Former students create petition to change history curriculum at North Kingstown High School

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WLNE) – Former students of North Kingstown High School have created a petition calling on the school to reform its history curriculum to better address the history of racism in America.

More than 1,000 people have singed the petition in just five days.

“Parents who have kids who are entering the North Kingstown School System want their kids to be informed. They want their kids to understand the world and why things are a certain way,” said Kayla Albin. She graduated from NKHS in 2016 and was one of the students who created the petition.

In the petition, the former students write:

We all believe that critical events, time periods, and stories — specifically those related to the enslavement of African Americans, the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement — were skimmed over or completely absent from the curriculum taught during our middle and high school careers.

Albin said she learned more about systemic racism from social media, than from school.

“Events relating to people of color were something that wasn’t really touched upon. If it was it was very brief. Being a person of color, I noticed that very clearly,” said Blessing Joyce Omaiye, who helped create the petition.

The petition continues:

For many of us, months of our middle and high school years were dedicated to learning about the horrors of the Holocaust and conflicts in other countries.  This curriculum had a huge impact on countless students — imparting valuable lessons upon us that we carried through the remainder of our years at NKHS and beyond. Unfortunately, that same attention was not paid to the atrocities that took place in our own country, and we did not spend meaningful time learning about the ways in which slavery and deep-rooted systemic racism impacts and informs the world that we live in today.

Superintendent Phil Auger said he is aware of the petition, but it has not yet been formally presented to him by the former students.

“I am pleased that there is this level of interest in the NKHS history curriculum and the teaching and learning of issues of race, and I look forward to engaging with the community about what is included in the NK program and what we can be doing to make meaningful improvements on this important topic,” Auger wrote in a statement to ABC6 News.

The petition also calls on the school to hold workshops that discuss bias, privilege, and racism. As well as hire more faculty of color at the school.

“Lets make a change in our own town first,” said Albin.

The petition in full reads:

 Administration, Faculty, and Staff:

We the undersigned are writing to express our desire to see a change in the way race, racism, and American history are taught at North Kingstown High School.

The mission statement of the North Kingstown Social Studies Department is as follows: “The focus of the Social Studies Department is to provide students with the skills and knowledge that are essential for effective citizenship in a democratic society that is part of an ever changing world.” Unfortunately, it seems as this mission statement is not conducive with the given curriculum of NKHS. The curriculum outlined fails to include important historical context to appropriately address and hold constructive conversations about many of the issues regarding race that still exist in the United States today. This curriculum fails to equip NKHS alumni with the proper tools and knowledge to effectively engage with our democratic society and the policies it puts forth.

Our experience and education at NKHS served as an important launching point for our adult lives. While some of us have graduated more recently than others, we all believe that critical events, time periods, and stories — specifically those related to the enslavement of African Americans, the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement — were skimmed over or completely absent from the curriculum taught during our middle and high school careers.

For many of us, months of our middle and high school years were dedicated to learning about the horrors of the Holocaust and conflicts in other countries.  This curriculum had a huge impact on countless students — imparting valuable lessons upon us that we carried through the remainder of our years at NKHS and beyond. Unfortunately, that same attention was not paid to the atrocities that took place in our own country, and we did not spend meaningful time learning about the ways in which slavery and deep-rooted systemic racism impacts and informs the world that we live in today.

The overwhelming majority of students in our school district are white. Without learning about historical power structures affecting people of color, most of us never have to spend any time at all thinking about race or examining the privileges and oppression created by this social divide. As a result, a majority of students graduate from NKHS without the context needed to understand the complex, racially-informed world that we live in today.

As a society, we cannot fix what we have not faced. Today, years and decades after graduating, those of us who are white are just beginning to learn the magnitude to which our world view and experiences have been shaped by white privilege. Many of us are also just learning the real history of our country, the injustices that our ancestors forced Black Americans to endure, and the violent and racist past of this nation that is directly connected to the systemic racism that continues to negatively impact Black Americans in the present moment.

We have the utmost respect and gratitude for our teachers, faculty, and staff, and we would like to emphasize that this issue is not unique to NKHS. Students and schools across the country are beginning to reckon with the fact that our core curriculum has always excluded the voices, history, and experiences of Black Americans. As a result, the historical narrative of America that we give students is often a sanitized, white-centered version that doesn’t convey an accurate telling of who we are or where we’ve come from.

When you know better, you have a responsibility to do better. As a country and a community, it is imperative that we rethink the way that we teach our children and young people about history and their relationship to it. That’s why we have five main suggestions that we urge you to consider when thinking about how we can begin to teach students about race and racism in the United States:

Develop or adopt a Race and Racism in the U.S. course and make it a requirement for all Juniors and Seniors.
Assign summer reading that tackles issues related to race and racism and center the voices and work of Black authors.
Do school-wide screenings of films and documentaries that discuss what racism looks like in America today (mass incarceration, police brutality, War on Drugs, etc.).
Bring in outside trainers or facilitators to hold workshops by grade to discuss bias, privilege, and racism.
Prioritize diversity and hire more people of color at NKHS.

Treating racism as a historical concept does a disservice to Americans whose lives continue to be shaped and impacted by racism today. By adopting the strategies listed above, we can begin to give young people in our community the tools they need to navigate the world in a thoughtful way, with a more informed understanding of the role racism plays in our society.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Respectfully,

North Kingstown High School Alumni and Residents