Poway Unified School District officials pledged to address what has been described as pervasive racism on its campuses.
In recent weeks, more than 320 student testimonies describing racist incidents involving students and teachers have been posted on the Instagram account BlackInPUSD.
The posts primarily recount the experiences of Black and Latino students in the district.
In one post, a student recalls being called a racial slur for refusing to lend his classmate a book. Another Black student describes what it was like to never have a teacher who looked like her. That same student wrote that a classmate once told her slavery was a good thing.
At a public meeting on Thursday, the school board passed a resolution that would help remedy a culture of racism in Poway Unified that district officials are now acknowledging.
“You can see if you’ve read some of those incidents, it’s pervasive,” said Darshana Patel, a board member for Poway Unified. “It is an absolute reflection of what’s going on in our society at large. We have to confront this.”
The students operating the BlackInPUSD Instagram account could not be reached for comment.
In the 2018-19 school year, the 621 African American students at Poway Unified made up about 2% of the district’s 36,586 students. But among the district's 1,570 teachers, only eight, less than half a percent, identified as African American. In the 2018-19 school year, about four percent of teachers statewide were African American.
That same year, one in every six students in the district was Latino. But only about 1 in 20 teachers were Latino. Statewide during the 2018-19 school year, 20 percent of teachers were Latino.
With the passage of this resolution, Patel said the district will revise hiring practices and reexamine history textbooks and other course materials.
“It’s more than just words on paper,” she said. “We’ll take a close look and confront any biases in our hiring practices so our staff reflects our student population.”
The district has also pledged to investigate any allegation against a specific teacher. Patel apologized to those students who reported these incidents and were ignored by school staff.
“We’re not doing enough. I think it’s pretty clear,” she said. “There will be change. I guarantee there will be change.”
