Buenas ARISE Community,

The current rhetoric about Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the United States, and specifically how it is being attacked as inappropriate for schools and racist towards white Americans, is not new and further highlights the need for CRT not just in education but in everyday life. Critical Race Theory emerged as a response to positivist and liberal approaches towards Black liberation, and its stance is that racism is endemic to American society. However, CRT does not give up hope on liberation just because racism is part of the fabric of society in the United States. Instead, it demands liberation through honest reckoning and examination of society at every level and how racism can be deconstructed and liberation can be achieved through reimagining, storytelling, and rebuilding. 

At ARISE High School we use CRT as a lens for all that we do, and it is the essence of our mission to empower our students with the knowledge, skills, and agency to become highly educated, humanizing, critically conscious, intellectual, and reflective leaders in our community. It provides a foundation for our curriculum and pedagogy as well as guiding many of our systems, structures, and practices as a school.

As a small school in the Bay Area founded on principles of justice and liberation, we are fortunate not to be directly under attack in the way that many schools around the nation are, but we stand in solidarity with all those fighting for CRT to be a part of education and beyond, and will continue to anchor our policies, curriculum, and culture in this philosophical stance and approach to the work. 

There are many readings about CRT, but I always go back to Gloria Ladson-Billings’ article Just What is Critical Race Theory and what is it doing in a nice field like education? (linked here for anyone wanting to re-read or dig deeper). Next school year, we will continue our collective work around what it means to be an antiracist school and interrogating what it looks like to educate for the liberation of our entire comunidad.

Con todo mi aprecio as we work together to fulfill our mission,

karla