How has the Sebastopol Union School District dealt with racist name-calling?
PART 2: Despite the district's long-running commitment to racial equality, parental outcry over incidents of racist name-calling has been a wake-up call
On August 28, we published an article about the Sebastopol Union School Board meeting where parents expressed their concerns, during public comment, about racial name-calling and other forms of bullying at Sebastopol Union schools. In Part 2 of this series, we hear from Sebastopol Union’s Superintendent and Brookhaven principal Sara Gramm and SUSD School Board President Deborah Drehmel to learn what the district has been doing to address the issue of racism in the district’s schools.
A quick recap of what’s happened so far
At the Sebastopol Union School Board’s August meeting, Nadine Burke Harris, whose story was profiled in the Press Democrat, told of numerous incidents of racist name-calling at Brook Haven Middle School.
“The first incident took place in January of 2023 when he was in 5th grade,” said Burke Harris, who is black. “Our son at Brook Haven is now in the 8th grade. The long response time has been part of our concern.”
In May 2024, the Burke Harris family donated $10,000 to the Sebastopol Education Foundation (SEF) for the purchase of an anti-racist curriculum for the school. SEF is a parent-run nonprofit that raises funds for the Sebastopol Union School District.
“Our son is in his last year at Brook Haven, and it's clear that the resources we donated (back when he was in 6th grade) won't be used in time to benefit him,” she wrote.
She also noted that the family never got a thank you note or even an acknowledgement of their donation, until parent Matt Wynkoop took over as treasurer for SEF last September.
In April and May, the Burke-Harris family sent two letters, co-signed by several other parents, to the Sebastopol Union administration, making four demands:
Hold a convening to listen to the concerns of parents and guardians about racism and school climate.
Explicitly address unacceptable conduct regarding race and, with all the students, the consequences for violation of school policy.
Clearly communicate its policy on racist behavior and consequences for violation to all parents and guardians.
Establish an anti-racist curriculum as well as a robust response to racist incidents.
At the school board meeting, parents expressed their frustration that it had taken the district several months to respond to these requests. The district had scheduled a listening session just a week before to hear from the group of families who had co-signed the letter. It was trying to schedule a second listening session for the whole school community.
At the school board meeting, School Board President Deborah Drehmel mentioned that Sebastopol Union’s Superintendent and Brook Haven principal Sara Gramm was compiling a report on what the district had been doing to combat racist bullying on campus.
The day after the board meeting, the district sent out a letter to all families at Park Side and Brook Haven.
The letter began, “Many of you are likely aware of concerns of racism raised in a recent Press Democrat article. Our schools, sadly, are not immune to the realities of racist stereotypes and biases that plague broader society. We acknowledge that incidents involving racism and biases, as well as the way they have been addressed, have left families feeling unheard and devalued. We want to assure our community of our unwavering commitment to addressing instances of racism in our school community so that all students and families feel welcome, seen and valued.”
The letter also expressed that the district has “re-focused our efforts to prioritize anti-racism.” It went on to list several ways the school had been trying to address the problem.
A diverse school struggles with the problem of racism
Although Sebastopol itself is roughly 74% white, Sebastopol Union schools are more diverse. Here are the most recent statistics (2023-2024) from the California Department of Education:
Brook Haven Middle School (5th-8th grade), which has 197 students, is 41.1% White; 40.63% Latino, 1.5% Asian, 1% Black; with Filipino and Native American/Native Alaskan coming in at .5%. Also, 9.6% of students listed two or more races, and 10.2% were English Language Learners.
Park Side (Kindergarten-4th grade), which has 257 students, is 46.7% White; 34.6% Latino; 4% Native American/Native Alaskan; 2% Black; and 1.2% Asian. 8.5% of students listed two or more races. 17.1% are English Learners.
How often is racist name-calling reported at Park Side Elementary and Brook Haven Middle School? It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening on the playground and in the hallways, but Gramm said, “In terms of what’s reported to the office, it could be one to two times a month.”
Because of its relatively diverse student body, Gramm said anti-racism efforts in various forms in the district’s schools “has been ongoing for years.”
Gramm said the district’s anti-racist efforts are two-tiered: Tier 1 interventions are designed for the whole school. Tier 2 interventions are aimed at particular students who are “struggling with this issue”—and this includes both the pint-sized perpetrators of racism and their victims.
Tier 1: Schoolwide anti-racism efforts
Gramm gave several examples of Tier 1 anti-racism efforts the district was making at Parkside and Brookhaven.
“In November 2024, our entire school at Brookhaven participated in a larger Ruby Bridges Foundation and Safe Routes to School event where we did a whole community walk, and the event’s goal was to promote discussions about activism, anti-racism and anti-bullying, aiming to inspire positive change in communities.” (The Ruby Bridges Foundation is named after six-year-old Ruby Bridges, who, according to the group’s website, “stepped into the history books in 1960 when she integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans becoming a national icon for the civil rights movement.”)
“Our school counselor, who is the district counselor that goes between the two sites, originally in January, started classroom lessons for TK through 4th grade. And the district purchased several read-alouds that were recommended by the anti-racist teaching reading list,” she said. “In the kindergarten and first grade classrooms, they created this beautiful rainbow of handprints of different skin colors down the hallways of Park Side.” Gramm said this counselor was working on expanding this program into the middle school this year.
In terms of what they’ve done at Brookhaven thus far, Gramm said, “the administration at Brookhaven met with the 100 Black Men organization to develop a partnership and seek some support for diversifying as we move forward.” She noted they school reached out to that organization when it did its annual career fair to make sure they had broader racial representation.
In February of this year, the administration set up a visit from the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, a traveling educational center that promotes tolerance and combats hate through interactive workshops and immersive technology. “Our 5th through 8th graders participated in two lessons. It’s this wonderful experience where the bus comes to the school, the students get in—it’s like a small theater—and so the topics included Anne Frank, civil rights, combating hate and the power of ordinary people.”
She also noted that last year, the school began participating in the Welcoming Schools Initiative. “I think our first training—and this was scheduled way prior to any of this—is around bias-based bullying, and we will continue with that collaboration throughout the year.” Welcoming Schools Initiative provides primarily LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, and booklists for educators, but its website also says “our program uses an intersectional, anti-racist lens.”
These efforts, while admirable, are piecemeal, but Gramm said, that since last year, in response to the Burke Harris family’s complaints, the district has also been working on two broader initiatives: creating an anti-racism/anti-bias plan “so that we have a clear set of procedures to follow as issues come up” and finding an anti-racist curriculum.
Their anti-racism/anti-bias plan is still in draft form, and Gramm declined to share it with the Sebastopol Times because she said it was still a work in progress. She did, however, share an early version with the Burke Harris family in December of 2024, who provided some feedback.
There was also an effort by the district to purchase an anti-racist curriculum, which was one of the Burke Harris family’s requests.
According to Sebastopol Union Board Chair Deborah Drehmel, “In September, 2024, Superintendent Sara Gramm discussed with the Board of Trustees a program called Ally Elementary, an anti-racist curriculum being used in Rincon Valley that she thought might be a good program for our students and staff and could be partially paid for with a $10,000 grant directed towards anti-racist curriculum from the Burke-Harris family…Throughout the next months, Sara kept us informed both that the Burke-Harris family thought the program satisfied their goals but that there were delays in program availability—and eventually that it was no longer obtainable. As an interim measure, SUSD invested in materials for our school counselor to use in anti-racist focused classroom activities.”
Gramm said that there was a dearth of comprehensive, K-8 anti-racist curriculums to choose from.
“There's lots of different resources. Our teachers have used Teaching for Tolerance in the past, and there’s places where you can go to get individual lessons,” she said. “But as far as a comprehensive curriculum, they’re very few and far between.”
She has not given up on the search, however.
Tier 2: What happens on an individual level when a student uses a racial slur?
We asked Gramm to walk us through the process of what happens when a student uses a racial slur such as the N-word.
The first thing that happens is that the students get referred to the office, where, according to Gramm, “There’s two different conversations happening, both with the offender and with the student who has been harmed.”
Gramm said they prioritize “finding support for the student who has been harmed, whether that’s with a counselor, a school psychologist, or one of the administrators.”
“But there’s the disciplinary side too with the offender,” she said. “Those conversations are around recognizing harm.”
The idea of getting a student to recognize the harm they’ve done is part of a discipline practice known as “restorative justice.” Restorative justice was originally devised for juvenile criminal offenders as an alternative to the traditional criminal justice system, but it’s made its way into schools over recent years.
Gramm said she believes that the Sebastopol Union School District was one of the first small districts in Sonoma County to adopt restorative justice as their first-line form of discipline. That was several years ago, however, and she said there was a whole new crop of teachers now and so the staff could probably use a refresher.
According to Wikipedia, “Restorative justice focuses on repairing harm by empowering the harmed and harming parties to participate in a dialogue. In doing so, restorative justice practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves, and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, the goal is to give them an active role in the process and to reduce feelings of anxiety, unfairness and powerlessness.”
Sometimes, the student who’s been the victim of a racist epithet is up for having a restorative justice conversation (the Burke Harris child was), and sometimes they’re not.
When they’re not, the school still works with the perpetrator. “For older children, this might include doing research on the issue [of racism] and sharing what they’ve learned, and kind of looking back at or reflecting on the incident. There's a lot of reflection that happens through these conversations. And I think the more opportunity that we have to bring them to understanding the other side and knowing the harm or hearing about that the impact of their words is huge,” Gramm said.
In terms of the use of the N-word, in particular, Gramm said, “Countywide, it’s come up quite a bit in terms of just how to support [the victims] and educate [the perpetrators].”
Sadly, depending on your music and media habits, the N-word is ubiquitous on social media and in music, movies, and gaming culture. “All of those things,” Gramm said. “There are so many factors that we are not in control of, and so it's really about trying to bring awareness of what those words mean and the harm that they cause. I think that is the biggest thing.”
“We also have a progressive discipline policy,” she said. “It could be anything from a conversation with families and then it goes all the way up to suspension.”
In a response to a suggestion from the Burke Harris family and their supporters, Gramm said, “We’re also sharing resources and information with parents so that they can have these hard conversations at home as well.”
“Our primary focus has been on the important work happening within our schools, supporting our students in building a culture of belonging, and now we're centering on also expanding that to the public facing conversation with our parents and our community, because we recognize that the challenges related to racism and discrimination impact our entire school community,” Gramm said. “These larger issues don't stop at our school doors, and we understand that our students and families need our continued support as we navigate these complex challenges together.”
Why is everything taking so long?
Sebastopol Union parent Matt Wynkoop, who grew up in Sebastopol, is one of the parents supporting the Burke Harris family and pushing for change. He says he thinks the district is trying, but not hard enough and, most significantly, not fast enough.
“I think that they have made attempts, right? But the need for policy is important and the need for kids to get justice immediately when they experience racism is really important,” he said.
He also pointed out that the district already has an anti-discrimination policy on its website (it’s deeply buried) but said that the district is not following it.
There have been several moments in this story where time just stretched out—why did it take three or four months for SEF to respond to the Burke Harris family’s $10,000 donation? Why did the administration not respond to the parents’ list of demands for five months? It has now been more than two years since the Burke Harris family first contacted the school about racist name-calling. Why is it taking so long to create a coordinated response?
We were never able to get to the bottom of why SEF took so long to respond to the Burke Harris family’s very large donation. The organization did not respond to inquiries made through their website. The family made the donation in May, it was deposited at the end of June. Matt Wynkoop, who became treasurer in August, said the Burke Harris family approached him at Back-to-School night to ask what was happening with their donation. That was the first he’d heard of it.
Here’s one clue: Both Drehmel and Gramm, who knew about the donation, mentioned that the district didn’t have a policy around “directed donations,” that is money that is given for a specific reason. “Because of the lack of directed donations in the past, there wasn't a clear procedure process, and that’s something that both SEF and the district are working on,” Gramm said.
Directed donations are tricky. On the hand, schools are generally grateful for any money they get from parents, so $10,000 seems like a godsend. On the other hand, just because a parent wants to change the curriculum and they have a lot of money to make that happen, does that mean people who have more money get more say in what’s taught in their local school? In this case, the parent’s goals seem aligned with the goals and values of the school, but what if they weren’t? Ergo, the need for a policy Gramm said.
In regard to the five-month delay between the presentation of the parent group’s four demands and the administrative response, the answer seems to be the usual end-of-school-year mania and summer break.
“There had been several different conversations that happened over several months’ time,” Gramm said. “But, yes, as we got toward the end of the school year, their final communication, well, communication lapsed [on the administration’s end] but that didn’t mean the work didn’t continue.”
When the Sebastopol Times asked Gramm and Drehmel outright, “Why is this taking so long?” they collaborated on the following response:
Schools do not exist in a vacuum. We are charged with addressing a multitude of student and community needs—academic, social-emotional and societal. Children come to our schools with a wide range of experiences, values, empathy, kindness and knowledge. Whether it be reading or math skills or learning to get along, as children mature, schools must teach and reteach in developmentally appropriate ways.
Combatting racism in our schools requires a multifaceted approach. Among the elements are, though certainly not limited to, ensuring diversity in materials, culturally responsive teaching, and social emotional learning. Social-emotional and trauma-informed awareness has been at the forefront of our staff development for the past ten years.
Our staff has increased their understanding and array of skills necessary for teaching students with a wide range of differences, facing a wide range of challenges. Our focus with students has been to develop kindness and respect for all, personal self-regulation, self-awareness, understanding and resiliency. Our teachers, support staff and administrative team do address issues when we see and/or hear about them.
Just as we hope to develop students into life-long learners, we expect the same of ourselves. We realize that we have more focused work to do to meet the needs of our students, families and community around the issue of racial bias and racism. While much of our work has focused on students, we are also in the process of refining both an anti-racist/anti-bias policy, as well as a board resolution that reiterates the intentional commitment it takes from all of the members of our educational community to combat racism.
These outward declarations are intended to aid in refocusing our dedication to this work, as well as ensure that our community knows we expect all of our students to be part of the solution. We will be working with stakeholders in the coming weeks to ensure that resolutions, policies and procedures presented to the board for adoption reflect implementable and meaningful changes that can be sustained. Additionally, we are in the process of curating resources for families that can be used to assist with conversations amongst families to further this important work.
We recognize that developing a meaningful anti-racist program is complex and takes longer than we'd all like it to. In recognition that the work we've done thus far has not been holistic in approach nor adequate to the issue, we intend to work collaboratively with our stakeholder groups to develop a long-term plan that is multi-faceted and meets the needs of our students, staff and community.
These issues will be discussed at the next Sebastopol Union School Board meeting on Sept. 17, 4:30 pm, at the district office at 7611 Huntley St., Sebastopol.
Thank you for the article. Great reporting as always.
I support the community efforts for improvement and Sara Graham and the school district’s efforts to date and going forward. Both of my son’s (one with developmental challenges/delays) went through Parkside and one through Brookhaven and now Analy.
Running a school (and a school district) is incredibly challenging and complex and while there is always room for improvement I think they have done incredibly well.