Three parents who have tried to work with the school board to fight the racism their children have experienced say they're being met with roadblocks, even if they try to take the route suggested by the board.
Daniel Carter, Paula Hamilton and Sarah Peart all applied to be members of the Simcoe County District School Board’s equity advisory committee for a two-year term starting this year, but were informed on July 22 that their applications were denied.
All three claim their affiliation with local anti-racism advocacy group Parents Against Racism Simcoe County was a factor in the board’s decision.
“I wanted to make change. I wanted to help fight the racism that goes on in the school board,” Carter told Village Media this week. “The school board is a joke. They don’t want to acknowledge the racism they actually deal with.”
The board's equity advisory committee reviews, develops, implements and monitors diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the board.
The committee is comprised of voting members who are parents/guardians of students, representatives from community partner organizations/associations, and trustees. Staff from various departments attend meetings as non-voting members. Those sitting on the board serve a two-year term.
Carter was motivated to apply for the committee after difficulties he experienced with the board concerning his 13-year-old son, who will be attending Barrie North Collegiate this fall, but he previously attended Cundles Heights Public School in Barrie. His son is in a social skills class, as he deals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder and depression.
“It took them forever to place him,” recalls Carter. “This year, I asked he be integrated back into a regular class at Baxter Central. In November, they gave me a plan where he wouldn’t be integrated and he would maybe graduate high school at 21, if he stuck around that long. I told them that was unacceptable.”
Carter also said his son has told him he is regularly called racial slurs on the playground.
After much back and forth between Carter and the board, he said he reached out to Parents Against Racism Simcoe County for help.
Parents Against Racism Simcoe County (PARSC) started in November 2020 as a non-profit organization committed to fighting racism and discrimination in Simcoe County. The non-profit educates, trains and advocates for individuals, groups, organizations and institutions to invest in interrupting racism whenever encountered. They also provide programming for racialized students and families.
A major part of their work includes acting as advocates for families while they navigate systems in place when an incident of racism occurs.
PARSC set up and attended meetings with Carter, board superintendents and staff.
“Ever since I asked for him to be fully integrated, it felt like they were trying to suspend him for everything,” said Carter, adding he believes his son was targeted. “They were playing games.”
At the end of discussions, Carter said he was asked by a board superintendent what the board could do to make the situation right. Carter said he countered by asking for a written and verbal apology, for his son to be put in a special supportive program when he started high school, and for Carter to be given a spot on the equity advisory committee.
While Carter said the board did send him a written apology, he said the superintendent said he couldn’t put him on the committee, but encouraged him to apply.
‘Are they really looking for change?’
Paula Hamilton was so fed up with the school board that she pulled her two children, her 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, out of Eastview Secondary School in April and has home-schooled them ever since.
She said she’d like them to return to public school this fall, but after everything that’s happened she’s uneasy about the prospect.
Hamilton alleges there have been multiple incidents of racism against both her children in their time at the school.
The school board "seems to lack understanding, compassion and empathy with different races. There’s a huge barrier from the top to the bottom,” she said.
In one case, Hamilton said her son was involved in a racially charged altercation off school property with a student from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School, and she alleges the public board shared her child’s private information with the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board without her consent.
She said she has multiple open cases underway with the board’s Human Rights and Equity office, with no resolution to any of her issues to date.
“It has been a battle with them for a while now. It’s been a long haul,” said Hamilton. “It was escalation on top of escalation.”
While navigating the system, Hamilton learned about PARSC and reached out for help with the board.
“They’ve been so helpful in terms of advocacy,” she said.
Following her experiences with the board, Hamilton applied to be a member of the equity advisory committee. A nurse by profession, Hamilton says she has experience helping others and teaching.
“I want to be the change that I want to see. I see they really struggle. They need voices of people with lived experience,” she said.
When she found out she was rejected in July, she said she was shocked.
“Are they really looking for change? They know exactly who I am. I want to know the process they used to choose,” said Hamilton.
‘There’s constant resistance put up at the board’
PARSC advocate Sarah Peart is no stranger to the school board. She, along with PARSC founder Natasha Shakespeare, has done multiple delegations before the board over the past three years on various topics under the themes of equity and inclusion.
This marks the second time Peart has applied for the board’s equity committee, and has been turned down. As a mother to five Black children, Peart said her kids face racism regularly at school, which is what led to her joining PARSC and volunteering her time to help racialized families navigate the system.
Her oldest daughter, Trinity Parchment, made a delegation to the school board in January 2023 on the racism she experienced throughout her time at Barrie North.
“We are the voices for families, and they don’t want to hear from us,” Peart told Village Media this week. “There’s a perception of an unwillingness to change. There’s constant resistance put up at the board.
“To decline two other people also affiliated with our organization ... is really fishy,” she said.
Peart said she has had some good experiences with some superintendents, teachers and administrators she feels are making an effort and are interested in hearing from her group, but said in her experience, the board’s senior leadership team is the most resistant.
She said that most often, through their advocacy PARSC sees similar issues at varying schools within the board, such as criminalization of Black boys, a dehumanizing of parents of Black children when they express emotion, and victim blaming.
PARSC estimates they’ve supported more than 160 families since launching in 2020. In a previous delegation at the school board, PARSC founder Natasha Shakespeare said the majority of PARSC’s referrals are borne out of incidents at the board and their schools.
“We see a common thread. There’s significantly more action taken when we’re involved, than when we’re not,” said Peart. “Why can’t they just help families the first time they come to them?”
Peart’s two youngest children are four and six years old. While she acknowledges that there is a difference between how her oldest daughter was treated, versus how her youngest is treated now, she isn’t convinced that change was led entirely by the school board.
“Things have improved in the sense that the community has changed and my children are no longer the only Black children within their schools and classes,” she explained.
According to Sarah Kekewich, communications manager for the Simcoe County District School Board, it received more than 40 submissions for positions on the equity advisory committee for the 2024-26 term.
Kekewich said the new committee membership will be provided to the public at the board’s regular meeting at the end of August.
“Incoming members for the 2024-2026 term include three SCDSB parent/guardian representatives and representatives from community partner organizations/associations Making Change and Lakehead University,” she said in an email.
The board did not respond to questions from Village Media asking why applicants affiliated with PARSC were denied a seat on the committee, and how members are chosen for the committee.
Being rejected from the board’s committee hasn’t stopped Carter from supporting Black families. He’s chairing a new group under PARSC called the Black Fathers Alliance, designed to empower Black fathers and allow for a place to share the unique challenges they face.
“I have a webinar coming up about school racism and how to help our children cope with it,” said Carter. “I plan to make change by educating families.”
While Peart can’t speculate on the board’s motivations behind the denial of her, Carter’s and Hamilton’s applications, she sees a pattern emerging with PARSC also denied a verbal public delegation at the board’s last regular meeting of the year on June 19.
“They do not want to face the truth of what parents we represent are experiencing within their board. They’re doing everything they can to block our voice from being heard on a public platform,” said Peart.
“We will only get louder because of it.”
