Event screens documentary on disparities black girls face in school

ELYRIA — Local black women and community leaders confronted biases against young black girls in school with a screening of "PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools." On Saturday, the Oberlin, Lorain and Elyria NAACP units, the Lorain County Alumna Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and Lorain County Community College partnered to show the feature-length documentary about societal and judical disparities facing black girls, like disproportionate punishments to black girls in schools compared with others. The film touched on the importance of making sure young black women are heard and cared for in schools, and how educators can help to de-escalate situations and recognize how trauma is often a part of behavior in schools. The name for the film, PUSHOUT, plays on how black girls are pushed out of the education system. After the documentary screening, a panel of local experts spoke on the topic of the treatment of black girls in school. Meryl Johnson, a member of the state school board, said it's conversations like the film had that shows the importance of implicit bias training for educators. "It's so important because we all have biases and so many of us have biases that we're not aware of," Johnson said. "It really affects how we treat our students, and it especially affects expectations that we have for our students." Trauma also was a topic often touched on in the film, and the different types of trauma black girls go through in their lives. Johnson spoke about the necessity for trauma-informed training for educators, as she said that the environment changed in her classroom when she taught in schools. She said the training helps teachers recognize that students aren't angry at the teacher, but angry about what is happening or has happened in their life. "The number one thing most students want to feel in the classroom is safe," Johnson said. "And so many that are experiencing trauma, they never feel safe. And so they're always in what's called panic mode." Stephanie Alexander-Johnson, principal at Hawthorne Elementary in Lorain, said that's one issue she wants schools to focus on more. "I would definitely look at the trauma," Alexander-Johnson said. "I would tackle the trauma. We spend money for stadiums and for everything else. But when it comes down to our young ladies, our babies, we don't have money for that." In Pennsylvania, the state passed a senate bill that requires every teacher in the state to get trauma-informed training. Johnson said she's working to get that passed in Ohio as well. Counselor Dr. Marva Jones said it's important to hear students out and de-escalate situations with students. If a student is yelling or acting out, Jones said it's important for teachers to remain calm and keep their voices even. "You hear the angry black girl, right?" Jones asked. "But that angry black girl is usually hurting. There's always some underlying issue. I'm acting angry because I'm hurt, because I'm disappointed, because I feel disrespected. There are number of underlying emotions that go along with that anger. But that anger is safe. Because if I can act angry, then I can keep people at bay." From the criminal justice perspective, PUSHOUT also touched on the many young black girls who are often incarcerated and placed in detention centers for being what schools call "disruptive." Charlita Anderson-White, a magistrate at Lorain County Juvenile Justice, said they have services in place to help kids, but it's often a question of whether they want to move the kids through the criminal justice system and press charges, or let them fix it outside of the criminal justice system. Anderson-White also said the Lorain County courts have lowered the number of children that get detained and the number of reasons they get detained. They no longer detain a child for being unruly or being truant. The boys detention home is not full and they don't have a girls detention home. Instead, the courts will assess the child. "We can make sure that we don't traumatize them further and we can access community resources and give their parent's information and give those children a sense of safety," Anderson-White said. "... If you get to me, I'm going to tell you I love you. I'm going to give you something. I've got something in my drawer for you. We're trying. We're learning; we're growing as a system." As the panelists and audience members spoke about the need for social workers or therapists in schools, they also said it was equally important to have teachers, social workers and other employees in the school to look like black girls. Four percent of the teachers in Ohio are people of color. Among those who attended the event was a group from Sandusky Schools. They got funding Gov. Mike DeWine established called student wellness and success. The funding helped Sandusky establish a wellness program. One of the employees, called a wellness coach, attended the event with some of the students she's helped. There are five wellness coaches placed in Sandusky Schools. Four are black men and one is a black woman. The wellness coach for the schools said suspensions have gone down about 80 percent in her building. All school districts in Lorain County also received the student wellness and success funding. At the end of the documentary, each expert interviewed repeated a similar line to the black girls watching: "You are sacred; you are loved." Contact Laina Yost at (440) 329-7121 or lyost@chroniclet.com. Follow her on Twitter @MissLainaMae.