City of Berkeley, UC Berkeley, BUSD to host Black History Month events
Nada Lamie/Staff
Last Updated February 4, 2021
The city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley and Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, have several virtual events planned to celebrate Black History Month, allowing community members to educate themselves on Black history.
Despite the challenges COVID-19 has created for Black History Month programming, campus will host events such as speaker series, film screenings and conversations. Berkeley Unified School District will be teaching students about the Black Lives Matter movement this week.
UC Berkeley’s African American studies department is hosting a “Critical Conversations” speaker series that will celebrate the life of department founder and writer Barbara Christian and explore “abolition democracy.” The African American Student Development, or AASD, office will also moderate a conversation with Me Too movement founder Tarana Burke Thursday.
Then, an idea emerged.
Cagan, who had been apprehensive of attending regular rallies because of the COVID-19 pandemic, proceeded to organize a series of socially distanced vigils to support the Black Lives Matter, or BLM, movement.
“It seemed very clear from the beginning that there were a lot of people who were thinking the same way we were,” Cagan said.
In response to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, among many others, Berkeley residents from every walk of life took action. While some attended vigils, others organized and marched in the streets, calling for an end to police violence.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Black students in Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, continue to be among the most impacted members of the school community.
A Jan. 20 presentation given by BUSD Superintendent Brent Stephens noted several “concerning” trends among students. The data, which showed lowered class attendance and enrollment, signaled “fundamental access problems,” Stephens said.
There was also slowed growth in terms of student performance on Star Assessments, which are tests that evaluate how students perform according to Common Core educational standards. On average, data indicated that Black students’ progress slowed compared to their peers, particularly in math, Stephens added.
Four years of the Trump presidency and the calamity of Covid-19 is driving a political realignment across the United States, and the Golden State is changing too.
This shift, however, doesn’t pit Democrats against Republicans. It’s the grassroots pressure from parents demanding more leadership to open schools that’s forcing side-taking between students and the state’s powerful teacher’s unions.
While Democratic governors unite behind a call for open schools and rising stars like Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimundo boosted their political profile by keeping schools open, Governor Newsom’s late-coming plan to open schools led with a $2 billion package of incentives saying that teachers’ “love of teaching” would send them back into the classroom.