The town of Manchester must commit to creating an anti-racist Manchester Public School System.

The first step in creating an inclusive and equitable school environment is to have teachers, administrators, and educators who represent the student body. Manchester Board of Education must hire more teachers of color to diversify the school staff and accurately represent the students they are serving.

The 2017 District Profile and Performance Report indicated that 24.1% of students in Manchester identified as Black or African American, but only 4.6% of the educators in town were Black or African American.

There are students in town who have never had a Black teacher; this is an injustice against the youth who deserve to see themselves represented in every facet of society, including in the classroom. We are demanding that the school district hire more Black and Brown teachers and administrators.

All teachers, coaches, and staff working with students in the Manchester Public School System must receive mandatory anti-racist and implicit biases training throughout the entirety of the school year. 

MPS must create a School Review Board made up of students, parents, and town residents to assess and address complaints against teachers, staff, and administrators regarding discrimination claims.

Far too often, when students or parents have complaints regarding discrimination or racial injustice against them, those complaints are addressed by the exact oppressors who committed the act themselves, i.e by the school administration.

If school educators and staff members are involved in discriminatory practices against students and their families, they cannot hold themselves accountable for their own actions. The discretion should be at the hands of the community rather than the school administration.

MPS must reform curriculum at all levels of schooling in order to create a more accurate representation of this country’s history.

The History curriculum must be decolonized by moving away from Eurocentrism and highlighting the national and global histories of oppression and racism. The History curriculum must be more inclusive of Black history, Indigenous history, racial injustice, police brutality, and civil rights.

The English curriculum must include more Black authors and minority authors in order to expose students to diversity in literature.

MPS must include anti-racist texts in the mandatory elementary and middle school summer reading lists.

We demand that Manchester High School create a graduation requirement that focuses on race, privilege, and systems of power. No graduating student should enter the adult world without a proper understanding of racism and systemic oppression.