January 31, 2025

Dear Families,                                           

On Thursday, February 6, at 5:45, we will have a special event for students and their families.

Educator and activist Megan Madison is coming to CPE1.  She has written seven books for children, including Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race, Together: A First Conversation About Love, and We Care: a First Conversation About Justice. 

Dr. Megan will be this year’s guest artist as we mark the Black Lives Matter at Schools Week of Action.  Children will choose which of Dr. Megan’s books they want her to read aloud, and as she does, participants will talk about how the book exemplifies the Thirteen Principles of BLM.  Then, there will be time for participants to complete short action projects.

This event will be for all ages, including adults.  Please join us for this event.

Staffing Update

Monday will be Justine’s final day at CPE1.  She is leaving New York City Public Schools to take care of some personal matters.

Justine’s skillful support for children has been clear since she came to CPE1 four years ago.  Her calm demeanor and flexibility helped children at crucial moments.

As Justine exits, Equanna Mullen will join Hansel and Selena’s class.  You may remember Equanna from last spring, when she was working in Patricia’s class.  This spring, Equanna will be part of our other K-1 class.  Welcome back, Equanna.

Many weeks ago, we hired a new parent coordinator.  We are still waiting for paperwork, but the human resources office is moving forward.  Once the paperwork makes this official, we’ll send a detailed introduction.

What We’re Reading

On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order to deny federal money to schools that teach that “the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.”  Withholding funding is new.  Avoiding these topics has become common. 

When states such as Texas and Florida prohibited these topics, most national reading curriculum followed along.  That includes HMH Into Reading, the most popular reading curriculum in New York City Public Schools.

Here is an example from HMH Into Reading that I shared in separate letter last May.  The textbook writes that NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Dubois taught in 1890s Tennessee, where he “found that some people did not have the same rights as others.”  Think about that phrase, some people.

How can any reader understand Jim Crow if the textbook won’t say segregation or African American?  History matters, which is one reason our teachers committed to designing curricula in the style of HMH Into Reading, but with different texts. 

This week, our K-1 and 4-5 classes are beginning their Histories and Legacies reading unit.  In these reading modules, we carefully introduce difficult topics from our history.  At the same time, children read about positive legacies – stories of real people whose creativity and brilliance continued to shine.

For our K-1s, the history involves 1950s and 1960s segregation.  Children will read such books as Someday Is Now, about students who staged sit-ins to desegregate Oklahoma City restaurants; When the Schools Shut Down, about African American parents in Virginia who educated children when local public schools closed rather than integrate; and Pies from Nowhere, the story of Georgia Gilmore, whose delicious cooking sustained the Montgomery bus boycott.   Segregation is part of these histories, but so, too, are lessons about how ordinary people brought extraordinary change.

Our fourth and fifth graders soon will begin reading about slavery in the United States.  Students will not see images or read graphic details of slavery’s horrors.  The focus will be more on the genius of those who resisted and preserved culture for later generations. 

But that’s not where our fourth and fifth graders will start.  Every culture is much more than the violence it has endured. That’s why our fourth and fifth graders now are reading about the arts, culture, and power of five prominent West African kingdoms from the 1400s.  Students need that history, too, because as A’rayah explained to her classmates, “We need to get rid of our stereotypes.”

The histories and legacies reading unit for second and third graders is scheduled for early spring.  The topic will be how the Lenape, European colonists, and free and enslaved Africans lived alongside each other in 1600s New York.  Students will enrich their reading with a trip to the African Burial Ground downtown.  Children will look at laws and land in the crowded colony in southern Manhattan.  This focus on land use will set them up for the year’s final study on Central Park, which includes how Seneca Village was knocked down to create the park.

As I said, this is challenging history, but it’s real history.  Students must read and think at a high level.  This reading actually fits a key part of the new federal mandate. 

The executive order demands that students learn “how the United States has admirably grown closer to its notable principles throughout history.”  That’s just what we’re doing.  If children read about the unflattering past, they also can learn how our nation got better.  Students should be inspired by regular people who led us “admirably… closer to [our] notable principles.”  With the freedom to read, this next generation will continue to lead us forward.