DEAR BVSD BOARD OF EDUCATION: A LOSS OF PRIVILEGE IS NOT THE SAME AS RACISM

BY LATINO PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

spheric carbon dioxide, sending it back into the plants and soils where it belongs.

Although restoration and recreation have much in common, there is a major difference between the two. While outdoor recreation fulfills oneself, ecological restoration gives back to the land. Not that benefiting oneself is bad; one of the reasons we recreate is for the regenerative powers of spending time in nature.

But adding restoration into the domain of outdoor recreation could go a long way to enhance our time outdoors. I’ve found that when a group acts to restore the health of soil, land, plants and animals, the people involved always feel better about themselves.

As botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer put it in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: “As we care for the land, it can once again care for us.” By restoring damaged lands and waters, we still find joy in the outdoors, but we also give back to the planet that sustains us.

Let’s seek out that work, turning it into something we do outdoors together, restoring lands and water while at the same re-creating ourselves.

Rick Knight is a contributor to Writers on the Range. He is professor emeritus of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

On behalf of the Latino Parent Advisory Council (CAPL), we are writing to express our profound disagreement with the district’s decision to pay the Leahy family a $32,500 settlement for their lawsuit alleging that the district’s equitable discipline policies constitute discrimination against white students. BVSD’s disciplinary policies have been historically inequitable and discriminatory in practice toward students of color, specifically toward Latino/Hispanic and Black/African-American students. Data from the district demonstrates that the opposite is true: When white students commit offenses, they are often under-disciplined by teachers, school administration and/or school leaders. The data also illustrates that students of color are over-disciplined, often for perceived resistance to systems of white supremacy (i.e., subjective violations such as insubordination and disrespect.

Discrimination and inequitable discipline have been among the greatest concerns for parents of students of color in BVSD. CAPL has attempted to get the district to rectify the abuses that students of color have been forced to endure under racist teachers and the inequitable disciplinary system. Recent acknowledgment of the disproportionality of the disciplinary system and attempts to create greater transparency have now resulted in white backlash against equity in discipline as evidenced by the Leahy family lawsuit, which states that the “disciplinary equity initiative is actually a system of discrimination against white students.” A loss of privilege is not the same as racism.

Any payment to the Leahy family is a complete disregard for students with diverse identities and experiences and undermines the racism and discrimination that students and fami- lies of color endure at school without any financial compensation or punitive consequences for the aggressors. For this reason, CAPL requests the district refrain from any payment to the Leahy family as it will set a terrible precedent allowing any white family of means to use the legal system to undermine equitable discipline policies and hold BVSD hostage for financial settlements. An equitable disciplinary system requires that the district investigate and create a restorative justice process for resolving cases of discrimination without families having to sue the school district. Not doing so will continue to create a hostile environment and feed the perception among students and the community that only those with the financial resources to obtain legal representation will be the ones who will benefit from such lawsuits.

If financial settlements are now a resolution for the discriminatory discipline of students in BVSD, then the district should create a price and a process by which families of color, those with students with disabilities and LGBTQ families can solicit compensation for the unjust consequences and experiences their students have suffered as a result of racism, homophobia and inequity in BVSD.

The entire process of this lawsuit has been shrouded in secrecy, in contrast to the stated goals of increasing transparency around disciplinary practices in BVSD. For this reason, we request that BVSD share a public communication about the case, the school board voting process and the settlement itself as an act of transparency. Families have a right to be informed on how BVSD will respond and resolve future situations when a student with marginalized identities has been oppressed through acts of racism and discrimination at any

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BVSD school. Creating a commitment to equity across all of its forms does not signal the district to give financial settlements when they are based on wealth and power. Every student has the right to feel safe, protected and celebrated at their school of choice,

Letters

RE: ‘BOULDER’S MICHELIN MOMENT,’ BY JOHN LEHNDORFF

[Brasserie] 1010 has always been my favorite.

— Gretchen Schaefer, Facebook

[The] price of the menu goes up also due to ego inflation.

— Joshua J. Horton, Facebook

RE: ‘SWIPING BOULDER,’ BY GABBY VERMEIRE

It’s just as bad down here in Denver too, friends.

— Colfaxthings, Instagram and this settlement undoes this commitment and sends a clear message to students of color and other marginalized identities that they do not matter.

We hope the district reconsiders its actions and its genuine commitment to equity.

THE SINK OF YORE

I am feeling a bit miffed at The Sink now being a respectable restaurant replete with outdoor seating and red umbrellas. In the ‘60s, with Boulder technically “dry” (there were islands in the County for liquor stores and a few restaurants within the city limits), The Sink gained notoriety and even notice in the New York Times as a local cultural phenomenon with a unique atmosphere, flowing beer, a decent hamburger and a great jukebox. Friday

Afternoon Club’s were noisy, wet and rowdy student gatherings with pitchers and paper cups of 3.2 ABV beer. Ten minutes before the midnight closing time (and girl’s dorm

Sincerely, Latino Parent Advisory Council (CAPL) curfew), a burly employee would screw the light bulbs back into the ceiling fixtures to signal the party was over. The positive side of 3.2 beer then was that you could get drunk, throw up and have a hangover, but it wouldn’t kill you. I stopped in one afternoon just as Boulder’s first undercover drug bust for selling acid was winding down. Times are different here now, faster, more “sophisticated” and affluent, but that was The Sink and sense of new found freedom I would commemorate. My parents were students in the early 30s and remembered it as an ice cream parlor.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

— Robert Porath/Boulder