Greetings, Purgolder Community! 

In today’s newsletter I would like to echo some thoughts that I shared in an announcement to students at school today. The month of February at East contained many opportunities to celebrate Black history and culture, including Mr. McCullough’s daily announcements and the music played over the PA, Black history themed posters around the building, the performances by Black students at our winter pep rally, our second annual Black Excellence Banquet, and last Thursday’s “31 days” art opening in our school art gallery. Importantly, many of these events recognized and were led by our own brilliant and talented student leaders. It is a daily inspiration to me to see East students’ pride in their identities, and their willingness to speak up and demand that they are respected for who they are. The fact that they must make these demands is also a daily reminder of how far we have to go as a community, both inside and outside of our building, to make those who are so often silenced or marginalized feel honored and included. It is important that we take time to celebrate the cultures represented in this building, but as the student creators and leaders of “31 days” event reminded us, one month simply isn’t enough, for our Black students or anyone else, including our Latinx and Asian communities, or the women we will honor in March. 

Our challenge is to make sure that feeling honored and included becomes the daily reality of how our Black students and all students of color experience life at East, in every classroom, office, gathering space and school activity. That will require that we, especially those of us who are white educators, be honest and reflective about our own identities and how they may influence our interactions with our students. It will require that we not only elevate the voices of our students of color to call out inequities where they see them, but empower them to work with us in eliminating those inequities. Several weeks ago, we asked members of our Sisterhood, Brotherhood and Black Student Union Groups to answer some questions about their experiences as Black students at East. (We will be doing the same with other student identity groups in our building.) We then asked our entire staff to read their responses and reflect on what they mean for our work with students moving forward. The students’ words were thoughtful, insightful and very much honest. As you probably know, East students have a habit of saying what’s on their mind. Many were positive; many made very clear how far we have to go as a community in our commitment to racial equity. I am certain that many of those comments and the conversations that followed were challenging for some staff, and that is exactly why we needed to have them. As we look toward the rest of the year, and begin the process of setting our improvement goals for the year ahead, we will do so with a commitment to continuing these difficult conversations. More importantly we will commit to moving beyond conversations and actually changing the way we do things in order to meet the needs of all students. 

Parent and family voice will be an important part of that change. We will continue to offer parent engagement opportunities, hold community events and administer surveys. You should also know that you have an open invitation to speak with me about your hopes for our school at any time. However, in the week ahead we will also be reaching out to many families (as well as community members, students and staff) to conduct “empathy interviews” in which we invite them to share honestly about their experiences with East High School. Though we will welcome as many voices as possible, across all identity groups, in the process of setting our goals for the school, these interviews will focus on families who have not always had a voice in conversations about the school. We are going to ask real questions, we are going to listen and we are going to act on what we hear. 

Thank you in advance for partnering with us in our ongoing work to make this the school your children deserve. 

As always, we are lucky to be at East.   

Brendan Kearney

Principal