Dear GPA Students, Staff and Families,
We are all together facing challenges this year like none others in our lives. Let’s be plain about our circumstances.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives and we are still responding and adjusting to its implications. We’ve seen loved ones, friends, and neighbors sickened, and dying. Our economy has suffered, tens of millions are unemployed, and families and whole communities have been left hungry.
On top of all this, last week we watched as yet another unarmed Black man was killed, murdered by law enforcement officers entrusted to protect, in front of our very eyes. George Floyd’s death is another in a too-long chain of precious lives lost in a country that values the lives of people of color less.
The wounds of racial injustice are exposed. People are angry today for many reasons, but our Black friends and families have more reason than most. The past weeks’ events of violence and protests are plain evidence that we have yet to meaningfully address the systemic racism that exists in our country.
57 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King told us in his speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of G-d’s children. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
We must all continue to support and reinforce voices of peaceful protest, voices of healing and love, but most of all, voices of righteous change.
At GPA, the work we do every day with our students and staff — teaching and living our core values of respect, accountability, self-direction, responsibility, and perseverance — are developing the pro-social, relational and positive interpersonal skills we all need to BE the change in our own and the wider world. Our work together and these shared teachings are more important today than ever.
GPA social workers and counseling staff are available for our students and staff to share their feelings and lived experiences in light of recent events. I encourage all to reach out and seek the connections and assistance you may need.
In his last Sunday sermon Dr. King warned us that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends towards justice.
We will not tolerate racism. We stand proudly with our students and staff to continue the peaceful struggle for equality, and the creation of a world not just absent racial tension, but of real justice for all.
Sincerely,
Dr. Steven Morse, Executive Director/Superintendent
Garfield Park Academy
