Racism, Equity, & Public Health

Equity: when everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from has the opportunity to thrive.

Addressing inequity requires eliminating barriers like poverty and repairing injustices in systems such as education, health, criminal justice and transportation.

“Racism is a public health crisis that affects all Coloradans.”

When government agencies officially recognize an issue as a “crisis,” so broad as to affect the entire state, and so debilitating to public health as to preclude intervention, it’s time for Coloradans to take notice.

“A Colorado free from injury & violence is not possible without also abolishing systemic racism and white supremacy.”

-Colorado Dept. Public Health & Environment

Exclusionary Discipline

Definition: Any action by school authorities that removes or excludes a student from their regularly scheduled educational setting.

In-school suspension (ISS), out of school suspension (OSS), and “shadow” suspension - when school officials informally dismiss students or request caregivers pick them up early in order to remove them from the school premises. These age-old school discipline practices exacerbate trauma and impair a child’s natural ability to develop behavior self-regulation skills.

When schools conflate exclusion with accountability they have a recipe for student alienation: Kids become disconnected from their learning community, which prevents children from developing a sense of partnership with educators, and prevents internal ownership in their education that is essential for learning..

The School to Prison Pipeline

Definition: “The policies and practices that push schoolchildren out of classrooms and into juvenile & criminal justice systems.”

Missing just one class block can create a feedback loop of disconnection that many children never overcome: when kids are pulled or excluded from class they can easily fall behind or develop shame that inhibits their re-connection with the content, the teacher, and their class. Disconnection, shame, and falling behind can lead to further classroom behavior problems…which leads to further disconnection. This cycle is a self-perpetuating feedback loop.

Given the demographic composition of the body of professional educators, contrasted with the majority-minority student body, and Racial bias becomes inherent to the system. In this light we see how the use of Exclusionary Discipline transforms schools into pipelines that feed the American criminal justice system.

Eliminating Educational Inequity

The Denver Board of Education (BoE) has recognized that building and sustaining a culture of equity are essential paths to closing the racially disproportionate opportunity gap in Denver Public Schools (DPS). Furthermore, DPS has formally recognized that, as Educators entrusted by our community with the duty to educate the next generation of Denver, state, and national leaders, Educational Equity is our collective responsibility.

Recognizing the relationship between school discipline inequity and the School to Prison Pipeline, in 2017 the Denver BoE resolved that Denver Public Schools is a Trauma-informed school district “committed to eliminating the use of suspension and expulsion for our students, including our youngest learners, and providing restorative practices, social emotional learning, and skill building opportunities to support” all DPS students.

It is clear that Denver Public Schools go farther than most large American organizations that tend to offer passive or performative assertions of institutional equity: DPS has gone so far as to codify preventative measures against systemic racism & institutional inequity in their schools by removing SROs and terminating contracts with the Denver Police Department that provided them.