BAYFRONT CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL -
MUELLER CHARTER SCHOOL
Safe Haven Initiative
January 20, 2017
THE RESOLUTION
"Let it be known that, as of January 20, 2017, the undersigned staff of Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School declares our K-12 school community to be a safe haven and a sanctuary for all students and their families. It is, therefore, our collective resolve to protect and insulate every individual from persecution, harassment, hate speech and/or intimidation. "
BACKGROUND
This resolution is a direct response to the climate of heightened fear and anxiety that exists for many school-aged students and their families; to the intolerant rhetoric made over the course of the 2016 presidential race; and to the steady increase in hate speech at public and private K-12 schools across the United States of America. Among other things, Mr. Trump promised to end an executive order that granted temporary status to undocumented immigrant students living in our country. During his campaign, he also promised to launch a "deportation force" and withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
As of January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump has taken the oath of office as President of the United States. Mr. Trump, and individuals selected to serve in his administration, have made statements that are denigrating to women, immigrants, Latinos, African Americans, LGBT, Moslems, people with special needs, and even veterans. Our school community is a rainbow comprised of all of these groups and we are committed to be a beacon of diversity, inclusion, and justice for all students.
The declaration of our K-12 school as a sanctuary against hate speech and persecution, is appropriate for the following reasons:
• Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School are within 7 miles of the international border to Mexico.
• Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School serve a demographic that includes 95% children of color, 90% Latino, 85% who qualify for free or reduced lunch, 60% Learning English as a Second Language.
• Mueller Charter School, as one of California’s original and most innovative Charter Schools has successfully served our children and our community, engendering extraordinary academic results for nearly two decades-- even in years that California experienced a significant fiscal decline.
• Our success is fundamentally rooted in our high expectations for all children, in our respect for our families, in our relationships, and the unbridled optimism with which we see their future.
• The Charter Petition for Mueller and Bayfront promises to:
-- “Prepare every child for their future, “not only by mastering the essential learnings, but also by creating an instructional environment that cultivates the ‘habits of mind’ that will lead to success for every student. Those include the ability and desire to think critically and analytically, to problem solve, to engage in rigorous inquiry, to persist with frustrating and ambiguous learning tasks, take intellectual risks, reason logically, foster one’s own creativity, reach conclusions independently, use technology as a tool to assist in intellectual development, accept feedback, and demonstrate flexibility in thinking.”
-- “Enable students to develop their potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to participate in a diverse and ever-changing society.”
-- “Nurture resiliency in every child by identifying risk factors which can inhibit learning, and creating strategies and assets to overcome those risk factors.”
• All students in California have the right to attend public schools, regardless of their race, religion, gender, gender identity, or immigrant status.
In December, the ACLU sent a letter to all superintendents in the state urging them to pass sanctuary resolutions and review their policies on sharing student information. Tom Torlakson, California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, stated that “our schools are not and will not become an arm of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). Instead, they will remain safe places for learning and teaching for all students, regardless of immigration status.” He has urged all principals and superintendents to declare our public schools “safe havens” for students and their parents regardless of their immigration status.
THE PLAN
We are committed to advancing educational equity, social justice, and success for all students—but especially for low income, underserved, and underrepresented students.
Our collective future depends, at its fundamental core, on protecting the safety and well-being of all California students and ensuring that K-12 schools and college campuses are free from bigotry, discrimination, harassment, and assault. This holds especially true for vulnerable students who are being targeted in this current climate, particularly students of color and immigrant, Muslim, LGBTQ, differently abled, and female students.
Accordingly, we intend to take the following steps to guarantee safe, inclusive, and equitable educational environments for all Mueller/Bayfront students:
1. Designate Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School as Sanctuary Schools:
--Specifically, we will refuse to comply with immigration authorities regarding deportations and raids, and will refuse to allow any immigration agents onto our school campuses without a judicial warrant.
--We will guarantee privacy of all our stakeholders and will refuse to release information regarding the immigration status of students, staff, or community members.
--We will continue to assist all families with resources and services such as immigration legal assistance, mental health counseling, and undocumented student support programs.
2. Promote Diversity, Inclusion, and Campus Harmony:
Mueller and Bayfront will provide the necessary tools, training and resources to support our educators, students, parents and caregivers in creating and promoting positive learning environments. Innovative models and best practices will be identified and shared across both campuses to assist staff in developing pedagogies that reduce prejudice, address implicit bias and stereotyping, promote positive intergroup relations and engender campus harmony…a safe haven.
3. Protect All Students from Bullying, Intimidation, Harassment, or Discrimination:
We will insure that every staff member understands and enforces state and federal laws regarding bullying, intimidation, harassment, or discrimination on the basis of protected categories, including actual or perceived immigration status, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
If and when such incidents of harassment do occur, our schools will take prompt action to ensure accountability and consequences through restorative justice and other approaches that focus on repairing the harm caused to the victim and the wider community.
Counseling and other supportive services will be provided to witnesses and victims, but also made more broadly available to all of our students. We will compile data on every incident of bullying, intimidation, harassment, or discrimination on the basis of the protected categories listed above and utilize the data to make appropriate systemic changes.
4. Promote Civic Literacy & Social Justice as a School-Wide Theme:
Our students need to find their own voice. They must know their history, their civil rights, and the promise of the Constitution. They must learn how to monitor their government and their world. They must learn how to research and read critically and distinguish between propaganda and the truth. They must learn to speak up, advocate, defend others, protest, and organize when they observe injustices around them.
5. Challenge Every Student to Rise to Their Academic Potential and Compete:
We can’t rely on any special accommodations or assistance to be structured into external university or social systems. Our students must demonstrate—by every measure-- a profound capacity for academic excellence.
We will expect our students to master the core curriculum, defined at the high school level, by the A-G Requirements of the University of California.
We will emphasize the 21st Century Skills across all curricula.
We will demand mastery of ISTE standards and develop a strategic plan to integrate them into our curriculum.
We will insure every student, at every age group, cultivates the Habits of Mind that are hallmarks of outstanding students.
CONCLUSION
For Mueller and Bayfront, creating a Safe Haven for our students is non-negotiable. It brings us back to the roots of our Resiliency efforts: with a broad emphasis on Safety and Caring, High Expectations, and Opportunities to Participate in their world.
We have not only an opportunity, but also an obligation to counter bigotry and hate. By protecting the safety and well being of our diverse students and their families, we can ensure equitable learning environments and, in so doing, uphold our charter schools’ values of multiculturalism, inclusion, and equity. Our diversity is our strength, and we hereby commit to putting these words into action for our students and their families.
"Let it be known that, as of January 20, 2017, the undersigned staff of Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School declares our K-12 school community to be a safe haven and a sanctuary for all students and their families. It is, therefore, our collective resolve to protect and insulate every individual from persecution, harassment, hate speech and/or intimidation. "
BACKGROUND
This resolution is a direct response to the climate of heightened fear and anxiety that exists for many school-aged students and their families; to the intolerant rhetoric made over the course of the 2016 presidential race; and to the steady increase in hate speech at public and private K-12 schools across the United States of America. Among other things, Mr. Trump promised to end an executive order that granted temporary status to undocumented immigrant students living in our country. During his campaign, he also promised to launch a "deportation force" and withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
As of January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump has taken the oath of office as President of the United States. Mr. Trump, and individuals selected to serve in his administration, have made statements that are denigrating to women, immigrants, Latinos, African Americans, LGBT, Moslems, people with special needs, and even veterans. Our school community is a rainbow comprised of all of these groups and we are committed to be a beacon of diversity, inclusion, and justice for all students.
The declaration of our K-12 school as a sanctuary against hate speech and persecution, is appropriate for the following reasons:
• Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School are within 7 miles of the international border to Mexico.
• Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School serve a demographic that includes 95% children of color, 90% Latino, 85% who qualify for free or reduced lunch, 60% Learning English as a Second Language.
• Mueller Charter School, as one of California’s original and most innovative Charter Schools has successfully served our children and our community, engendering extraordinary academic results for nearly two decades-- even in years that California experienced a significant fiscal decline.
• Our success is fundamentally rooted in our high expectations for all children, in our respect for our families, in our relationships, and the unbridled optimism with which we see their future.
• The Charter Petition for Mueller and Bayfront promises to:
-- “Prepare every child for their future, “not only by mastering the essential learnings, but also by creating an instructional environment that cultivates the ‘habits of mind’ that will lead to success for every student. Those include the ability and desire to think critically and analytically, to problem solve, to engage in rigorous inquiry, to persist with frustrating and ambiguous learning tasks, take intellectual risks, reason logically, foster one’s own creativity, reach conclusions independently, use technology as a tool to assist in intellectual development, accept feedback, and demonstrate flexibility in thinking.”
-- “Enable students to develop their potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to participate in a diverse and ever-changing society.”
-- “Nurture resiliency in every child by identifying risk factors which can inhibit learning, and creating strategies and assets to overcome those risk factors.”
• All students in California have the right to attend public schools, regardless of their race, religion, gender, gender identity, or immigrant status.
In December, the ACLU sent a letter to all superintendents in the state urging them to pass sanctuary resolutions and review their policies on sharing student information. Tom Torlakson, California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, stated that “our schools are not and will not become an arm of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). Instead, they will remain safe places for learning and teaching for all students, regardless of immigration status.” He has urged all principals and superintendents to declare our public schools “safe havens” for students and their parents regardless of their immigration status.
THE PLAN
We are committed to advancing educational equity, social justice, and success for all students—but especially for low income, underserved, and underrepresented students.
Our collective future depends, at its fundamental core, on protecting the safety and well-being of all California students and ensuring that K-12 schools and college campuses are free from bigotry, discrimination, harassment, and assault. This holds especially true for vulnerable students who are being targeted in this current climate, particularly students of color and immigrant, Muslim, LGBTQ, differently abled, and female students.
Accordingly, we intend to take the following steps to guarantee safe, inclusive, and equitable educational environments for all Mueller/Bayfront students:
1. Designate Mueller Charter School and Bayfront Charter High School as Sanctuary Schools:
--Specifically, we will refuse to comply with immigration authorities regarding deportations and raids, and will refuse to allow any immigration agents onto our school campuses without a judicial warrant.
--We will guarantee privacy of all our stakeholders and will refuse to release information regarding the immigration status of students, staff, or community members.
--We will continue to assist all families with resources and services such as immigration legal assistance, mental health counseling, and undocumented student support programs.
2. Promote Diversity, Inclusion, and Campus Harmony:
Mueller and Bayfront will provide the necessary tools, training and resources to support our educators, students, parents and caregivers in creating and promoting positive learning environments. Innovative models and best practices will be identified and shared across both campuses to assist staff in developing pedagogies that reduce prejudice, address implicit bias and stereotyping, promote positive intergroup relations and engender campus harmony…a safe haven.
3. Protect All Students from Bullying, Intimidation, Harassment, or Discrimination:
We will insure that every staff member understands and enforces state and federal laws regarding bullying, intimidation, harassment, or discrimination on the basis of protected categories, including actual or perceived immigration status, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
If and when such incidents of harassment do occur, our schools will take prompt action to ensure accountability and consequences through restorative justice and other approaches that focus on repairing the harm caused to the victim and the wider community.
Counseling and other supportive services will be provided to witnesses and victims, but also made more broadly available to all of our students. We will compile data on every incident of bullying, intimidation, harassment, or discrimination on the basis of the protected categories listed above and utilize the data to make appropriate systemic changes.
4. Promote Civic Literacy & Social Justice as a School-Wide Theme:
Our students need to find their own voice. They must know their history, their civil rights, and the promise of the Constitution. They must learn how to monitor their government and their world. They must learn how to research and read critically and distinguish between propaganda and the truth. They must learn to speak up, advocate, defend others, protest, and organize when they observe injustices around them.
5. Challenge Every Student to Rise to Their Academic Potential and Compete:
We can’t rely on any special accommodations or assistance to be structured into external university or social systems. Our students must demonstrate—by every measure-- a profound capacity for academic excellence.
We will expect our students to master the core curriculum, defined at the high school level, by the A-G Requirements of the University of California.
We will emphasize the 21st Century Skills across all curricula.
We will demand mastery of ISTE standards and develop a strategic plan to integrate them into our curriculum.
We will insure every student, at every age group, cultivates the Habits of Mind that are hallmarks of outstanding students.
CONCLUSION
For Mueller and Bayfront, creating a Safe Haven for our students is non-negotiable. It brings us back to the roots of our Resiliency efforts: with a broad emphasis on Safety and Caring, High Expectations, and Opportunities to Participate in their world.
We have not only an opportunity, but also an obligation to counter bigotry and hate. By protecting the safety and well being of our diverse students and their families, we can ensure equitable learning environments and, in so doing, uphold our charter schools’ values of multiculturalism, inclusion, and equity. Our diversity is our strength, and we hereby commit to putting these words into action for our students and their families.