England I was so afraid to try new things I was so afraid to throw myself out there and really be a leader and do the things that I knew that I could do because I was so afraid of proving people right if I failed I was so scared of failing because I thought if I fail then they're going to see me as a representative of black people of people of color and then I'm going to prove them right so I never I never reached my full potential in school because of that fear and I know that so many of the students that I'm dealing with they're going through the same thing and you know I have to say I have not met one student one child of color for that matter one person of color in this state in this country I've never met one person who is not dealing with and suffering from trauma around racism and you know I wanted to touch a little bit on what Sha'a'am was saying about people staying here you know I am on the ground doing this work on a constant basis and you know this past winter I had a couple of breakdowns I have never in my life been so visible but my experience so invisible and we all know that racism exists everywhere all over the country no matter where you go but when you're living in a place where there are people who are like you, who look like you you know that they have shared lived experience and you can find safety and you can find commonality and that's the thing is like so many of our students are alone whether like whatever group they are coming from, they are alone and that's why this is so important you know this is just like it's about the damn time come on this is for the one black kid in my white school for the one the other school because that is what I heard when I came back oh we're not so white but even if it's one student he or she or they come and that's what we're dealing with and that's what we're dealing with they're trying to be out of the black that's matter of black racing so we're not around them on and I've been, I've been a hero to nearby and that reminds me of I wanted to do that at my school and people will say to me we only have seven black students at my school and that's one of the reason that's what this bill is that's what the flag represents so next year I am teaching a class a semester long class about the history of black, Latinx and indigenous people in the United States and hearing that the bill doesn't address specifically curriculum what standards what standards are you guys looking at that's going to come back to that curriculum that's my question good question it's a framework so the standards are what all the schools have this is what you have to make and then each school district has its own curriculum director and each teacher has its own discretion so this is why this is a very small step so we give this framework and we also give suggestions as to how this features and I think after this bill passes I'm going to get funding and do an amazing work I do in this report then the next step will be to be working school district by school district because this bill will create a framework and again standards that the state board needs to adopt the bills and Monday that they do it we will have to ask them to do that and then yes there is so much work this is just a very small step if we said teachers don't tell a teacher that you are doing a curriculum change because nobody likes that that doesn't go the one thing people at the beginning we don't support the Monday curriculum this is not a curriculum change this is the standard so it is important we cannot do it all at once so this is the first step but I think teachers need to work together and the recruited people that know about these things is really important because it's not just recruited it's retaining those teachers that can provide that as well if you use the same standard the same goals you will find even including math and music you don't see anybody but white people who created the math actually your algebra and your zero to infinity is our creation your computer and algorithm is our creation and Steve Jean his Syrian father has you will find Arabs and Muslims get killed in the Revolutionary War here and their graves in Boston do you see that in your curriculum? No Blacks, Latinos, Chicano all of us we were native indigenous we were part of the beginning to this day of this country but when you read and you teach it it's coming from white, European colonialist thinking and this is going to get better we have to be represented on every education aspect on the scope we are part of it why my children don't see themselves on it when we don't see our skin on it our accent our names if they see something like that they will feel comfortable they will feel comfortable and the white person you wouldn't believe that when he knows that she conflicted she is part of this family we call her mom I want to make two points last year I went to D.C. for the women's march and we got to look at some tourist attractions we went to the American Switzerland Museum which I was pretty reluctant to because I knew that there would be nothing really about people from there so I went to the very small isolated section that was meant to talk about black history with one other black student and we were walking through this literally one hallway worth of history and I was naming all the people and I was like oh my god this person did this and this person did this and this person had this hit record and they start this revolution and all these things that I knew and the other black student that was with me she turned to me and she was like how do you know all of this how do you know all of this I don't know any of this it struck me I realized how much our education has been brought from us and then also how I had to go out of my way to educate myself I went to two schools I went to my own institution where I teached myself about my own history and history of other people that weren't white and then I went to the institution that told me nothing about myself and it's like something else that we need to make clear is that our people of color's history does not start with white people there's this misconception that we are nothing without you we don't have an history without you and it's like there was a whole history before enslaved African people came to this country we actually had culture and society and infrastructure and religion and music and dance all these beautiful things in every other marginalized community and also like someone else mentioned I forgot who but it was like we need to have a balance also in our curriculum we need to have a balance of where we're talking about the realness, the truth that isn't whitewash and doesn't cover the sins of the descendants of Europeans or Euro-Americans and we also like we need to actually go into detail about what has actually happened to our communities, the massifers that have happened, the genocides that have happened the mass rapes that have happened the assimilation and eugenics practices that have happened like all these things that we don't ever learn anything about we also need to acknowledge that we have done beautiful things and we have created beautiful music and art and then we have communities like does anyone even know do you know like Black Wall Street Black Wall Street was literally a booming community of black folks that had their own infrastructure and their own communities and their own businesses that happened during June Crow most people in this room probably don't even know about that and it's like we don't even know about the successes of our people the beauty that we have created in the face of the most horrible, most frightening things imaginable and the face of bigotry and the face of hatred and the face of genocide and I think that is empowering for especially students of color to see like wow I can do that too my people, the people that I am who did that, they created this like we are told and rejected and demeaned and just put down all the time that we feel like we are not capable of anything it's like we were to actually learn about things like Marvin Gaye or Cesar Chavez or like people of empowerment maybe we would actually feel like we are powerful too like there's two sides to every story and we need to make sure that we paint a whole picture and the second thing I want to bring up is like the funding part and I don't know if someone mentioned this before I came or has mentioned this along the way but it's not just funding this bill we need to fund to support teachers of color that are already here because you know that they are being traumatized in the schools if they aren't going to be working because they are probably one of few or one of none and we need to support the students of color that are experiencing psychological, emotional and trauma we need to fund actually having recruited people to come here and actually stay here because I feel like I aspire to go out of state for college because I don't want to deal with this anymore and I shouldn't feel like that I grew up here I have a right to be here and we need to fund actually teaching our white teachers how to talk about these things and how to teach these things because I don't care if they are a teacher that does not mean that they are trained and racial justice it doesn't mean that they are trained in any of these matters that we are talking about you cannot just have someone that is inexperienced has no basis of knowledge because they grew up in the same school as we did they didn't learn any of this so it's not like they can just go out in the world and teach our kids these things that they know nothing about so we need to pay for that we need to pay to actually train our staff in administration we need to have racial biasing trainings in our schools with the staff in the administration I want the bus drivers there, the lunch ladies I want everybody there because they have never endured that and it's like we cannot just have this assumption this blanket assumption that like oh we are we have no bias we know we've been educating these things like I understand that racism I understand that sexism I understand homophobia and transphobia no you don't, where did you learn it did you go out of your way to be educated on these things you know what I mean, like who was there to educate you so it's like we need to fund this bill but after this bill gets passed we need to fund services that support people of color marginalized communities are already on the ground working this and we need to recruit people and make sure that those who are teaching these things actually know what they're talking about so that we're not just perpetuating another cycle of ignorance and then what's going to happen is we're going to get this bill passed and there's going to be people teaching these things and then they're going to say well we gave you what you want well yeah you gave us what we want but do you actually know what you're talking about what are you teaching our kids are you reaffirming what you're trying to say are you reaffirming these systems of oppression yeah I'll get that anybody else in the chair question for a second like the legislators here and people in the east have just a quick experience I have an honor to work with Rachel in the schools over in Harvard a multi player there and one thing we initiated in the school is that they just have kids who are acting out in a racist manner be suspended and expelled and they actually get content it goes along with it so speaking from somebody who's almost three years into working with like a couple dozen self-described voices promises and lesser intense micro-aggressors and everything like avoiding standing up symbolizing why you missed it again here what I'm doing in this way that people have spoken to everybody gaining out of this and I can say to a T, every single one of these kids that is full of hate has got no understanding that they have a racial experience has got no understanding of their own ethnicity has got no understanding at all of their own nationality their own histories have got no understanding of the opportunities and times in our history where poor people had a chance to build and survive and were left apart by this invention of race and the insistence of racist institutions running today by rich people throughout and so it just hurt people hurt people nature comes only from fear and misunderstanding and I see that every single week in these schools that although the absolute pain and misery of racist institutions and racist experiences are torn by people of color who all are limited and credibly by the white supremacist society and living in it and I see it every single day and speak as someone who grew up in this state and went to these schools and never left and I'm still here doing that so I just wanted to also give that out down to a kid by kid level there the amount of pain and destruction happening in our community the void that has been created by not having an ethnic studies built and purposefulness around understanding our real history is real and significant every day in our school and I just want to give that a little perspective real quickly just as an update that you all know within the bill as well there's provisions looking at restorative practices with regard to students and to bolster this there's an additional bill that's actually under consideration in judiciary right now on the silent side that's supposed to be looking at restorative practices in all of our schools so that's going to be one of the most key ways of delivering on what you're talking about Is there anything instructive? Something that's important to know about Oregon so Oregon is a little different in that they are they can't mandate curriculum there they too say this is what our standards are and this is the education that you want to have we're very much about local control here so that's why it's important to go after the standards to try to change and look at those standards so that then recommendations around potential items to be used in the curriculum can be kind of centralized but it's a different way to deal with education there so I think that's important to know because some of it when we talk about immigrant resistance that's part of the piece we want to keep our little control and we pretty much shut down the conversations about funding mandates because we don't know them but the mandates so that's an important piece but so just to say I think that's a really that's a that's a difference of how you're able to build that and sort of how that changes whereas we have to do it and much more and also but the already we'll just focus on the social space so we where we are and say everything and we included 2k anybody else unless somebody wants to share or will do want to share no well thank you everybody for coming I don't know if the panelists would like to add anything or in here thank you so much for coming, thank you for all the representatives here