Our shared values
EDITOR: We know Healdsburg to be a welcoming, inclusive community, so we were concerned to learn that our public elementary school classrooms have become so divided.
State statistics show that the traditional school in Healdsburg is now almost entirely Latino while the more diverse charter school is still disproportionately white.
Since finding this out, we’ve been reading up on the issue, speaking with our friends and attending school board meetings, and we’re happy to see that the Healdsburg Unified School District and Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel are ready to address the inequities that have developed in our schools with an equity task force and help from the Oakland-based National Equity Project.
The numbers are worrying, but we’re writing today to remind readers of the simple but powerful fact that each one of those kids in either school is an individual, full of potential.
Regardless of their first language or their parents’ education, each child should have an equal shot at achieving their academic and life goals. Growing up in a town where even the kids refer to the charter school as the “American” school, as the superintendent has acknowledged, will shape those goals and their self-perception.
We feel loved and supported in our town as LGBTQ+ and Latino business owners. We hope that our friends in the community can take the time to imagine that each elementary school student is a little Ozzy or a little Christian, who might one day dream of owning multiple businesses, encouraging others to follow their own dreams.
We should be investing in all of Healdsburg’s children and making sure they all have equal access to an excellent public education so they can achieve their dreams, just as we have.
We attended school at Foss Creek in Healdsburg and Monroe Elementary in Santa Rosa and we’ve seen inequities growing up. It’s important to recognize that we have some way to go, but we will get there.
We are excited that the National Equity Project is starting with “listening sessions” so they can really hear what our community is experiencing. We’re grateful to The Equity Initiative here in town for making public an issue that people had whispered about for years.
And we hope that everyone involved will hold the district to its word to undo the practices that have been done in the past. We are moving in the right direction, but there is a lot of work to do.
Ozzy Jimenez and Christian Sullberg
Healdsburg
