Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action Feb. 4 – 8, 2019

We call on educators to make commitments to teach social justice, anti-racist curriculum and foster student conversations about the Black Lives Matter movement. We also call on educators to grow the Black Lives Matter movement in every school and union.

The National Black Lives Matter Week of Action is one month away. Rethinking Schools editors and staff endorse the week of action Feb. 4-8, 2019, and encourage all educators, students, parents, unions, and community organizations to sign on in support and participate.

Black Lives Matter At School is a national coalition of educators organizing for racial justice in education. Last year, during the 2018 week of action, thousands of educators in more than 20 cities participated to affirm the lives of Black students. Educators taught lessons about structural racism, Black history, and anti-racist movements during the week of action and beyond.

The Black Lives Matter At School demands are simple:

1) End “zero tolerance” discipline, and implement restorative justice
2) Hire more Black teachers
3) Mandate Black history and ethnic studies in K-12 curriculum
4) Fund counselors not cops in schools

Below is a compilation of resources for educators who are committed to making Black lives matter in school. This is NOT white-washed, scripted curriculum. These resources are for educators determined to make classrooms sites of resistance to racism and anti-Blackness.

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The Official Black Lives Matter At School Starter Kit & Lesson Plans

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Teaching For Black Lives
Take 25% off your copy with code: GOT4BL25

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Rethinking Schools Magazine

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Rethinking Ethnic Studies

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Free Rethinking Schools Archive Resources & Lesson Plans

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Zinn Education Project Week of Action Resources

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Teaching for Change #BlackLivesMatter Collection

Correction: January 7, 2019 A previous version of this post referred to Jazmine Barnes, a 7-year-old girl killed last weekend in what was believed to be a racially motivated attack. On Sunday, police arrested two African American men in connection with her death. Previously, witnesses identified a white man in a red pick up truck as the shooter. We believe these new details warrant a correction and apologize if our earlier post left an incorrect impression.

As activist Shaun King told the New York Times, “We live in a time where somebody could do something like this based purely on hate or race. That it turned out to not be the case, I don’t think changes the devastating conclusion that people had thought something like that was possible.”

You can read more about updates to the case here. 

While the details of Jazmine’s death have changed, our commitment to Black students remains the same.