Black Lives Matter

To our friends and community,

One month ago today, George Floyd was killed in the custody of police. One month ago today, organizers around the world began advocating for racial justice through protesting. One month ago today, glaring systemic equities could no longer be ignored. One month ago today, our organization was also forced to deepen our examination on the ways we have upheld or perpetuated white supremacy culture.

To remain silent about racism is to be complicit. The Teachers Guild, School Retool and IDEO stand on the side of justice. Black Lives Matter. Period.

We have been grappling with why it has taken the murders of so many Black people to awaken our moral courage and inspire action. We do not have a good answer, but we do know, as white leaders of our organizations, that we have been part of this problem. We understand that both design and education are fraught with white supremacy and predominantly controlled by white leaders. We cannot allow this to be an excuse for our own shortcomings.

To the Black members of our community, we apologize for any exclusion, silence, bias, tokenism, and racism you may have experienced as part of our partnership. By doing so, we have created harmful experiences for you. We take full responsibility and we have work to do.

IDEO has already publicly expressed commitments to centering equity and racial justice across the company and its community. We will help fulfill these commitments.

In education, over-policing and racial injustices against the Black community are rooted in our schools; Black students are disproportionately disciplined and 1.6 million students attend schools with police but no counselor. While The Teachers Guild and School Retool will continue to reimagine a more equitable future for our schools and communities, we will also reflect on our own organizational future and role in dismantling racism. Here’s how we will begin:

• Our team will hold listening circles this summer to hear about your experience in our community, and invite feedback about how we might become a more racially just organization. Sign up here to join, or fill out this form to share your feedback. We will share back what we heard, as well as the steps we will continue taking toward becoming an anti-racist organization.
• We will highlight Black-led organizations doing work to advance racial justice in schools. We will begin by passing the mic to a team of educators — Tiffanie Harrison from Round Rock, TX; Paula Mitchell from Oakland, CA; Rachel Siegel from Cleveland, OH; and Paul Kim from San Antonio, TX. They are teaching us about the history of slavery and domestic terrorism against the Black community through their new Radical Equity Reparations Fund. And they are inviting all of us to invest in Black communities.

As always, we are listening and learning ourselves, and you have our sincerest commitment that we will examine our practices, take ownership, and do better. This is hard and ongoing work, but we will come together as a community to condemn racism and design a more racially just education system.

With humility,

Molly McMahon, Program Director of The Teachers Guild & School Retool

Larry Corio, Program Lead of The Teachers Guild & School Retool

Gaynor Brown, Operation Specialist of The Teachers Guild & School Retool

Annette Diefenthaler, Senior Director at IDEO, and co-author of the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit

Heather Emerson, Managing Director of IDEO’s Design for Learning Practice