IDEAS, a partner of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, has been providing professional learning opportunities for educational institutions and other organizations for more than thirty years. We offer a variety of services, including graduate-level courses and focused seminars, that help your community develop anti-racist practices that collectively work to dismantle systems of oppression. Wherever your organization is in its journey toward true equity, IDEAS can support you!
Acknowledging Tribal Land
We acknowledge the indigenous people who first occupied all of what is now called North & South America. Some still live on their original land, some were relocated, some were enslaved across the ocean, and many, if not all, were victims of genocide.
Curious about tribal land acknowledgments? Learn more here.
Statement on Protests Against Racial Injustice
June 2020
In the face of nationwide pain and protest, we, the white Instructors of IDEAS (Initiatives for Developing Equity and Achievement for Students) stand with our Black and Brown colleagues to assert that Black Lives Matter.
The murders of Black people at the hands of police is a reprehensible pattern of violence that has gone on for far too long. The recent murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, David McAtee and others must mark the end of all police killings of unarmed Black citizens. The names of murdered, unarmed Black citizens appear weekly: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice. And the list goes on and on.
As white people, we acknowledge our role in sustaining white supremacy and pledge to redouble our efforts as active antiracists to dismantle systemic racism wherever it exists. We invite other white people to join us, to speak out and to commit to using our power, privilege, and voices to pull racist systems up by their roots. For those of us who work in school systems, we pledge to hold our School Committees, our Superintendents and our Administrative decision makers accountable for addressing inequities in discipline, for transforming curriculum and for ensuring that all of our students receive the support and resources to succeed academically. We call on our colleagues in education to do the same. Though systemic racism diminishes us all, it is a daily burden and, all too often, a matter of life and death for Black and Brown people.
We cannot let this moment pass.
“History is calling the future from the streets of protest. What choice will we make? What world will we create? What will we be? There are only two choices: racist or antiracist.” (Ibram X. Kendi)
