Santa Barbara Unified School Board Addresses Anti-Blackness in Schools and the Boardroom

Last Tuesday’s Santa Barbara Unified School Board meeting had a common thread: Despite what the old schoolyard adage says, words can and do hurt. 

Boardmembers began the meeting by addressing a rise in personal attacks and microaggressions in the boardroom, which tied in with a later report on hateful, biased, and anti-Black language and actions in schools.

The tipping point for the trustees came during public comment at the previous meeting on February 13, following a rally and march for higher teacher wages. Specifically, it was one white PE teacher’s remark toward board president Wendy Sims-Moten: “Did you know we get our hair done by the same person?” 

Although the teacher insisted he meant no disrespect, it struck the wrong note for trustees and community members. 

Trustees labeled such comments as “microaggressions,” as tensions have escalated over salary negotiations between the teachers’ union and the district. 

On Tuesday, February 27, board vice chair Gabe Escobedo opened the meeting by noting the conversation’s “rise in temperature,” reflected in more “disrespectful” and aggressive language used in the boardroom. He called the last meeting a “culmination of all that,” referring to the hair comment directed at Sims-Moten as “anti-Black” and somewhat “menacing.”

Escobedo told the Independent that his intent was not to shame or talk down to anyone, but to use it as “a learning moment.” He emphasized that the board cares about community voices and welcomes critiques, but they expect it to be respectful.

That night, the boardroom was the quietest and emptiest it has been in recent weeks. Representatives from the Santa Barbara Teachers Association said the union is sitting back, to “listen and learn,” with a shared desire to get through negotiations with “humanity and compassion.”

“As a union, we are working to educate our members on how racism manifests in language, behaviors, and aggressions,” said SBTA treasurer York Shingle. “It’s not acceptable.”

Sims-Moten stressed that she did not want things to be about her but about mutual respect.

“What’s even more important is how this district — and that’s each and every one of us — is being viewed,” she said. “When we start to heal, we start with ourselves.”

The discussion prefaced a progress report on addressing hateful, biased, and anti-Black incidents at schools, following the creation of an oversight committee for addressing anti-bias and anti-Blackness in September. 

Leandra Conaway spoke during public comment to emotionally remind the board that students, such as her son, are “still suffering.” She said it feels like “nothing has changed” since she first addressed the board two years ago about racial attacks in schools. 

“Don’t hold our kids back and keep repeating history,” she told the board.

Since the school year began in August, 108 incidents have been reported, most being anti-Black, verbal in nature, and occurring at the junior high level. Comparatively, there were a total of 50 incidents in the district between September 27, 2022 (when the district began tracking racist incidents), and February 28, 2023. 

Anna Pilhoefer, director of student outcomes and school performance, introduced the report by acknowledging the weight of the topic that evening.

She highlighted that staff are learning to help students understand the impact of hateful and biased behavior and connect it to histories of oppression. 

When surveyed, the majority of school staff said they feel at least somewhat prepared to address these incidents on campus, but “there is still much work to be done,” Pilhoefer said. 

One of the many things they are doing right now is working to foster and support student affinity groups and Black Student Unions (BSU) on school campuses. And the students themselves are taking initiative as well.
This year, each of the three high school’s Black Student Unions (BSU) received teen-led Youth Making Change grants from The Fund for Santa Barbara. These students are attending leadership conferences for Black youth and hosting a festival to celebrate Black joy.

At Goleta Valley Junior High, a student leadership team — some of whom had been targets of hateful or biased incidents in the past — is working with their peers to help reform the on-campus culture. Two weeks ago, they did an activity with all students to promote “the power of kindness.”

Goleta Valley Principal Clanci Chiu Merritt mentioned that to “truly interrupt” harmful or racist incidents, “we need it to be called out in every single space on campus.” Therefore, all staff are expected to “name it when they see it.” 

“We want our schools to be free of any type of harmful, biased, racist language,” Chiu Merritt said. “And we don’t have it down, but we come to work every single day and we’re committed to doing it.”