Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF) has been sponsoring grants and trying other experimental ideas to examine the concept of cultivating inclusive learning environments. To learn more, please visit their website:
https://www.jaxpef.org/what-we-do/empowering-teachers
The education committee chair (that’s me until June 2, 2021) of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters has invited two staff members of JPEF for a Zoom event to discuss cultivating inclusive learning environments. The guest speakers will give a presentation for 30 minutes, then they will be available for 30 minutes of Q and A.
If there is time and these questions aren’t answered in the 30 minute presentation, these will be my questions:
1. What is the value of inclusive learning environments?
2. Is valuing diversity the same as valuing inclusive learning environments? If they are different and diversity is important also, then I have these questions about diversity.
- Why is it important?
- Is it important enough to require our non-neighborhood publicly funded schools to be diverse? And if we should require publicly funded “choice” schools to be diverse, what type of diversity: religious, skin color, ethnicity, income?
- Is it important enough to require zoning laws so that all neighborhood school zones are economically diverse?
3. Some people say that race is a social construct. Do we perpetuate the discrimination against people with a different skin color by using words such as “racism”? If yes, what other word should we use? I use the word racism in the following questions because I don’t know what other word to use.
4. Would you agree that recent events demonstrate that there is wide spread racism in our community? If yes, do you feel that what you’re doing will help reduce racism in our city?
5. Do you think the recent bill in the state legislature demonstrates that there is discrimination against kids who were assigned a sex at birth that doesn’t match their gender identity?
6. Do you think Florida statute 1003.42 (2)(g) should be taught in all publicly funded schools? The part in that Florida statute that I find most important:
teach a course that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions
7. What do you make of Governor DeSantis and Florida Education Commissioner Corcoran’s comments about Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Do you define CRT as the examination of laws and other government policies that make life harder for people of one race as compared to another race? If that’s not how you define CRT, how do you define it?
8. How important is it to eliminate de facto segregation? The local chapter of the NAACP had a meeting on May 24th with this as one of the items on their published agenda: Seek to eliminate segregation and other discriminatory practices in publicly funded schools.
9. Does JPEF support the funding of full service schools (sometimes called community schools with wrap around services)?
10. I’ve heard criticism that JPEF has supported charter schools and voucher funded religious schools which has diverted funds from the neighborhood schools. How do you respond to that criticism?
