Students at North High School joined hands during an exercise that was part of freshman orientation.
With the start of a new school year just a few days away, Des Moines Public Schools is excited to welcome tens of thousands of students back to our classrooms on August 23. With a majority of students being students of color – including immigrants and refugees from nearly 100 different nations – DMPS is proud of the ethnic and cultural diversity students bring to the classroom, which adds to the richness of the education offered in Des Moines. As the school district stated earlier this year, “[w]hen children in Des Moines show up at our schools – no matter their place of birth or religion or language or skin color – they should know that they belong here and we stand by them.”
In light of recent tragic events in Charlottesville, VA – and the national discussion and debate that has prompted – we want to share the statement below from the Council of the Great City Schools, which reminds us that “[o]ur schools, particularly our diverse urban public schools, will once again need to serve as a source of inspiration and courage during these rough political times.” DMPS is a member of CGCS, an organization which represents and advocates for the nation’s largest, most urban and diverse school districts.
Statement on Charlottesville and its Aftermath by Michael Casserly, Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 – As the most diverse group of children in American history returns to their classrooms over the next several days, they are getting a hard lesson on intolerance, hatred, and political cowardice. In the face of a national tragedy, our president—and others—have attempted to stoke the fires of division and equate the moral standing of various white supremacy organizations with the justifiable outrage of counter-protesters in Charlottesville. At a time when we need strong, unifying leadership the president has chosen to equivocate, sending the signal that displays of racial hatred have the same valence as the voices of indignation and hope. This kind of thinking warps our common understanding of what freedom and opportunity mean, and it loosens our grip as a nation on our founding principles. These are vile and dangerous sentiments that should be roundly rejected by the citizenry.
Our schools, particularly our diverse urban public schools, will once again need to serve as a source of inspiration and courage during these rough political times. As educators, we have the power to build a future that is more thoughtful, charitable, respectful, and broad-minded—a future that counters the forces of intolerance to which our leadership has turned a blind eye. In fact, it is our patriotic responsibility to ensure that our students learn to think critically, differentiate fact from fiction, understand the key principles of our founding ideals, and live their lives with forbearance and respect for each other. It is a challenge that the nation cannot afford for us to neglect, for these are the assets that will keep us glued together as one people and will ensure that the moral arc of history bends ever faster towards justice.
