Sacramento Elementary Racial Equity Resource Drive
"Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience."
-Rudine Sims Bishop, 1990
We are living in turbulent times that require reflection coupled with action. As a school leader I want to
help my staff do this work with efficacy and determination, but I need financial support.
Who am I? Who is Sacramento Elementary?
My name is Megan Filiault, and I am the Principal of Sacramento Elementary located in Portland,
Oregon. At Sacramento Elementary we believe in the power of dialogue. Every classroom begins and ends
the day in a community circle. In these classroom meetings teachers work to center dialogue around
current issues, classroom culture and climate.
Why is Sacramento Elementary seeking donations?
We are a small school of mostly white educators actively working to affirm diversity in race, class, and disability
through the books teachers read aloud and book selections in our campus library. We take the
responsibility to increase student and teacher dialogue around racial identity and diversity seriously.
As educators of young people, we aim to do this through the power of a great book.
We are a diverse community of learners with 53% of our student population who identify as non-white,
yet our school book selection does not match this diversity. We are fundraising as a means to change
this inequity for our students who deserve to see a variety of lived experiences in the books we share
with them. We want to increase our cultural responsiveness in our classroom lessons, but we need help
in securing adequate resources -- namely, books!!!
How will the donated funds be used specifically?
All donated funds will be used to purchase books for student and teacher use. The majority of the
funds will be used to purchase books to improve the lack of diverse books in the student library. In addition,
some of the funds will be used to develop a professional library for our educators. All donated funds will
be spent to purchase books that will help affirm multiple aspects of our students’ identities and lived
experience.
Our Students Deserve a Better Library Selection!
Recently I purged more than 100 books from the shelves that were more than 30 years old!
Many of the books I removed were offensive in nature, or too old for students to relate to in any
possible way. Sadly many students are not interested in checking out a library book from our school
library. We desperately need to update our library shelves to include books with characters and narratives
that highlight the non-white experience in the United States. Our students know this and complain
about the quality of the books. We want to purchase books that will elevate the voices of all our student
population, and we need your help!
Below is a brief list of the MANY books we KNOW our students would LOVE to checkout from THEIR
school library:
Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth
Dia’s Story Cloth by Dia Cha
Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard
Alfredito Flies Home by Jorge Argueta
My Very Own Room/Mi Propio Cuartito by Amada Irma Perez
Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia
I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín
When Everything Was Everything by Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay
Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal
Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin
I Love My Hair! by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie
A Map Into the World by Kao Kalia Yang
Teachers Need Books to Help Center Their Discussions
Sacramento Elementary teachers need resources to help facilitate developmentally appropriate
dialogue around race and equity with our students. We hope to create a social justice and anti-racism
collection of books for teachers to use as a tool to help foster discussion around race and identity.
We are seeking to purchase books that will specifically help teachers and students analyze and discuss
racial identity and justice in their classroom discussions. Books centered around themes of race,
equity and justice are needed for teachers to deepen this initiative.
Examples of books that we would purchase to support this effort via whole class read aloud are:
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice
by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, Ann Hazzard
Let's Talk About Race by Julius Lester
Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh
Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock by Aslan Tudor and Kelly Tudor
Chocolate Milk, Por Favor: Celebrating Diversity with Empathy by Maria Dismondy
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
Maddi’s Fridge by Lois Brandt
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story by Paula Yoo and Lin Wang
Teachers Want to Learn More!
Sacramento Elementary staff have requested access to books that will support their professional growth
related to social change and their work as educators. Below is a sampling of books we would
purchase related to this teacher request:
Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education
and Staff Development
by Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart, Margo Okazawa-Rey
Teaching for Black Lives by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian and Wayne Au
Disrupting Poverty: Five Powerful Classroom Practices
by Kathleen M. Budge and William H. Parrett
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeomo Oluo
How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Not Light, But Fire by Matthew R. Kay
We Want to Do More Than Survive by Bettina L. Love
What other initiatives are you taking at Sacramento Elementary to increase the diversity of your staff?
We know the imbalance in our staff diversity is a problem and are go with diversity with 77% of Portland
identifying as white. I work diligently to increase our staff diversity by recruiting student teachers from
the BIPOC community to join our staff for their during their university practicum experiences. I also
actively recruit in the BIPOC community when position become open at my school. However,
turnover with our staff is rare Our district is also working to increase the number of BIPOC working
as teachers in our district. We have begun an initiative to create a cohort pipeline for Parkrose High School
students and current Educational Assistants to attend teacher education programs and return to our
district as teacher leaders.
Do you think your staff and students will struggle to discuss these issues if they do not
have the same lived experience as their students?
Of course we believe it would be ideal for this discussion to happen in an authentic manner with shared
affinity. However, we do not believe it is appropriate to wait by the sidelines because of this staff
diversity imbalance. Our staff are accustomed to tackling this issue with students, and focus on
developing authentic relationship with students before beginning the work. Additionally our staff is
actively working on understanding our own racial bias, and we focus on improving our own equity practice
in professional development. We also rely on the advice from experts both locally and online. Finally we
use action guides like this to inform and strengthen our practice. No, it is not perfect, but we believe we
have to be courageous and dive into the discussions more now than ever.
Thank you in advance for reading this fundraising effort on Go Fund Me!
Together with your support you are helping us advance, thrive, and make our school more inclusive for all
our students. We hope to make this happen one great book at a time!