A Promise Made
By James Arey
Editor’s note: In October 2019, the AFT sent 15 members to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala., on a professional development field trip to inform educators of the legacy of racism in this country — from slavery to Jim Crow and over-incarceration — and help them integrate that knowledge into classrooms. Several participants wrote about the impact of the trip and how they’ll use what they learned to make their schools safer and more welcoming for all students.
My trip to the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a whirlwind, two-day experience, had an enormous impact on me both personally and as an educator. One of my most significant revelations was the urgency of the work that must be done to both support young people who have been harmed by oppressive systems, as well as dismantle the institutionalized systems that continue to promote oppressive conditions, many of which my own students experience.
The community I have worked in for the past 29 years — Elk Grove Village in Illinois — is known as “the Exceptional Community.” And it truly is. From the largest business park in the United States to the public servants who epitomize the words “servant leadership,” it is a model for others to emulate. The community has embraced the concept of community schools and has provided the students I serve with educational opportunities in the form of experiential learning, internships and field experiences.
Economically, the community provides a tax base that helps support one of the largest student-serving districts in the state. The challenge is that my school’s boundaries straddle multiple localities, ranging from the highest of socio-economic strata to an unincorporated area that houses four low-income trailer park communities. The more than 500 students living in that particular area are 92 percent Latino and do not have access to library services — unlike their neighbors, who live in an incorporated area, they are required to pay $200 for a library card, a prohibitive amount for many families.
The students living in that area are 92 percent Latino and do not have access to library services — they are required to pay $200 for a library card, a prohibitive amount for many families.
While the lack of access to services is not commensurate with the horror of lynching or discriminatory incarceration memorialized by the Legacy Museum, there is a common denominator in a system that treats one group differently from another. In the case of my community, this manifests itself in denial of access to library services to a group of students residing in decidedly lower income housing, while affording those in more affluent areas access that exceeds their need.
In the past 20 years, community leaders have tried to address the lack of library access with various proposals, but none of them have worked.
Last year, students in our Sophomore Leadership Cohort (SLC) decided they would join me and try to resolve this multidimensional issue. Inspired by the example set by the Legacy Museum, we are pursuing a variety of avenues, including an intergovernmental exchange, as well as working with our state senator to supply the students residing in this underserved community access to this crucial service.
In addition, I promised that the Northwest Suburban Teachers Union, AFT Local 1211 and the 2,000 education staff personnel it represents would join forces in helping the SLC achieve its goal. Together, we will make access to the library a right for all of our district’s students, regardless of their address, their economic status or their ethnicity. We would fulfill their right to the resources and tools necessary to succeed in the classroom, community and the world beyond.
Together, we will make access to the library a right for all of our district’s students regardless of their address, their economic status or their ethnicity.
This promise became even more personal after my experience at the Legacy Museum, where I spent time in a space dedicated to reflection. Adorning three of the walls are the faces of people who throughout history have achieved major victories in the ongoing fight for equality. On the back wall of this space live the immortal words of Mary McLeod Bethune, “If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.”
I turned back to the faces on the wall and recommitted that, in my own way, I would take her words and put them into action today. I would live the mission of the AFT — to fight, to care, to show up. With the support of the Northwest Suburban Teachers Union, my dedicated students and committed colleagues, we can open the door literally and figuratively for those challenged students — and turn the promise made decades ago into a reality now. It’s a promise I made in May and it’s a promise I plan to fulfill in the new decade.
James Arey is a high school social science teacher and vice president of the District 214 Education Association of Local 1211 in Elk Grove Village, Ill. He co-created and oversees a community-based learning program for at-risk students. Want to read more stories like this? Subscribe to AFT e-newsletters.
