The Asheville City Council meets this Tuesday 10/24/2023 at 5 pm. You can attend the meeting on the 2nd Floor of City Hall, 70 Court Plaza in downtown Asheville. You can watch the meeting online at this link. The full agenda is here.
The next City Board of Education Meeting will take place on Monday 11/13/2023 at 5 pm. You can attend the meeting at the Asheville City Schools Administrative Offices Board Room, 85 Mountain Street, Asheville, NC. You can watch the meeting online at this link.
URGENT
- 0 Items
PROBLEMATIC
- 0 Items
EMAIL TEMPLATES
Use our prepared email templates to take action on this week’s items.
YELLOW:
Things of concern, more information needed
City Board of Education Meeting, Monday 10/9/2023
Potential Impact of SB49 Policies on Title IX protections at Asheville City Schools
During the City Board of Education meeting on Monday, October 9th, Board members addressed the Board’s attorney Chris Campbell regarding how SB49 (the “Parents’ Bill of Rights”) may impact Title IX protections for students and create a hostile educational environment for LGBTQ+ students. An answer for this was not provided in the session, and it is expected that the Board of Education will discuss this further to obtain legal advice regarding their next steps in its closed work session scheduled for November 6th.
Title IX is federal legislation that requires that each school publish a policy that it will not discriminate based on sex in its education and activities. Among other things, SB49 bans curriculum on gender identity, sexual activity and sexuality from being taught in kindergarten through fourth grade classrooms and requires that parents of K-12th grade students be notified before a student’s name or pronouns are changed in school records or by school staff.
The GAP Strategy Team understands this is a complex issue that is likely to be litigated in court because the federal and state legislation seem to contradict one another. Of particular issue is the City Board of Education’s responsibility to the well-being of its students and to the community that provided robust public comment against the implementation of SB49 in the schools. We encourage you to reach out to the Board of Education to encourage them to place these responsibilities in the forefront of their next work session on November 6th as they explore responses to this issue.
Things to do
Write to the Asheville City Board of Education and ask them to ensure that in their November 6th worksession, they center the public concern for the well-being of LGBTQ+ students with regard to implementing SB49 in the City’s schools.
We have prepared an email template that addresses this issue. You can (a) use our City Board of Education template to open up an email to adapt, (b) copy and paste the content below, or (c) write your own message to:
george.sieburg@acsgmail.net
amy.ray@acsgmail.net
james.carter@acsgmail.net
liza.kelly@acsgmail.net
rebecca.strimer@acsgmail.net
sarah.thornburg@acsgmail.net
jesse.warren@acsgmail.net
City Board of Education Meeting, Monday 10/9/2023
Claxton Elementary School educational racial equity outcome goals announced
In a “School Spotlight” during the October 9th City Board of Education Meeting, Claxton Elementary School was highlighted, and their goals for 2024 school year were mentioned, which included “By June 2024, proficiency for Black students in Reading will increase by 20 percentage points from 13% to 33%, and proficiency for Black students in Math will increase by 20 percentage points from 15.2% to 35.2%.”
The Strategy Team is expecting improvement in equitable educational outcomes for Claxton Elementary School, as we are aware the school has been doing a lot of work in this area. These goals are ambitious, and we wonder how these percentage increases were determined, and what the school is doing, specifically, to achieve these goals. What interventions have been put into place and to what can we attribute the successes of Black students if these goals are achieved? Understanding goal-setting and educational practices for equity can be beneficial for other schools in our area whose Black students’ educational outcomes are also unacceptably low.
Things to do
Write to Claxton Elementary School Principal, Sarah Wright, to ask for more details on how the school arrived at these particular goals and what the school is doing to achieve these goals.
We have prepared an email template that addresses this issue. You can (a) use our Claxton Elementary template to open up an email to adapt, (b) copy and paste the content below, or (c) write your own message to: sarah.wright@acsgmail.net
GREY:
Issues to monitor and/or updates on previous items
City Council Meeting, Tuesday 10/24/2023, 5:00pm
New Business Agenda Item A: Presentation of Disparity Study for the City of Asheville and proposed actions (Staff Report; Disparity Study Report).
The Miller 3 Consulting Firm will be presenting the City Council with the results of their Disparity Study. The Council will be voting on whether they will adopt a resolution to (1) accept the report of Miller 3’s disparity study; and (2) extend the race- and gender-conscious measures of the Asheville Business Inclusion Policy, set to expire on November, 1, 2023, for an additional five-year period.
This report is over 500 pages long and contains an immense amount of information about disparities regarding to whom the City has awarded contracts for goods and services. It also includes recommendations to the City to address these inequities, which are located on pages 48-61 (the report’s pages “ES-27”-“ES-40”).
The GAP Strategy team notices many efforts are made to “study” disparities locally, and that these studies rarely, if ever, result in real changes in the inequities they identify. We encourage our communities to familiarize themselves with the results of this report and the recommendations made, so that we can continuously monitor to what degree the City will incorporate the recommendations made to promote more equitable contracting.
Things to do
There is no action we’re recommending at this time. We encourage you to become familiar with this report’s recommendations and as the City Council moves forward with awarding public contracts. We will let you know about opportunities for continued advocacy.
CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION TEMPLATE
You can open this email in your own email program by clicking here. To proceed manually, you can copy and paste the text below into an email and then address it to the addresses listed. Please consider making edits that reflect your personal interests and concerns on this issue.
Send to: george.sieburg@acsgmail.net; amy.ray@acsgmail.net; james.carter@acsgmail.net; liza.kelly@acsgmail.net; rebecca.strimer@acsgmail.net; sarah.thornburg@acsgmail.net; jesse.warren@acsgmail.net
Subject: Please center community concerns about SB49
Dear Asheville City Board of Education members,
I write to you because I am concerned, as many of our community members are, about how implementing SB49 (the “Parents’ Bill of Rights”) in Asheville City Schools will impact required protections for students under Federal Title IX legislation. Community members and local advocates have voiced their concerns that SB49’s requirements will create a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students and violate schools’ legal responsibility not to discriminate on the basis of sex in education and activities. I urge you to keep these perspectives in central focus in your next work session on November 6th as you explore next steps for our schools to ensure equity for all students’ educational experiences and outcomes. Finally, it would be helpful if you would communicate to the community how you intend to support and protect students amid the conflicting dictates of federal and state laws.
Thanks for your leadership,
CLAXTON ELEMENTARY TEMPLATE
You can open this email in your own email program by clicking here. To proceed manually, you can copy and paste the text below into an email and then address it to the address listed. Please consider making edits that reflect your personal interests and concerns on this issue.
Send to: sarah.wright@acsgmail.net
Subject: Claxton’s goals for racial equity in Reading and Math
Dear Ms. Wright,
I write to you regarding the “School Spotlight” on Claxton that was shared at the Asheville City Board of Education Meeting on October 9th. As a community member who is concerned about the racial educational opportunity gap, I was encouraged to hear that your school has established substantive goals for increases in Reading and Math proficiency for its Black students. I would like to know more about how these goals were established. How did the school come to 20% as a goal? Is this because it feels like an adequate increase, or an achievable one? I would also like to know what the school is doing in its educational practices to expect that it can achieve these goals. If these changes succeed, as we hope they will, we hope they can become an example for other local schools aiming to close the opportunity gap for Black pupils.
Thanks for your leadership,