Dear students, staff, and families:
Congratulations to the members of the Cumberland School Community on not only making it through distance learning, but excelling at distance learning! To the parents, extended families, administrators, teachers, counselors, technology department, support staff and others who guided our students through this challenging time, thank you! Everyone in the Town of Cumberland came together to make our distance learning plan a success. We’ve heard it said that it takes a village to educate a child and Cumberland demonstrated that by coming together during a very challenging time.
In addition to the pandemic, this year has been challenging in other ways. Our country is going through a great deal of unrest around racism, systemic inequality and police brutality. Although these problems have been around for centuries, our country seems poised to take meaningful action right now. To the black community and all people of color in our community, we acknowledge your struggles and we support you. We will no longer just be standing behind you, but we will step up, and stand beside you.
As educators, we have a responsibility to play an important role in addressing the racial issues that exist in this country. Our goal is to create a truly inclusive community that honors and values our diversity, and educates our students about the history of these issues, and how we’ve gotten to where we are today. To do this, we must examine our own teaching practices and our curriculum choices. This is not easy work, but we pledge to do it.
Over the summer we will be putting together a task force to create a plan to look at district wide practices including, but not limited to curriculum, teaching practices, hiring practices, family engagement and partnering with our local police department and government. We will be seeking input from all stakeholders about the best steps to take. We hope that you will consider being a part of this change with us. We will also be providing a list of resources for families which will include book titles, articles, websites, videos, and community organizations. If you want to be part of this change with us or have resources to share, please contact Erin Oliver via email at erin.oliver@cumberlandschools.org or by phone at 401-441-8780.
On behalf of the Cumberland School Department we wish you a safe, happy and healthy summer!
Sincerely,
Robert Mitchell