Racism Free Worcester Public Schools?
What are students actually looking for when it comes to changes in public education? Is our community truly centering and valuing the voices of the kids experiencing the systems that we’ve built for them? Today, we’re talking with two young organizers; both alumni of South High School in Worcester. And while we talk at a local level, this conversation echoes into so many other districts where students are working to have their voices heard. #PublicHearingPodcast
Transcript for this episode
JOSHUA CROKE:
Hi folx! So we are jumping right in today talking with two young organizers, both Worcester Public School alum and recent college grads, who are involved with an Instagram account here in Worcester called @RacismFreeWPS that’s been growing in popularity. Content warning for folks; there are parts of this episode that address mental health, sexual violence, and death by suicide.
Our conversation was pretty much the amount of time we have for our show, so let’s go.
I’m your host, Joshua Croke. And this is.. the Public Hearing Podcast.
Available wherever you listen and on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester’s only NPR affiliate station.
ANH DAO:
My name is Anh, I graduated from South high in 2015, and I went to college at University at Suffolk University over in California, where I studied like critical theory and literature and other weird humanities like that. Yeah. Great.
PHUNG NINH:
My name is Phung. I am a 2016 South High grad and I am a Wellesley College graduate just graduated. So,
JOSHUA CROKE:
Congratulations. So as we get to know each other, tell me a little bit more about your journey and some of your experiences going through school, but also what has motivated you to organize and get into some of the work that you're both involved in?
ANH DAO:
I think for both of us, we experienced a lot of privilege in the Worcester Public Schools as Goddard Scholars. And I think like for me, that is, it really drove me to kind of do more for the students around me who were academically high achieving. And because I did grow up seeing them experience a lot of like verbal abuse discrimination we grew up in like white dominated schools in terms of staff and teachers. I I personally struggled with a lot of mental health issues when I was a student at the Worcester Public Schools. And that is an area of focus for me that I think is just not addressed at all when it comes to the faculty and staff there. And even as Goddard Scholars, I think I got a lot of privilege and was looked out more than any other student in South High. Yeah.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Can you tell me a little bit about the Goddard Scholars program for people who might not be familiar?
ANH DAO:
Yeah, so the Goddard Scholars program is like an accelerated program through middle school and high school at Sullivan and South High. You, it, I think it's you get in, in middle school based off of like test grades, I think, and like your MCAS scores and your general test grades. And then there's like a little bit of an interview and an application process, but once you're in the Goddard Scholars, we’re very isolated. I would say I got a better education than a lot of people. We were the only students in South and Sullivan that had access to band and got to learn musical instruments. Yeah. And then we go on into high school until we kind of like integrate more into the rest of the community. Yeah.
PHUNG NINH:
I think what I would add is like, I wasn't in Goddard in middle school because I'm an, I'm an immigrant. And so like when I, when I took the MCAS test in sixth grade, like I wasn't put in to Goddard I was put into Cider Mill, which, you know, like when I was in Cider Mill, I was top of my class. And so like when I was in high school, my guidance counselor referred me to the Goddard program. So I didn't go through any of the interview process. I was put in with a group of very high achieving students and I was super intimidated and was really stressed out. But like, I think what Anh said was correct, like Goddard students are usually really isolated from the rest of the student population; got to take band. I didn't do Goddard in middle school, so I wasn't in band for high school. And so like, things like that are, are usually I think very familiar to the Goddard student experience itself.
ANH DAO:
Yeah, even when it comes to like the quality of the education that we received, there was such a stark discrepancy that we really started to notice, especially going into junior and senior year when you have to take more AP classes and you're kind of more exposed to the teachers outside of the Goddard program.
JOSHUA CROKE:
That brings me to that brings back a memory from a conversation that I've had with someone who recalls, and I don't remember the exact program name, but it must've been something kind of similar to what you're talking about with Goddard, where he remembers his teacher pulling him out of class one day, or like talking to him at the end of class and saying, Hey, like, I think you're doing a great job in class. I want to move you into this new program. And he just talks about how this like whole different set of lights was turned on of, you know, getting books that weren't used or old and having access to new resources that he hadn't historically had in the class that he was in and really kind of was questioning and felt kind of guilty about having that level of access and questioned, like why isn't this something that is for all students.
And that kind of goes to one of the posts, I believe that you shared, if you want to talk a little bit about that on the Racism Free WPS account. And I'd love to chat a little bit more about that account as well. I think it's brought so much visibility in the community, you know, that there's like 3,200 plus followers there now and it's sharing. And for those listening, who aren't familiar with the account on Instagram, it's a collective of current and former WPS students committed to fighting for equity within education for all Worcester Public School, students and educators. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that journey as well. And talk more about the access piece with Goddard and your experience as well.
PHUNG NINH:
I mean, I think like when I joined Racism Free Public Schools, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I mean, I just talked to the person that ran their account Diana and I was like I love what you're doing. Do you need help making these posts? Like, how can I help you? So it really started with people who are alumni of Worcester Public Schools. And I think that when I joined, what I wanted to do was just, you know, help out and see, see what that gets me. I already think being in college, I had so much access to resources and I realized how little of that I had in high school or like, or like my peers in college where they're like, you know, there are a lot of like super rich people at Wellesley.
And so like when I was there, I realized the gap that existed, right, like, even if I was the top student at Worcester Public Schools, like I was not at the top anywhere else. Right. Like, it was kind of that awakening at first. It's like, Oh, like these people went to boarding schools, you know, like these people went to like 60K a year school for, since they were like, you know, started school. And so like, that is where I, like, I was like, okay, so this is the work that I have to do to kind of go beyond their level. Right. But then of course I rejected that, right. I was like, no, there's no more, you know, meritocracy is not a thing. There's no more ladder climbing for me. Like I realized I like where I am. And like, I wanted to organize around that when I was in college.
So I did a lot of that. And so when I saw the page, I was like, okay. So somebody is trying to organize students to speak about their experiences. And I want to be a part of that.
One of the posts that resonated with me like it was on July 29th, if people want to find it like there's it says there is an expectation that the privilege awarded to honor students and, or Goddard students it's justified because they earned it. My spot in the program is based on meaningless test scores. I got into fourth grade that put me high up on a randomized wait waiting list from then on, I was handed every opportunity- opportunity I can ever want provided the best resources and spoonfed a narrative that I was smart, capable, and deserving and had a promising future.
I think at the end of it it says the reason so many Goddard students are majority white or Asian, and upper-class, it's not because those demographics are inherently smarter or more capable, but because standardized tests are designed to benefit these people. And it also says like the Goddard program is proof that when students are treated with dignity, given adequate resources and embraced by the faculty who support their dreams, they can succeed like that, that line was so good, like props to whoever wrote this? I was like, no, that is true. You know, like the program proves that if you believe in your students and invest in them, like they will succeed. There like is no question about it. You know?
ANH DAO:
There are so many testimonials on the racism, free WPS page, and so many stories that I've heard in my personal life. Like even just a couple of weeks ago, unprompted one of, a couple of my Facebook friends were talking about the verbal abuse that they got from their South High teachers that stays with them to this day. I know people who were literally told, and I can name the teacher that said these things that like, they, they will say things to their Black and Brown students. Like you are not going to amount to anything, or you just aren't capable of doing this, or, Oh, like, I'm surprised you have two parents because you're black, like ridiculous, like just absolutely unacceptable things that are just like overtly racist. And that comes out a lot here. Like there are a lot of students who just like, the faculty just simply don't believe in them
JOSHUA CROKE:
And that, you know, this, this conversation I've, I've had this conversation about the, like the narrative of racial difference as one of the, you know, the factors that plays a role in some of the ways that teachers perceive the world either unconscious or not of that people are different based on identity factors. Right. And we'd like, know for so many reasons in research and that, that is not true. And it is the systems that we've set up to help some people achieve. And some people have to work a million times harder, regardless if they do that. Sometimes it's still a path to not becoming successful, whether you're measuring that against economic success or a variety of other factors. And so I’d love to just jump right in here and, you know, the administration has been quoted saying that they've never experienced racism within the public schools. So I want to address your thoughts and feelings on that and what, what you would say, if you were able to sit down with the leadership of Worcester Public Schools, how would you approach that conversation
ANH DAO:
It's because they're white. It's because they're white. I don't think they are just experiencing things the way that their students do. I don't, I, they just don't have the lived experiences. They don't have the proximity, like I think there, yeah. That's my, like my basic answer, if you want to add onto that.
PHUNG NINH:
Yeah. And I think it's interesting because like what Anh said it's like they don't have that lived experience of going to Worcester public school is the system that they collectively like create together as administrators. And like, I think it's interesting too, because they will talk about their experience in the school system. I've been here for 20 years. I've been here for 10 years, whatever that is. But I think that to say that people with lived experiences are more capable of say, like voting for the right thing for their students than somebody with a doctorate in whatever, from wherever kind of like that would dismantle a lot of systems, right. That would dismantle the idea that, you know, college educated people are more capable than working class people. And so I think this is also like a class issue, you know? I think about it in race and class. Like, I don't think my parents will ever, you know, like they, they want to engage my parents, but my parents are Vietnamese speaking people. And so like, they're not even doing the small things to engage working class people, to engage parents who are working class, then, you know, like this is how, how do they do structural things that benefit working class people? When it's, you know, when they don't even,
ANH DAO:
Yeah, yeah. They will never know what it's like to be a Brown or a person of color or Black student in Worcester, public schools growing up in poverty, dealing with whatever their family situations are dealing with like the actual politics of living in the city, which, you know, at times can be like, you know, a little violent, you know, I'm not saying oysters and violent city per se, but poverty is violence. And they will just never know what it's like to, to, to live that life and then go to a school where all of your teachers are, or most of your teachers are white. They don't ask about your family life, you know? And not only that, but our whole education system is infused with this meritocratic, Neo-liberal ideology. That's just like, whatever you're struggling with at home, that's not my business. And you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do better.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. Which term, yeah, that statement in and of itself is so problematic. Cause it's like not a real thing that one can, can truly achieve. And, the thing that this brings forward in my mind as well is one, this notion of systems that feel like they're standalone, even though, and address like one specific thing, despite the fact that they're working with people who have very real lives in and outside of the school walls. Right. And I had a conversation earlier in the show with someone about the juvenile justice system and how we were talking specifically about the school to prison pipeline that at, you know, a disproportionate rate affects Black and Brown folks moving through from, you know, from school to juvenile detention and from juvenile detention to, you know, to the carceral system and the, the challenges that are presented there.
JOSHUA CROKE:
But also something that Katie said in our conversation was about how we can't keep looking at young people as simply students, because they have lives that are impacted by a variety of other factors. And we're seeing that very presently even now, and it obviously existed before and COVID has exacerbated that because we're seeing young people as early as the ages of 14, 15, 16 years old stepping into like positions where they're having to work to help support the income of their family, to put food on the table to pay rent,and we're also now requiring them to do, you know, the regular day-to-day school experience. Right? And so there are so many of these factors that influenced this work. And then the other thing that popped into my head is this whole notion of, we have so much proof of injustice across like racial and other identity lines within our school systems as a nation. Why do administrators deny something that they can acknowledge they didn't cause necessarily, but can take responsibility for saying we need to change this. So I'd be interested in your thoughts on that as well. Their rejection of people's lived experiences is, you know, like I think they PR they do protect certain things like their power, right? Like, you know, to not give students a voting power in the school committee is a choice. You know, they will say that that was not how we've done it before we will not adopt a system like that. Well, you could write, like, these people do have the power to create voting, like students who can vote on their committee, for example, like that's like a concrete change that they do have the means to, to make. But they won't. And so, like, that's not because they're like, oh, the rules are written, you know, in such and such way so that we can't do that. You know, like I wanna just pause there and just highlight the importance of that as an idea, because so many times people have these conversations, it's like, oh yeah, it's great to talk about things, but how do you move forward? And like, take action on this. And that is just such an immediate action that I think could have such a significant impact to saying the students that are in the schools have the intelligence and capability to drive decisions around how they want to learn, where they want to learn what they want to learn. And why are we not providing that opportunity at the level of saying, how can we give young people a voice on the school committee to hold accountable the people who are in positions of power.
ANH DAO:
It's absolutely like, I think it's tragic that the school board has such and maybe just the city administrators as a whole, not just the school board has such vested interests in certain types of capital. Like right now, right? The school budget has been cut and $125,000 or something like that was added to the police budget. Meanwhile, like they're spending all this money to gentrify our city, like building this minor league baseball stadium. I don't really know, you know, like trying to make the city a better place. Meanwhile, our students are just like fighting for proper education. And if you want to improve the lives of your citizens, if you want to make your city a better place, you invest in things like the arts, you invest in things like education. You give your students opportunities to improve the city, right? And you want them, you encourage them to invest back into their city, back into their community. But when you're living in a community that has never invested in you, that vitriol and that resentment stays with you. And I've seen that too. I've seen, especially after graduating, I've seen people talk about how much they hate Worcester, how much they want to get out of Worcester, how they romanticize sunny places like Florida, like Florida? Come on.
Yeah. it's just, it's, it's very sad because like, these are, that's the first action they could do, right? Give us money. Don't bring, put all of our tax dollars to police who don't really solve any of our problems. They don't solve prime. Half of their jobs are like traffic cops. They don't. And the people that they do protect in the city are white people, you know? Cause otherwise they police Black people, they police Brown people.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And to grow up being told and not directly told, but just by way of observation, understanding that the city's definition of better oftentimes has not included you or doesn't include you. And you see, you know, and this is where, you know, I encourage people to like to vote with their dollars. So, like where you shop, where you buy, like supporting local is great. And what level are you supporting truly local and what level are you supporting the negative impacts of gentrification that come with a reinvestment of dollars in things like a sports stadium and
PHUNG NINH:
It's not going to do well. I don't think it's going to do that well.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And, and I think, you know, it's so interesting to think about allocation of resources, right? And the responsibilities placed on different systems and departments, right? We have a public safety quote-unquote system, you know, with the police that are given the responsibilities to handle mental health crises. They are given the responsibility of addressing homelessness and these are not challenges that our city needs to be looking at from a public safety, as, you know, crime lens. It needs to be looked at how do we create stable housing? How do we create pathways for people to get connected to healthcare services? Right? And so as we have this conversation, you're right, there's so much defense of existing systems, existing people in places of power because of fear of losing that. I could ramble on and on. But so what are some of the other steps that you all are taking with your organizing work to encourage change within our, within our systems?
PHUNG NINH:
We're going to look at what the school committee does with our demands and then kind of follow that. I know that a lot of the organizers on our team are, you know, doing everyday things, they're like working, going to school, they're students. And so like how much, you know, like I think the administration is waiting for us to burn out, you know, frankly. And you know, I think about what sustainability means for Racism Free Worcester Public Schools. It's like, we're not going away. Half the people here are, you know, they're students or they're going to stay in this city and become like a youth worker or whatever that looks like, you know, like we're going to be in the city and we're going to hold people accountable, maybe in different ways. And it does, it might not look maybe in three years, Racism Free Worcester Public Schools like this. It might not look like that, but I think that it's always a tactic right. To, to hold grassroots organizations or organizing people to decide because they're just waiting for people to get on with their everyday life and burn out. I think right now, I think there needs to be more room for breathing for organizers or for people who are doing like the work and let them, you know, do things with their lives. And then, you know, when we feel ready again, we'll take up whatever or whatever we left off, you know?
JOSHUA CROKE:
And so you mentioned some demands that Racism Free WPS has made to the school committee. Could we talk about some of those, what are some of those demands and yeah. Feel free t
ANH DAO:
I think while Phung pulls up the demands. I can talk about a few of them. So it's like a nine point program I believe. And some of the demands are a lot simpler, like reforming the dress code so that it doesn't include anti-black language. And for some things like that, they've been a little bit more receptive. And then we have other demands like increasing the mental health resources for students like hiring a chief diversity officer in school so that black Brown students have someone specifically trained to deal with diversity issues or they're yeah. Do you want to list off some,
PHUNG NINH:
Our first demand is cop free schools. We want all cops out of school and we are reallocating. I'm so sorry. We want to reallocate those budgets to the rest of our programs. The second one is less student suspension. We just want, you know, students to not be suspended because you know, of like, I don't know, like how do you say that's like small things,
JOSHUA CROKE:
Minor suspensions, right?
ANH DAO:
Yeah.
JOSHUA CROKE:
The, the suspensions that are made essentially around like discretionary actions by teachers, it's like, non-violent, non-drug, non-criminal offenses that we're seeing still a lot of student suspensions happening within the schools.
ANH DAO:
And especially when you're looking at the kind of population that Worcester has, we have a lot of like neurodivergent students. We have a lot of students that might not function the way that teachers want them to in a classroom, meaning they don't sit still. They're not quiet. They, you know, they might act out a little bit. They might be a little more bodacious and like, you know, like sometimes you have like a class, not clown, but you didn't know like, just like one guy in your class who's like really charismatic and loud and makes everyone laugh. And teachers hate that. And they'll punish their students for that. Yeah, I think a lot of suspensions, or a lot of kids develop a reputation as being bad kids just because they don't behave and that leads to more trouble for them down the road too.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Well. And I think, and, and, you know, I joke when I say that was me, but it also echoes to my own, the privilege that I hold, because like, as much as that were, those were behaviors that I exhibited in class because I'm very much an active project-based learner and not so much a sit down and study type learner. I never feared that my behaviors would potentially amount to me ending up in prison. Right? And that's like, what, like, if we fast forward through a couple of steps of, you know, you get kicked out of class, you're, you know, as soon as you're kicked out of class, your likelihood to be suspended increases, as soon as you're suspended, your likelihood of being introduced to the juvenile justice system increases. As soon as you enter the juvenile justice system, your likelihood of being entered into the carceral system is increased. So that me as a white person in a suburban school, never feared that me joking around in class or acting in a certain way would lead to prison. And like that is very much the system we've created in this country
ANH DAO:
Were you ever labeled as disruptive in class? Like for-
JOSHUA CROKE:
Yes. And I act, I was, I got detentions, I got kicked out of class,I have a French teacher who probably looks back on our experiences together, not so fondly and, and the disruptive behaviors and things that we see criminalized. Like we see criminalized in our, in our schools. And again, it goes back to racism and not calling it out and ignoring the fact that that exists and is present and prevalent in systems, regardless of whether teachers acknowledge bias that might inform those decisions. It's not just that singular point. It's the entire system. And going back to your points of cops in schools, and like asking the question as to the why, right. I was recently in a conversation for a board that I'm on and the discussion was why cops are in schools. And someone made the argument that it was to “prevent from external threats.” And I said, if it's peripheral rent from external threats, why are there only four SRO's designated to four specific high schools in our city with over like 40 schools or whatever it is. So I'll get off my soapbox there, but.
ANH DAO:
That's like, that's a good point. What I was gonna bring up there was a post on the Racism Free WPS. And I remember reading it and being like, I know this person because they were the accounts to stories and they were like, we were both good friends, but I had our friend in the Goddard scholars program who had her phone stolen by another Goddard scholar student who was white. She reported it to the- like pretty much nothing, nothing happened to him. And at the end of the day, like her mom ended up going to his house, getting the phone back cause she knew he had it, but the teachers wouldn't do anything about it. And then the school wouldn't punish him, but you know, they didn't fight that hard for it to be punished.
ANH DAO:
And on the other hand, my other friend had an iPod stolen out of her locker and she didn't want to press charges or anything. They, and they ended up finding the guy who did it on the web, on the security cameras and pretty much our current superintendent forced her to press charges, go down to court and testify against this kid. And she was, she was 15 years old, you know, there's not much she can do. Even if in her heart, she knew it was wrong. And she said, I don't want press charges. I don't want to get this guy in trouble. There was nothing she could, there was nothing she could do about it. She was being pressured by a bunch of adults to charge this like a 16 year old kid in a court
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. If you're asked to sit down in court and tell the truth, and regardless of whether you want that truth to impact someone's life in a negative way, like if you have to be honest, then that can set up a situation in which someone is criminalized or punished.
ANH DAO:
And oftentimes like, you know, you're not at 16, 15 years old, you don't know what the impact of your, what you're doing to other kids, you know, but it, the fact that the school, the administrators pushed so hard to get this kid in a courthouse to get him charged with that for stealing an iPod. And he gave it back very nicely. He was like, I'm sorry, like, you know, nothing was stolen off of it. It just shows kind of like the difference when it comes to criminalization in schools. I mean, there was even a time when, like I could have gotten into some pretty big trouble, but I was a Goddard Scholars kid, but I was kind of like a hippie. So we were like, we're not going to get into the details, but pretty much any other student who got caught doing, like, who got caught with what I did would have gotten sent to the juvenile, the- the other school.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And this goes to your, and this goes to your point of how that program is not only more research or resource rich, rather for like access to resources. But also if the school puts it on a pedestal, the care that they give and the considerations they give to students within programs like that is also reflective of the school success. So there's a more direct correlation to Goddard scholars equals successful. So we need to uphold that in every capacity we can.
ANH DAO:
Yes. And I'm not saying I didn't deserve those protections. Like I'm grateful for the way that they handled my case, but I think every student in the Worcester public schools deserves those second chances and deserves to be forgiven and they don't deserve to be criminalized. You're a kid, you know?
JOSHUA CROKE:
And so going back to some of the other demands, what, what are some of the things that you are looking to to move forward?
PHUNG NINH:
And I mean, one talked a little bit about the inclusive dress policy, we just want it to not criminalize, like, you know, like black and Brown girls for wearing, you know, clothes that don't like, it literally doesn't impact anybody's education. And of course, like adults love to police how people dress how people express themselves. And so, like, I think that's that over-policing, it's taking away people's education, like students' education. They’re like sent home to change. So that's like two, three hours of their school day. It's kind of ridiculous too.
ANH DAO:
The way that it's sexualized as girls as well. Yeah. Yeah
PHUNG NINH:
I think like predatory behaviors that were, you know, like that goes on in our schools, buildings are like a lot too is not just like our peers who, you know, like Cis boys. But also like teachers people who have power over us.
ANH DAO:
None in the last year, like a couple of those, like very alarming stories came out and not, you know, they didn't really make any statements about it. They didn't really inform students. And it's like traumatic, you know, like for me, knowing that one of my teachers that I liked, I thought he was a good guy. He took me to Boston to do like High School Quiz Show. Like I spend a lot of time with this man to find out that he had been preying on underage girls. That's alarming.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Absolutely. And that was one of the posts referenced here as well. Right. And so the response from the school wasn't particularly public, or how was that situation handled?
ANH DAO:
Not at all. They kept it under wraps like anything and anyone that knows anything is through word of mouth is through rumors. I'm sure they didn't make any public statements about that. And I'm sure they didn't make any public statements about I can say his name Mr. Clayton, because he was charged with a federal conviction for sex trafficking. It didn't say anything about that either, even though he wasn't working at the school at the time, but he had worked there for a long time and it really scares me to know how many girls, especially black and Brown girls that he had access to in our schools that he preyed on. And I don't know, we just deserve more.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Absolutely. And, you know, an alarming statistic that I only recently came to, to be familiar with for some work that I do with an organization called LIFT- living in freedom together, which worked to get women out of commercial, sexual exploitation, the like over 80 to 90% of young women who are sex trafficked are enter that between the ages of 12 and 14 years old. And so those situations, right? And, and if there are teachers and educators who are perpetuating this, like how do we as a community, nevermind as a District, how do we as a community enforce a strict policies, but also like the vetting process of, of getting people to walk through the doors of schools, how do we elevate that to address these things?
PHUNG NINH:
Well I think like we should start believing girls and young girls of color when they go to you and tell you that this is happening and that somebody needs to do something about it. You know, I think that when we don't listen to people, we don't believe them. It shows how disposable they think we are. Right. Like I grew up as a young girl in Worcester Public School, andomething happened to me. I told my teacher and she said, are you sure? And causing all these dolls and when you're like, you know, 13, 14, you don't really know how to articulate what happened. You, you know, you don't want to seem crazy, you know? And then, and as like a young, young kid who was kind of quiet, my, my English teacher was like, you know, like nothing probably happened to you. Like, I think you're over-exaggerating.
And so when we start getting those messages, when bigger things happen to us, how are we supposed to trust that these institutions will believe us? They won't. And so they will back the kid who is, you know, like whatever, like more articulate, had more power and has parents involved in this? Like, my mom could not have ever advocated for me because she doesn't speak English. And so it's me against my teacher and some other kid or some other adult, you know? And so like, I think we, we start by believing young girls or like young queer people, you know, when they say something happened to them.
ANH DAO:
That's why it's so important. I think to instate like mental health counselors and chief diversity officers, so that students have a confidential, trained professional to go to, to talk to when they feel uncomfortable. And I think that's also another part of the reason why like, dress codes are so last century, you know, like we don't need them anymore. And they only reinforce the idea that girls' bodies are to be sexualized. Like when you tell a girl what you're wearing is inappropriate. You're telling her that that's sexual and it shouldn't be. They're children. Right. Like, and especially when it's coming from a male teacher it's like, why are you looking at my body and finding it disruptive. You're telling me that you're finding it sexual, that's, you know, and that, yeah.
JOSHUA CROKE:
That's right. No, I'm, I'm here for that. So are there additional requests to the school committee?
PHUNG NINH:
I mean, the fourth one is definitely on topic. It's about health and consent. You know, some people have said that didn’t have to take a health class.
ANH DAO:
Yeah. There's, it's not mandatory anymore. It's not mandatory anymore. Apparently. Yep
PHUNG NINH:
And I took my health class online because I was an accelerated Goddard kid. I was taking so many APS. I didn't have no space in my schedule. And then my guidance counselor lets me, you know, I can do whatever I want because I'm a Goddard kid. And I took my health class online. Didn't really care, you know, showed up, listen to some PowerPoints. And then I left, you know, and it wasn't, it was like the organs, you know, with the like sexual health education, it was like, you know, like what this does in your body, which, you know, we kinda know we live in our bodies, you know?
JOSHUA CROKE:
Well, and I want to get back to sexual health education, cause I'm sure we can go on a tangent for that for a bit. But I want to address the fact that so far today you've brought up guidance counselors multiple times as people who have kind of helped or supported you in the fact that you are a Goddard Scholar. And like all of that, we talked not two, three weeks ago to a young man who also from the Worcester Public Schools and recalls feeling completely disconnected from his guidance counselor. You know, a young black man in the Worcester Public Schools disconnected from his guidance counselor and feeling that that was not a very valuable resource to help connect him to college pathway programs and found accessibility to those programs through Upward Bound and out of school programs.
ANH DAO:
We're both actually Upward Bound alumni as well.
JOSHUA CROKE:
So we know we're going to have to have a Public Hearing and Upward Bound event because..
ANH DAO:
We've had now, well, both good and you know, kind of on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. The thing with guidance counselors is like I've I remember there are a couple of guidance counselors that were really beloved, but everyone has had, I mean, the guidance counselor that I had, I remember like she was very, she was nice, you know, she did the most of her job, but her job, the best she could, but she also encouraged me like what she made me take AP calc BC. I didn't want to do that. And I kept telling her, I didn't want to do that. And she was like, you can handle it. And I like ruined my senior year, not gonna lie, but I have, we have, we have like testimonials, maybe not. I'm not sure if were there any on the Racism Free WPS one. But when I was a senior preparing for college, I had friends who were told that they shouldn't apply for certain schools because they wouldn't get in. So guidance counselors are both like, right. They can like provide all the opportunities they want and they can easily turn them off and shut them down. Especially when you have like four guidance counselors for a school of 1600 kids.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And that goes into our conversation about resources again, right? It's like, if you have a caseload, if you could be the best guidance counselor in the world, but if you have a caseload of 200, 300 students, you can't possibly advocate for each of them equally.
ANH DAO:
Some of them are going to get neglected, like it's bound to happen.
JOSHUA CROKE:
All right, so switching gears back to sexual health, because that is so huge and like the fact that it is like elective and like optional is one thing. And then the fact that, and you know, I know this personally from other work that I do is there is no LGBTQ plus inclusive healthcare education within schools as well. And the fact that so many people identify as queer and trans now, like that are able to be more vocally out about their identities. That's unacceptable
PHUNG NINH:
I'm a queer person and I didn't know that until college. And so the lack of, I think just the conversations about LGBTQ kids or having you know, resources for students who identify as LGBTQ plus, like there is none of that in, in high school in Worcester Public Schools. Like I remember like maybe my queer friends back then, like one or two and I wasn't close with them. I thought I was straight, you know? And so like for me, it was it was really interesting to, to, to learn that some of my peers in college actually had, you know, affirmative consent models or like sexual health education that talks about LGBTQ+people. And they're like, you know, really well-resourced school, like boarding school, private schools, schools with Asian American experience teachers like, you know, so it's, it's really interesting.
ANH DAO:
People go to high schools that are structured like universities, like blows my mind. I'm like, wait, you're telling me you took like a religion. Like you took like a class, like on Shakespeare? Like, and that was, that was it. That was the name of the class. It wasn't like English too. Right? Yeah.
PHUNG NINH:
And it was like, when I heard that, I think for me as a, like a college student, I was like, you have that, you know? And I was like, you know, the people who need it most like students who really need ethnic studies, for example, aren't getting that education because you know, when, when movements, when histories are co-opted in academia, it translates first to the people who can afford it. Right. So it's like the rich people. And then though the working class kid of color is not getting lessons about their history is not getting, you know, LGBTQ+ like consent, you know, like education. And so-
JOSHUA CROKE:
And the importance of even just being aware of different ways, people identify different ways. People think like I was a queer kid in high school, kind of in a thrown out of the closet experience, but I didn't come out as a non-binary queer person until much, much later in life. And part of the reason was societal and stigma and all that stuff. And the other part was not necessarily having the words or the tools to describe my lived experience, which like just talks about the importance of education and knowledge and discussion and the elimination of bias stigma and shame in society,Certainly.But just being aware of the difference, you know, I'll say the letters, even in LGBTQ+ now and helping people to come to that understanding of like, Oh my God, this is an aha moment. This just resonated with me in a way that I never had been able to articulate myself.
ANH DAO:
I think there are a lot of students in the Worcester public schools with that experience. Like they, they know something about themselves. They, they, they understand it exists as an idea in their head, but they don't really, like, it's not until you give them the vocabulary to kind of process it that they're like, Oh, wait, that's what I've been trying to say. You know?
JOSHUA CROKE:
And how do you find the community in that as well? Like how do you find people with shared experiences that you can share stories with as well?
ANH DAO:
Yeah. And even when like sex and consent this is I think another important thing to talk about because we can have mandatory sex and health. Like I was forced to take the class. It doesn't mean it's always adequate. Right? And I think that really has to go with like, has to do with like vetting our teachers and our staff and making sure we're giving kids quality education.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Totally. Yeah. So how have the conversations gone with the school committee or the superintendent? Have you been able to have sit down conversations, have you not been able to for specific reasons, and I'm seeing the I'm seeing the eyes across the table. So I know that there's a story here.
PHUNG NINH:
I think some school-
ANH DAO:
Shout out to Tracy Novick.
PHUNG NINH:
She's the only one that talks to us. That listens to us.
ANH DAO:
And respects us.
JOSHUA CROKE:
We're going to have Tracy on the show actually.
ANH DAO:
We love her!
PHUNG NINH:
I think a lot of the committee people don't want to listen to us. And you know, what I heard- is when I was, I was doing work, but I heard from some people that, you know, when committee members are At Large, they usually have more resources to run. And so like if we make it district specific, like it means that we might get better representation of the district or whatever Worcester is divided by. And so like for me, I was like, that says so much because all of these people are white and not reflective don't care about us
JOSHUA CROKE:
And only like one or two, maybe, have kids in the public schools.
PHUNG NINH:
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And for listeners out there who are considering, if you have kids or you don't have kids and you are not following the school committee race in your local community, I highly encourage the, like diving into that and doing that research. Because regardless of if you have kids or you never have kids, our public education system is directly related to like the success, equity and like, you know, prosperity of our communities and our spaces like period. End of statement. Moving on.
The other piece too, to your point of district representation for school committee is something that there are advocates for, but again has not moved so far in the conversation because of how systems have been set up and structured, right? It takes, I believe, an act of the city council to change the structure of the school committee. And the city council also can be argued to not be the most representative of the populations of our city. And they might not have an interest in making some of those changes.
And the fact that you have extended invitations and reached out to school committee members as a coalition of collective of students and alumni, and have been denied those conversations, if anyone is listening, who's on the school committee, shame on you. But like, I can't like say and state enough, how much in my own work, I see the voices of youth ignored in conversations that directly affect their lives. And that is unacceptable.
ANH DAO:
There was a video that went viral recently, actually, of a group of students who went to approach Diane Feinstein about signing the Green New Deal. And she's pretty much like, well, I've been doing this for a very long time and if you want to do it your way, maybe you should apply. You should run for Senate. And they're like, we're going to die by that time. Like, it's not, you know, I think and it's also again with the Neo-liberal meritocratic idea ideology I don't think they value these few sources. I don't think that a lot of these administrators think that investing in our schools will make a difference. Like they just, I don't know, because I don't unders- like I, we Worcester Public Schools spends the bare minimum on its education sector, like the bare minimum as required by the state. When you look at the budgets of other of our surrounding towns that don't allocate so much money to police and to, I don't know, whatever else the city allocates money to. But yeah, I, I simply don't know if they've, I don't know if they've done the research. I don't know. I just don't understand. I don't understand because they don't want to put money into our schools. They think they know better. Yeah. Yeah.
JOSHUA CROKE:
And so there, there was a third post that you shared that I want to talk about a little bit, because it does talk about a really significant opportunity for the schools to better address mental health crises. So I invite you to kind of bring voice to that and share some of that story as well.
ANH DAO:
So trigger warning for all of our listeners mental health, self harm suicide; “A girl, the district took her life and we were punished if we were caught talking about it, I was especially frustrated as she was one of my best friends and I needed to find comfort in my friends, but couldn't talking about how it would have been how we healed, but WPS loves just sweep things under the rug and pretend they don't happen. WPS’ mental health, advocacy and outreach do not exist.” This post is so sad to me too, because I know that it's, it was so much more grief than just being, I was particularly upset by this, or I was especially frustrated, you know, like I am so sure that her grief went beyond pure frustration, right? And like that frustration comes with the school board for not giving them a space to talk about it.
ANH DAO:
Person that- I went to a very tiny university, if anyone looks it up, there's like 500 students and a couple of weeks ago one of our like underclassmen passed away very suddenly, very tragically. And you know, it is very important, very important to our entire community, to hold a space for him to have some kind of a wake, to have some kind of a space where we can talk about him and honor his memory. And the fact that this student didn't get it in the public schools. This is tragic. She deserved more, you know, her death should be acknowledged.
PHUNG NINH:
Yeah. I think, I mean, everything Anh said, but I remember, you know, like a suicide happen when I was really young, I was like a freshmen probably. I didn't really know, you know, the person, but it was, you know, this post stood out to me because there are things that the school could have handled very well, but don't, you know, like if you have to inter- like, if you are invested in your students, interpersonally, if you care about the, the way they feel like baseline, like you should have addressed this in a better way, you know? And like, you know, everything Anh said, it's true. Like we need to hold space for people who have left us because, you know, like I remember that incidents, not this one, I don't know which one this is talking about, but you know, that, that person, I remember, like people have saying, like, people were saying that that person was bullied. You know, how do you hold space or something like that? You know, students who, you know, were involved in that, how did they feel? You know, like what kind of feelings that bubbled up when that happened? You know? And, and I think it's hard for everyone when something like this happens. And so not holding space for that just felt so wrong. And it shows that our school, our principals, our, you know, our teachers, they don't really know how to advocate for us on a very human level, you know?
ANH DAO:
Yeah and especially when you think about the silly things that do take time up in the school day, I remember being a student at South High in, on like 911 or Veterans Day or Memorial Day or something;ROTC went out and the band had to play something I think, and they, they put the flag down to half mass and that took like an hour, you know, I just like, you can waste time on something like that, but one of your students passes away by suicide and you, and you punish your students for talking about it. Like that's cruel, you know?
JOSHUA CROKE:
Right. And it, you know, so much of this conversation resonates with a conversation I had with an earlier guest Marielle Novas about the, just the notion of like re-introducing empathy and just human care and consideration and contact as a focus of building,iike, if we want to talk about knowledge building and intelligence, emotional intelligence is such a crucial and critical piece of something that I knew was amiss in my education. I know is a challenge in almost every district, you could point to mental health and, and just society in general mental health. And like these challenges are not addressed and given the space that they, they need to, excuse me. So thinking about like emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence and these conversations that we've had today, what would a school system look like in your minds that would be successful and what would be some of the priorities that you would highlight in a system that you could build from, let's say you could build it from scratc
PHUNG NINH:
I think, I think even in that, that post, that talks about like the, you know, the, the suicide students were asked to police each other, you know, there's a level of surveillance that happened. It's so interpersonally. And like, we start by getting cops out of our school, but it also begins with, you know, learning how to talk to each other, learning how to deal with conflict, like, and, and different ways we learn not to unlearn, right. The policing that we do to each other, whether that is, you know, like say dress code that is part of like, you know, surveillance and policing that, you know, like the thing about, you know, mental health, right? Like situations like that, LGBTQ+, like that all starts with the idea that we, the idea that we, we should be a community of care and not like so much policing.
PHUNG NINH:
And, and, you know, like when these policies are implemented, they really benefit the administrator and the people who want to, you know, have an easier time doing these things, it feels like almost hurting, you know, and it doesn't feel like they want to connect with us. They want to connect with students when I say us. So for me, I think it begins with eliminating different ways. We police each other, you know, and that goes beyond just getting cops out of our school, which is a huge one. And could, you know, leave us a lot of like room to reinvest into other things
ANH DAO:
I think a strong arts program would really enrich the lives of so many students in Worcester. And not just like art class, like I especially cause we're moving into a, we're in a digital world, we're in a multimedia digital world and these students have to kind of have like, they should have those tools. Right. So like more like AV classes, theater things where like people can learn community building and team building skills that aren't based on like pure academic performance. I think that would really enrich the lives of a lot of students in Worcester. And I mean, we're right across the street from the Bridge where the Black Joy art gallery is, and it's a beautiful space. It's like decolonization happening in front of you, you know, the way we're taking back, like these old warehouses or whatever, painting them with art, like art enriches people's lives.
ANH DAO:
And I think that's like the strongest form of community building we can do. And that's, that's what I want our schools to look like, like communities, like I want us to, you know, or if you look at the way that like Montessori Elementary schools work or Waldorf elementary schools work, all the kids, they worked together, they cleaned their classrooms, they could make their lunches, they make their own textbooks. I, yeah, I would just love to see more hands-on learning being implemented. I want to see the arts actually valued because I don't think kids should go to school and just learn about History and Math and English. Right? Like they should learn how to exercise their creative muscles and know that that's like a valid path for them. Like in those, even if it's not career or whatever, like those skills will help them cope with so many things going on, going forward in their lives.
JOSHUA CROKE:
Thank you so much to Anh and Phung for talking with me. You’re rockstars and make me feel less overwhelmed at the future of the country and the planet. You’ve been listening to the Public Hearing Podcast (if you didn’t know already)! If you like the show, let us know — and, like, text it a few friends who care about systems change.
Public Hearing is created and produced by Action! by Design. We are a community design and inclusive innovation studio working on projects like ending the school to prison pipeline and helping companies truly center inclusion, equity, and belonging in their company culture.
You can find our show wherever you listen to podcasts and on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester’s NPR affiliate station. Thank you to the United Way of Central Massachusetts for supporting community conversations through podcasting and radio.
I’m your host, Joshua Croke. Our Creative Producer is Myka Papetti. Our Audio Producer is Giuliano D’Orazio. Original music by Giuliano D’Orazio. Our intern is Ellie Garfield from Clark University.
Want to be on the show? Send us an audio letter to publichearing@actionbydesign.co
Thanks for listening!
