Dear WMS Community,

I paused after the horrific anti-Asian violence last week to reflect with my colleagues and try to understand what this community needed. In our effort to be thoughtful, we took too long to show our Asian families our support in this incredibly painful time. As the head of the school I want to personally apologize for the silence while we weighed how to respond.

We want you to know now that we are with you and here for you. We, teachers and staff, stand firmly against anti-Asian hate and all forms of racism. We re-commit to total inclusion at WMS, and want to validate and lift up the experiences of our Asian families and all our families of color.

We have been brainstorming how to do better at talking to our young children about the reality of racism in this country. We include in our curriculum specific lessons and books on respecting differences in identity and culture, but we see now we need to do more. We are rededicating ourselves to teaching and modeling age-appropriate lessons on anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion.

One next step will be to host a listening space where parents and staff, especially those from communities of color, can share their feelings and experiences on how incidents of identity-based bias – particularly but not solely involving racial identity – affect you, your children and our community.  We encourage all parents to join so we can learn together and become active allies in the work against bias. Please stay tuned for details on the time and date.

We continue to learn from each other, and need your help to create a community that reflects the world we want to see.

Thank you,

Ronnie

Here are some resources we are currently utilizing to learn and grow in our effort to raise awareness in our community and children:

• How to Talk to Kids About Anti-Asian Racism – NPR 8min Listen
• Teaching and Learning about Race and Racism with Young Children and their Families
• Racial Justice In Education
• How to Talk to Asian American Youth about Racism
• Addressing Anti-Asian Racism with Students
• Representative Grace Ming on Anti-Asian Violence – NPR 4min Listen
• There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year
• Asians are not a monolith
• Stop AAPI Hate
• Early Childhood Investigations Webinar – Leaning into Culturally-grounded Anti-bias Child Assessment
• Early Childhood Investigations Webinar – Understand The Roots of Anti-Asian Racism to Build Asian Allyship in Early Learning Programs,