Iowa City students get lessons in anti-discrimination after racist actions surface

IOWA CITY — Iowa City students are getting lessons on bullying, harassment, anti-discrimination and racial slurs following demands from students and community members for the district to address racially charged social media posts by students.

The lessons are being presented this week and when students return from winter break in January.

"Questions and constructive, open conversations“ are being encouraged during the lessons, Superintendent Matt Degner said in an email to families last week.

Community members packed two Iowa City school board meetings in November after a video surfaced of two West High students using blackface and making racial slurs on social media.

Another racially charged social media post was made by a Tate High School student last month.

West High and Northwest Junior High students also held protests last month over other the students’ racist actions.

Because of racism happening outside the school day, the district is now hearing from students, staff and community members about racism, bullying and harassment happening in the schools, Degner said during the Tuesday school board meeting.

“The first step we have to take is communicate expectations and provide education around it,” Degner said. “As we reevaluate our equity work, it’s another step we need to take for our students.”

A diversity, equity and inclusion plan was introduced in to the district in 2019 to reduce achievement gaps, reduce disproportionate discipline between students, increase the number of diverse and culturally proficient staff, and create culturally responsive practices.

But community members voiced concerns the plan is not enough to make a difference for students.

Mohamed Traore, chairman of Iowa City’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said when he was a student in Iowa City schools, he experienced what a lot of students are currently facing — “constant bullying, racism and administrators doing next to nothing about it,” he said during public comment at the Nov. 23 school board meeting.

The Rev. Anthony Smith, president of the Johnson County Interfaith Coalition, said the district is “accountable” to every Black student in its schools.

Smith asked board members to meet with community organizations, including the NAACP, Black Student Union, the Interfaith Coalition and Black Voices Project.

“If you keep yourself distant from us, you'll never know anything about us, and it makes it easier for you not to be accountable," Smith said.

School board member Ruthina Malone said she would like to visit with student groups in their schools and listen to their concerns “instead of having them come to us,” she said during the Tuesday school board meeting.

Social studies

As a part of the diversity, equity and inclusion plan, the district is updating its social studies curriculum. Iowa City High School will be one of 50 schools in the U.S. next year to pilot an Advanced Placement African American Studies course.

Diane Schumacher, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning, said The College Board reached out toCity High because of the school’s past success in Advanced Placement courses.

The course is a combination of social studies and language arts. All students who take the course will have to take the Advanced Placement exam at no cost to them, Schumacher said.

Brady Schutt, the district’s social studies curriculum coordinator, said the equity department also is working on a rubric to evaluate standards of adaptability and culturally responsive teaching practices in the plans.

The idea is for material presented to students to be “more inclusive and representative” of the student body, he said.

The district’s student body is 55 percent white, 20 percent Black, 12 percent Hispanic and almost 9 percent Asian

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