Maya McFadden Photo
Black Lives Matter protest, May 2020.
The Board of Education’s Finance & Operations (F&O) Committee voted unanimously to approve a grant proposal for a series of high school workshops on social justice next school year.
Next the proposal will go to the full Board of Education for final approval.
Finance & Operations Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The proposal, put together by the Citywide Youth Coalition, Black Lives Matter New Haven, and Metropolitan Business Academy teachers Stephen Staysniak and Lauren Strillacci, includes spending $5,000 on faculty and advisor stipends, educational materials, and community partnerships. The application for the grant would go to the William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund.
Read the full proposal here.
The workshops, called “BLM@Metro,” will be for 400 Metropolitan Business Academy students. The participating students will go through workshops led by BLM New Haven co-founder ala ochumare to learn how to plan and organize impactful events. The group will also host a school-wide youth racial justice summit in Spring 2022 with local artists, business owners, and community leaders of color.
The workshop proposal passed the committee unanimously at Tuesday’s F&O Committee meeting with no discussion about the workshop proposal. Committee members Matt Wilcox and Larry Conaway also voted to pass two additional special fund proposals, 29 agreements, 15 contracts, and one purchase order.
Black Lives Matter Protest June 2020.
The workshop proposal states: “The goals of this grant is to center and amplify youth voice on the issue of racial justice by providing students with the training, tools, and support needed to go about organizing themselves, planning impactful events, and engaging in change in their community.”
During the school year the group will meet twice a month, once for live speaker events and training workshops and the second time for planning school-wide or community activities.
The proposal grows out of the formation of a BLM@Metro student group that started at the school this past January.
“With a predominantly white staff at Metro, and frankly across the district, we believe it is important to develop this relationship with Black Lives Matter New Haven and Ala Ochumare, who represents a movement that is led by and stands for people of color,” the group writes in the application.