First-person essay by Amber Thompson
If COVID-19 was a nuclear blast for Pittsburgh Public Schools, it’s hard to find a metaphor to explain what COVID-19 is like for my family. It’s hard to find the words to explain this to White folks who are using apocalyptic language. For my family, we’ve been living here for years. As a Black mom raising a daughter with a disability, I’ve seen first hand how the inequities in our public school system are a matter of life or death.
When my daughter, who has a seizure disorder, was approaching kindergarten, we looked at our options. Private schools were out of the question because they don’t have to fulfill the requirements of an individualized education plan. We ruled out charter schools because we didn’t believe they would offer the type of supports my daughter needs. I’m a big supporter of public schools, but Pittsburgh Public Schools was not a choice — it was our only option.
We had some difficult first years, but with support and some caring staff, my daughter now looks forward to her schoolwork. Still, she’s in fourth grade, and she can’t read. According to research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, children who can’t read on grade level by third grade are highly likely to be poor readers in high school, less likely to graduate, and more likely to have negative life outcomes. At times, it has felt like an uphill battle to just convince the education system what she’s capable of, and the more time goes on, the wider the gap gets between her and her peers.
My story is, unfortunately, not unique. In Pittsburgh Public Schools, fewer than four out of ten Black third graders were proficient in reading, compared to seven out of ten white third graders. Consistent with national trends, Black students this school year had suspension rates four times higher than their white peers. While the school-to-prison pipeline is a national problem, Pittsburgh is particularly bad: Black girls like my daughter are referred to police more often than 99% of similar cities, according to last year’s report on Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race.
For families like mine, disparities in education were present before COVID-19, and the district’s response to the pandemic feels less like a huge departure from how things used to be. It’s one more challenge for the district to overcome.
Sitting outside their home in Lawrenceville, Amber Thompson, 34, helps her daughter Audri Young, 9, with school work. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:
Black moms like me will not be patient with Pittsburgh Public Schools. We need to demand more.
About Post Author
