As a coalition of numerous organizations from across New York City, RJPS stands in solidarity with Black people and elevates the plethora of Black education activists and advocates from within and outside of our collective. Unfortunately, the sentiments expressed at the CEC meeting on February 10th, 2026 is part of a long, pernicious history of anti-Black statements and actions against Black students, families, and communities in New York City and beyond. We amplify the efforts of the various Black-led member organizations, including PSPNY and Black-led CECs across the city, and organizers to rectify past and current harms within the district and co-sign the political and structural changes to uproot anti-Black racism from classrooms to central offices and all points in between.

We appreciate both Chancellor Kamar Samuels’ and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recognition of the role that Black New Yorkers have played in the story we tell about the city, and now we must take this sentiment many steps further. The RJPS roadmap is not possible without the historical and social imprint Black students, families, educators, and community members left across the city and state, many of whom are still alive to tell the story. As such, our attention to integration as a form of collective power sharing, anti-bias and restorative justice training for adults, and codes of conduct and preventative systems in our educational operations show clearly our intention for a truly public education for all of our children, particularly those most marginalized by anti-Blackness.

Lastly, we noted how one of the sentiments expressed mis-sampled Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro. We wish to revisit Woodson’s prompt through his seminal book The Mis-education of the Negro as a critical backbone towards our aspiration for a culturally responsive sustaining education for all of our children. Initiatives to implement Black Studies pairs well with CRSE because the former attends to how we see ourselves and the latter helps us see each other. This thesis as theorized by Natasha Capers, Zakiya Shaakir-Ansari, and so many others, was the prompt to pass a grassroots-informed definition of CRSE in 2019. If our world had adopted this framework for every child and adult, we would more readily eradicate racism in our efforts towards democracy, dignity, and empathy in our public schools and the city as well.