Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee - Home

PADC Fall 2019 Happy Hour 10/18 @ 6-8:30 PM

10/6/2019

You are invited to the annual PADC Fall Happy Hour!
Friday, October 18th from 6:00-8:30 PM at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack
4006 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland

Come meet PADC leaders and members, neighbors, and friends to hear about what we do in the community and for our schools. Wine and snacks will be provided. Let us know if you’ll be attending this free community event with this RSVP link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/padc-fall-2019-happy-hour-1018…

Share with friends and family-the more the merrier! Hope to see you there!

"Chinatown Rising" documentary screening on 9/26 @ the Piedmont Theater @ 7 pm

9/24/2019

Chinatown Rising is a documentary film about the Asian-American Movement from the perspective of the young residents on the front lines of their historic neighborhood in transition. Through publicly challenging the conservative views of their elders, their demonstrations and protests of the 1960's-1980's rattled the once quiet streets during the community's shift in power. Forty-five years later, in intimate interviews these activists recall their roles and experiences in response to the need for social change.

Chinatown Rising is playing at the Piedmont Theater Thursday, September 26th at 7:00 p.m. Tickets and details can be found at: chinatownrising.com/screenings. The screening follows with a Q and A session with Co-Directors/Co-Producers Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck.

PADC grants call for 2019-2020 proposals!

9/1/2019

PADC 2018-2019 grant recipients

5/22/2019

Congratulations to the following PADC 2018-2019 grant recipients!

Each year, we award grants to teachers, staff, and high school students of the Piedmont Unified School District for projects that advance the mission of the PADC. In 2018-19, PADC awarded over $ 7,700 in grants from money that was generated through fundraising and generous donations from community supporters. These are the projects and events that received funding this year:

Teaching Tolerance Elementary Tri-School
Updating Wildwood Kindergarten Classroom Libraries for Diversity and Inclusion
Unity in Community Festival
'We Are Piedmont'- 4th year. MHS/PHS AP Art & Piedmont City Photography Project
MHS and PHS Diversity Awareness Club
Secondary School Diversity Committee Work
PMS Diversity Day
PHS and MHS Voice Cooperative
Havens Black History Month Assembly
PHS Magic Wheelchair
2019 Readmont- One City, One Book- community wide reading and sharing of "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
Axis Dance at Beach Elementary

We encourage innovative approaches that engage students in interactive projects and welcome projects with the potential for long-term impact on large segments of students and our community. We also invite high school students to work jointly with teachers and administrative staff for submitting grant applications. Those interested in applying should complete the application form online at the link below, or submit a pdf version of your application to the grants coordinator at grants@padc.info

Letter regarding updated Tobacco Cessation Grant

5/7/2019

May 7, 2019

Dear Police Chief Bowers, Superintendent Booker, and members of the School Board and City Council,

A number of PADC representatives were able to attend the school board/city council meeting on April 22nd where the updated Tobacco Cessation Grant was presented. We feel that there are several aspects to this modified grant that more fully incorporate the concerns expressed by many members of the Piedmont community. Specifically, the updated grant application now includes:

A more focused approach to problems facing our students around vaping and tobacco use, especially the hiring of health education consultants/experts
The move to have the liaison officer as a point person offsite, rather than located at the schools
More clearly defined restorative justice training in the schools
More clearly defined targets found in the Healthy Students Survey.

In terms of next steps, several community members (including some PADC members) have indicated that they would appreciate being a part of the implementation/evaluation of the program, and thus we are requesting that community members be an active part of this process. The community’s interest and deep concern around this program should be addressed by providing some clear and concrete mechanism for community oversight and feedback over the 3 years of the grant, providing necessary transparency.

Overall, we appreciate that the School Board considered the concerns of the community, and that Chief Bowers and Superintendent Booker worked to incorporate these concerns into a plan that is more likely to achieve intended outcomes. We look forward to continuing to partner with the city and the schools to make sure our schools and community provide a safe and inclusive environment and a transparent process.

David Gard PADC Co-President
Tonda Case PADC Co-President
PADC Executive Board

UPDATE: Event cancelled due to extenuating circumstances- Free Unity in Community Festival on 5/5 @ 12-2:30 pm @ Havens Field

4/11/2019

The Millennium and Piedmont High schools, in partnership with PADC, are pleased to present the Unity in Community Festival on Sunday, May 5, from 12-2:30 pm at Havens Field. This student led event, which promotes empathy and inclusiveness, includes interactive booths and performers. Come join the fun!

Piedmont League of Women Voters sponsors a Speaker Event with Sr. Maureen Duignan on US Immigration Policy - April 7th @ 3:30-5:30 pm

4/4/2019

US Immigration Policy -
Speaker Event with Sr. Maureen Duignan

Join us to hear Sr. Maureen Duignan, Executive Director of East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, speak about US immigration policy and its effect on immigrants and refugees in the Bay Area.
Founded in 1982, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant is dedicated to offering sanctuary, solidarity, support, community organizing assistance, advocacy, and legal services to those escaping war, terror, political persecution, intolerance, exploitation, and other expressions of violence. The organization has helped more than 10,000 local immigrants navigate the legal system. Currently, the organization is deeply involved in advocating for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Date: Sunday, April 7th, 2019
Time: 3:30 – 5:30 p.m
Location: 40 Highland Avenue, Piedmont

This event is sponsored by the Piedmont League of Women Voters and is free of charge to the greater community.

Click on the following link to RSVP:
https://my.lwv.org/california/piedmont/event/us-immigration-policy-speaker-event-sr-maureen-duignan

PADC OpEd Letter to The Post sent on February 11, 2019 regarding the potential School Resource Officer Position

2/13/2019

The Piedmont Police Department received a three-year grant from the U.S. DOJ intended for tobacco prevention. Now, the PPD is jointly taking steps with Piedmont Unified to use these funds to hire an armed police officer for the secondary schools. While vaping, drug, and alcohol prevention and outreach is needed, we believe installing an armed officer is the wrong way to address these problems.

Despite the horrifying fact of school shootings, children are safer in school than in almost any other place. While armed officers may create the appearance of safety, an implicit goal of the program, the research is mixed. The Washington Post’s “Putting More Cops in Schools Won't Make Schools Safer, and It Will Likely Inflict a Lot of Harm” (February 2018) and other published reports/articles make this clear.

Having an armed school officer can lead to unintended consequences including increased arrests for behavior ordinarily not considered criminal. Data shows this is especially true for children of color, with learning disabilities and/or special needs. Campus police can also undermine trust, negatively affect school culture and can lead to physical harm, such as in the 2016 Nevada case where a 14-year-old was shot after defending himself against upperclassmen. As a forward-thinking district, is criminalizing and potentially harming our children the best we can offer them?

A better way to preserve student safety is for community stakeholders (parents, students, and staff) to work together to build a positive school climate that “minimizes police intervention and emphasizes positive, preventive approaches,” as the Children’s Defense Fund recommends. By opposing a campus cop, we have an opportunity to create an inclusive and supportive approach so all students feel welcome and safe on campus, not policed.

And what about after the funds are gone in three years? How will the District explain away the need for an armed officer, whether for drug prevention or for safety? In light of the coming budget cuts, what are the District’s plans to pay for this added personnel if the officer is still needed at that time?

The School Board and City Council asks for community input before they vote on this proposal. You can find information at www.padc.info and sign a petition. More importantly, email Board & Council members and come to the Board meeting on Wednesday February 27th at 7PM, when the matter is slated to be discussed.

Sincerely,

Tonda Case and David Gard, Co-Presidents,
PADC and the PADC Executive Board

School Resource Officer Implementation-Letter to the PUSD School Board and Piedmont City Council sent on January 6, 2019

1/9/2019

Dear School Board members, City Council members, Police Chief Bowers, and Superintendent Booker,

The Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee (PADC) has been following the proposal for a School Resource Officer (SRO) with a great deal of attention and interest. We have researched the possible impact of an SRO on our schools and community, now that Piedmont has been awarded a CA Department of Justice Tobacco Grant for this purpose. Some of our members have pulled together various evidence-based articles regarding School Resource Officer implementation, and we wanted to share those articles and our concerns with you. Here is a link with those resources.

The Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee is proud of its collaboration with the school district and the City of Piedmont to ensure that our schools provide a safe, nurturing and inclusive environment for all students and staff and our City is viewed as a model of inclusion in all its practices, including policing. We appreciate the school and City’s efforts to ensure safety for all our community members and the strides our community has made in equitable and impartial policing. Based on the research shared here, we a have serious questions whether installing a School Resource Officer is the ideal solution for our community at this time. We have a number of specific concerns that are highlighted in these articles, but two of the main concerns are listed here, followed by suggestions for a more effective and transparent public engagement/outreach plan.

1) It is not clear that inserting police officers into schools is a good way to improve school safety or that our schools will benefit by having one. What danger is an SRO intended to prevent? Statistically, the odds of a given child getting killed in a mass school shooting — or any school shooting — are less than 1 in a million. On the other hand, arrest rates for disorderly conduct and low-level assault substantially increase when SROs are assigned to schools. In addition, studies indicate that the presence of SROs leads school administrators to defer to the police on issues of appropriate punishment, and increases the number of students involved in the justice system.

The staff report that accompanies the City Council agenda item suggests a strong and thriving partnership between the schools and police department. We also recognize the physical proximity of the Police Department to the Middle and High Schools’ campus. Given this strong and close partnership, it is not clear why Piedmont in particular needs a law enforcement officer, who will likely carry a firearm, to be on campus.

2) The data indicates a differential impact of SROs on students of color and other minorities, which has a negative impact on us all. For example, an analysis by the Austin-based public-interest law center Texas Appleseed found that police officers assigned to McKinney, Texas schools had arrested and ticketed black students at an “extremely high and unequal” rate. And SROs' presence in the schools led to an increase in the citation of black students, and a decrease in the citation of white students. Given our schools recent work to increase inclusiveness and diversity we are very concerned that this could have the effect of undoing that work, and inadvertently creating more problems within the schools - especially for students of color. Given the reality of implicit bias, even a well-intentioned SRO is likely to over identify students of color for disciplinary issues.

Our suggestion: Increase Public Engagement/Outreach Processes to determine if an SRO is necessary.

It is not clear how and why the decision was made to explore an SRO position through the CA DOJ Tobacco Grant Program in the first place. It seems that neither the school board nor the city council voted to make this a strategic priority, and there has been no public discussion about the issue beyond one school board meeting when the issue was introduced (to a limited audience). We applaud the city and school district for undertaking a public engagement/outreach plan to “provide an overview of a Piedmont specific SRO program, answer questions and seek feedback” and strongly encourage this in order to get input. Ideally, this would go beyond the small proportion of stakeholders who are able to attend in person meetings or feel comfortable voicing their concerns over this complex issue in a public setting. To ensure an effective and transparent public engagement/outreach effort we recommend that the school district follow processes it has used in the recent past including:

In addition to scheduled meetings seeking community input, conduct a brief online survey to elicit input from a broader group of students, staff and parents than are likely to attend in person meetings.
Consider convening a time-bound taskforce of students, staff, parents, school board members, police department and city leaders to determine (a) IF an SRO program is what our community needs; (b) identify lessons from the implementation of SRO programs in similar districts; and make recommendations on IF and how Piedmont should move forward with implementing the California Department of Justice Tobacco Grant.

While we understand and agree that building a positive school culture is crucial, given the research to date, we do not believe that an SRO is the best method of achieving this in our schools. There are numerous paths forward that could be more effective in this regard,we believe, including the district’s recent commitment to restorative justice practices in the schools and offering enhanced student counseling services and groups that serve to educate and support everyone. Furthermore, we are concerned that the implementation of an SRO could have unintended negative consequences on all our students, especially students of color and contribute to perpetuating systems of privilege and oppression,the exact opposite of what is ideal to model for the next generation.

We are looking forward to meeting with Chief Bowers & Superintendent Booker at our January 10th meeting, including a discussion of these concerns and of the key motivations and goals around the possible implementation of an SRO. All are welcome to join this meeting.

Thank you all in advance for considering these resources.

Best regards,

David Gard - Co-president PADC
Tonda Case - Co-president PADC
PADC Executive Board

"100 Years-One Woman’s Fight for Justice" to screen on 1/24 and 1/27

1/8/2019

IN PIEDMONT Thursday, January 24, 2019
@ Ellen Driscoll Playhouse / 325 Highland Ave / Piedmont
6:30 PM Doors Open, Reception
7 – 8:30 PM Screening
IN OAKLAND Sunday, January 27, 2019
@ The New Parkway Theater / 474 24th Street / Oakland
12:30 PM Screening

Presented by the Appreciating Diversity Film Series, proudly celebrating 20 years of top-quality, diversity-related documentaries.