Religious Education Update: January 14

Segregation and Our Children

On this Martin Luther King holiday weekend, I will be discussing racial injustice with our kids. I will want them to know about our First Principle; that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

This lesson is important, as our children live in an increasingly diverse nation, state, and community. When my own children attended the local public schools, their classes were predominantly white and predominantly middle class. Our schools are changing, As a school board member and school volunteer, I see more racial and economic diversity. In some schools, in the more affluent areas, I see children from all over the world: kids from India, Pakistan, China, or South Africa. In other schools, the population of Latino kids is now higher than the white population, and the percentage of children who qualify for free or reduced lunch prices is growing.

I observe that our local schools are becoming increasingly segregated. As an extreme case of that consider two schools in the Petaluma City School District: Grant Elementary School is 87% white, and 5 % Latino, while McDowell Elementary School across town is 72% Latino and 23 % white.

As a caring school board member, I have voted for boundary changes within the Old Adobe School District which I hoped would increase integration. The result of these changes was that a particular neighborhood of affluent and mostly white families chose to send their kindergartners to the Waugh District, rather then attend their local school in my district with its increasingly diverse student body.

I see that our schools with more poor kids, and more Latino kids, tend not to have the advantages that well endowed PTA’s can provide: the field trips, play structures, more up to date library collections.

What I see is that the fight that Martin Luther King Jr began against racial segregation and economic injustice must continue, even in our community. As a local elected official, I also know that the issues are difficult and not easily remedied. But one place to start is with our kids, in helping them understand that a religious community cares for all people and that its members continually strive to create a better world.

Marlene Abel

Director of Religious Education