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Monday, January 4, 2010

White Community at TLC

Question: Has anyone considered the possibility that calling one of the newly-formed teams at The Learning Community "The White Community" could be misconstrued or offensive to some? Recent public postings include "A performance presented by the White Community" and "White lunch line." I understand the idea behind it, but think a more appropriate choice could be made.

Answer: When the concept of small communities was discussed by the TLC Task Force last spring, the idea of having students name the communities was proposed. Because our timeframe was short, we decided at that point to go with the school's (and country's) colors of red, white and blue. At some point during this school year, we will re-open this dialogue with the teachers and Task Force to discuss the pros and cons of our community names.
- answered by Terry LaFountain, The Learning Community Principal

5 comments:

  1. Can't it just be called "team" instead of "community"? I.e., "presented by the White Team", "white team lunch line", etc. Doesn't seem like a whole task force is needed to evaluate it.

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  2. A special request:
    Please make Broadalbin-Perth someplace where people are not hyper-sensitive about race. Does any serious person really think that calling it the White Community (or team) is racist?

    Even having the conversation lowers us all.

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  3. I don't think you need to be hyper-sensitive about race to say "white community" just doesn't sound appropriate. I have to agree that when I saw the sign for "white lunch line" I was a little taken back by it, "no" that is not what it means, but it is a little weird to see and when something says "presented by the white community" that also sounds weird. I don't think you have to be racist to point this out. I like "team" better.

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  4. I really think there are bigger fish to fry in our district right now. You want "team" start being a part of one and not picking at every little thing. I could see if the communities were white, black, and brown..for goodness sake they are not only school colors but the colors of our nation. Even if they had been "team" you would have complained! Let's work together on the items that REALLY matter!!!

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  5. Did the person submitting the question say racist? I don't think so. As a school community we need to be aware of the message we send and ALL the possible interpretations. BP has a reputation of putting out a positive image for all. Let's continue to do that. Regardless of what the teams are called, we are fostering a sense of belonging in our children.

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