How to change the culture around race in our schools was the topic at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The Chapel Hill – Carrboro City School Board met to hear a presentation from the Campaign for Racial Equality in Chapel Hill – Carrboro Schools, a group made up of parents, teachers, administrators and other members of the community.

The campaign passionately presented an overview of their 88 page report analyzing inequality in the school system.

Their report was based on data from the school system about student achievement with the purpose to see why, overall, African – American and Latino students do not do as well as white students.

In Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, black students make up just 11 percent of total enrollment, but account for 39 percent of all out-of-school suspensions and 41 percent of in-school suspensions. Latino students are 14 percent of the school population but make up between 19 and 22 percent of suspensions.

“The primary objective of this group is not to say there is a problem but to work with the district to achieve result to the problem,” said Greg McElveen who spoke for the campaign for racial equality.

But he said previous efforts haven’t been enough. The coalition cited the growing achievement gap between white students and students of color as evidence that the systems previous initiatives to improve equality have not worked.

“We were a bit surprised but we might know the reason that the gap hasn’t been reducing but increasing,” said McElveen.

The most important aspect to making our schools more equal, said Wanda Hunter, is changing the culture in our schools.

“When our children come to school and they see that it’s all white kids in this class and all kids of color in this class, they’re already getting some messages that we aren’t even meaning to teach them but you know we are creating that culture,” said Hunter.

Changing the culture is a lot more difficult to do than simply changing staff or sending administrators to half-day seminars on racial equality said Hunter. But both the campaign and members of the school board, like Rani Dasi, recognized the work it will take.

“Everyone needs to commit that this work is so important that we will not leave because of hurt feelings, we will not leave because of disagreements. We will continue to focus on the outcome which is making a better outcome for our children,” said Dasi.

Much of the group’s presentation tried to identify in what ways race is creating an unequal environment for students. They also voiced their desire to be involved in a long term process with the school board.

But they did propose an immediate suggestion, a online database or “dashboard” that would measure progress towards racial equity. Some of the board members, like Andrew Davidson, took interest in this idea.

“If we can be honest and take a fresh look, what works? What doesn’t? Obviously we want to put our eggs in the basket of what does work,” said Davidson.

How exactly they would track their progress isn’t clear. But the coalition emphasized that it will take more than a few workshops to change racial attitudes.

“Changing culture is not a check-off in a box, saying I’ve attended. It is an immersion of reflection, critical analysis and repetitiveness around new information,” said Stephanie Perry, a member of the campaign.

The coalition’s proposals were far reaching and as they stressed, are efforts that really need to last a lifetime. But Perry said that the solution to solving the problem begins with something simple.

“I think that we begin with dialogue. The revolution is dialogue, it is real communication,” said Perry.

The School Board seemed eager to go forward and begin work on this issue but it remains to be seen whether efforts will be successful in making the public school experience equal for all kids, regardless of race.