S8E2 – Between We and They – Part 2 (Re-Release)

Between We and They - 2022 Re-Release - Part 2

ANDREW: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I’m Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

COURTNEY: And I’m Courtney, a White mom from Los Angeles.

ANDREW: This is part two of “Between We and They: A School Integration Story” – and If you haven’t listened to the first episode yet, go do that before jumping in to this episode.

When we left Beth last time, her kids had just started at their new elementary school, having left their highly-resourced school that serves a disproportionately high number of White and/or privileged students. Beth now drives her kids across town to attend a school that serves mostly Black and Brown students.

COURTNEY: I spoke with her in September 2018, (a month or so into school) and again near the end of October. While she had done some really deep thinking ahead of time about what this change might mean for her and her family, being IN a new space is always different from thinking about being in a new space. … And Beth was finding challenges in places she hadn’t expected them.

ANDREW: So, we rejoin Beth, neck deep in this new experience and trying to understand it, while the previous school remains a constant comparison-presence.

LITTLE THINGS ARE DIFFERENT

BETH: I mean, everything just feels different and they’re little tiny things. Pick up and drop off and the rules. It's a very rigid school. The uniforms and the kids don't have a lot of freedom. You know, at the previous school the kids, you know, they could walk the hallways by themselves with the permission of the teacher. You know, but there's none of that at this present school. There are a lot of rules, and I don't know, it's just something I'm noticing. And is it, is it damaging? No, it's not damaging. It's just different, that's all. My girls notice is, we talk about it, and it's fine. I see stuff. I don't think there's an actual behavior chart, but I know the DoJo points that my girls are kind of… at least my younger one is kind of, well, she's not fixated on it, no, not the right word, but she's very interested in getting more points.

ANDREW: Beth is talking about an app that some teachers use to reward students with points for exhibiting good behavior, and take away points for undesirable behavior.

BETH: Like this is not how I raise my girls. They just do stuff because they need to do it, and I asked him to do it. I tell him to do it, and that's how it goes, you know. So there's a lot of that. And in the first week of school, my older one got candy from the teacher. And, like, why? Why did you get candy? Because we did this, like alright.

I mean, I don't know, like, that's just a small part of their day. Like I'm not raising them like that, and that's okay. Like, they can be in school and do that. But they also know that I don't do that, and I'm not gonna give them points or some, I'm not gonna start some kind of chart , and I'm not gonna I'm just not gonna do that. When I ask you to put your clothes away after I washed them. Just do it. I don't know, is that really gonna have that much of an influence on them? I notice it. It just doesn't feel like a big deal. But it really is going fine. It’s just different.

COURTNEY: Beth is generally feeling okay about the differences with how the new school runs. But she's also seen some things that give her a little pause.

PTA

BETH: I did have a concern this week but it's not something that makes me wanna run away or bury my head. It's just something for me to observe, you know? I went to a PTA meeting, expecting to hear something about like, we have this much money, we hope to do this, we would like to do this, that means we'd have to raise this much money for that. And there wasn't any-anything like that. I think it might be because they have a budget of zero right now.

And they're really hoping to send their twenty 5th graders on a field trip at the end of the year, graduating fifth graders. And they really wanted to do it last year, but they couldn't. So they had to sort of scale it down and go to someplace more local. But this year, you know the parents - at least this PTA president parent - she really wants these kids to go to this water park. Anyways, they I don't think they have any, I don't think you have any money. Number one and the field trip that they want to do… like. Okay, I am not being very articulate. It was just like… Ohhhh, my poor kid for a moment. That is what it was.

This is very distasteful to me to say out loud. Yeah, it was just this pang of like, am I depriving my kid? Am I depriving my kid? Because she won't get a field trip until maybe in her graduating month, if they can, you know, if we, they, whoever can raise the money.

ANDREW: As Beth fumbles between they and we. She realizes that while the school year started off well, there are going to be some things her daughters won’t get in their new school. While this leads to some reflection, her thoughts quickly turn back to her old school.

BETH: You know, honestly, my second thought went immediately to the parents at the former school my girls were at, and how annoyed, irritated, irate, indignant these parents felt that their kindergarteners did not do a field trip YET. And this was in, I don't know, March or something. Really very angry. And I just thought, “Really, Are you kidding me?” And at one point, my child came home and felt that I felt like she had learned something from these parents. Like and was really mad that she didn’t get a field trip. I was like, what? Hold on, girl. No, I do not ascribe to that belief that you deserve a field trip. My goodness, let alone three. No way. I'm not gonna have you talking like that. I'm sorry, but that's not how we want to raise you, and I don't believe in that at all.

ANDREW: Beth feels the weight of her daughters missing out on stuff like field trips at the new school because there's simply no budget for these “extras”. And yet, at their old school, she felt the weight of her daughters coming to expect things - like they were entitled to them. This, in fact, was one of the things that pushed Beth out of her old school. The sense of entitlement that her girls were starting to internalize is much harder to quantify than the number of field trips they would or wouldn’t get, but the way her kids were learning to BE in the world was much more important to Beth. And as she sat with these discrepancies, another feeling began to creep in.

BETH: I you know… So this is this is, um it's a little bit hard for me to articulate this because I feel like this is something about my classism and that I kind of don't I don't understand yet. So I feel like it's not gonna be very clear. But after this PTA meeting, I felt like … it kind of broke my heart. This PTA has nothing. It has nothing, and it just kind of broke my heart. This is not a well-oiled machine. This PTA organization is a fledgling group of parents. It's just different. And yeah, my, my classism comes out, it just seeps out with, like, oh, this poor group, you know, they don't have any money.

COURTNEY: This feeling of pity was real. The PTA started the year with $28 compared with upwards of $100,000 at the old school. But what to do with that feeling? What does it mean to feel heartbroken about their small bank account? And what does it mean to refer to the PTA as THEY -- and not WE? Beth still sits in a belief that what a PTA has is measured by how much money it has, that what a PTA is can be defined by its bank account, and it leaves her with feelings of pity, but -- Instead of creating relationships, she’s finding that pity creates distance.

BETH: Well, it puts me in a position of power and power over this person…. Person… entity… whatever I'm pitying, right? And this other person is powerless and has less, and it's a pool of helplessness almost. It doesn't serve anybody in the relationship. That's the thing. And that's what bothers me about it. Like it's not, it doesn't serve me. It doesn't serve the other person. It's not a useful way to look at a relationship, and it's no . . there's no honor in it… It feels a little bit disgusting to me, you know? And it's not… yeah… it’s almost looking through, you know, looking through somebody… look through somebody's individuality. Uh, this is getting very uncomfortable.

ANDREW: These feelings about the PTA make her uneasy. She’s facing the truth that her view of the PTA stems from a place of disconnection... with maybe a touch of condescension. This bothers her not only because she is seeing this in herself AND recognizing it as ugly BUT ALSO because she doesn’t know how to get beyond it, or even what ‘beyond it’ could look like.

BETH: It's this I guess I'm just I'm kind of grappling with I can't I mean, ultimately, I'm grappling with our privilege. I just think it's important for me personally to grapple with my privilege as half-White person, as someone who is wealthy. So and I think part of that is like, what is this pity about? Why? Why, where has it come from? Why do I pity? And can it be something else? Can it be more? You know, I need to understand the pity before I sort of, you know, try to, change it, try to grow out of it. I don't know what the expression is.

You know, it's easy for me to sort of go into problem solving mode and, you know, think about it, brainstorm. But I think it's also important for me to sit with, like, what is this pity I feel? Like I feel like I need to work through that and just just sort of like, dissect it a little bit. I think it's an important process for me personally, you know, and I hope in this process I don't do damage, and maybe I will. And I hope I can be non defensive and make repairs, you know, because I'm not gonna be perfect, but I just, I want to do the least amount of damage I can.

COURTNEY: Beth knows that integration can be complicated and often leads to a White or privileged families claiming a larger voice in the school in a way that undermines equity. What does it look like to participate, to bring what you and your family might be able to offer and not do damage? This is what she was struggling with as she thought, in particular, about some of the connections her husband has...

BETH: XXX has a lot of connections in the community with corporations, big businesses, small businesses, so could he leverage his connections and get donations or whatever? But, you know, it's… we just don't want… Oh, we don't want to come in with our big wallet, that kind of thing, anything like that. We don't want to give that kind of impression. But, I do feel like that's something that we could help with. It just feels sticky. It feels a little bit sticky and uncomfortable to talk about, that this is not something that we want attention for. In fact, it's the opposite. If we do something or bring in some donation, or whatever, like this is not something we want recognition for at all. It's the exact opposite, though, even if it is some kind of anonymous connection or donation like it's, somebody will know, right? But it's, yeah, I mean, if we can help, you know….

ANDREW: Reckoning with the severe disparities between the schools, Beth knows that her privilege, unearned as it may be, affords her the ability to simply throw resources at the quote problem, and the school definitely needs additional resources. But she is trying to avoid a savior mindset - arriving to “fix” the school, and be a hero. She knows that this would garner her and her family special advantages even beyond those that they might receive anyway. And it would do nothing to undermine the feeling of pity… and the distance that that feeling creates. Beth also recognizes that how she defines the school’s needs might not be the same as how the school community defines its own needs, and to figure that out requires deeper, more meaningful relationships.

BETH: I want to have a low profile at this school right now. I just want, I’m in a learning phase. I feel like I'm just… I kind of want to take things in. I'm not there to make suggestions. “And at our previous school we did this and…” like I just want to hear. I just want to see what's happening, that's all.

COURTNEY: So Beth is trying to be thoughtful about building relationships instead of immediately jumping in and trying to “fix” the school, trying to get past pity to something more helpful, more meaningful. But building those relationships is easier said than done.

BETH: I have had very, very minimal interaction with parents at this school because of how pick up and drop off is, you know, set up. It's kind of a drive by drop off. So I still, you know, honestly,I still feel kind of disconnected. There isn't a lot of opportunities for parent crossover.

[Music interlude]

ANDREW: Playdates being a common thing in her former school seemed like a natural step for her daughters and their new friends .. and a way for Beth to start to build relationships with other parents at the school. But this, too, is complicated.

PLAYDATE - VAULTED CEILINGS

BETH: This stepmother came to pick up her seven year old for my house yesterday. You know I said, ‘This is my address. I'm happy to bring your daughter home.” She said, “No, we can come pick-up.” So she pulled up. I just kind of waved, “Hey, come on in.” I said, “Oh, did you find it okay? And I'm sorry, Did you have to drive far?” And she said, “Yeah, we live 10 miles away from the school.” I was like, Oh, my God, she lives far from me. And she's like, “Oh, but don't worry.” and I’m like, “Oh, I'm sorry.” And she said, “Oh, no, you're good, you're good.” She's like, “I was driving over here… I'm like, oh this is definitely a house.” Like this is kind of her stream of consciousness thinking that she was sharing. “Oh, it's a house. She doesn’t live in an apartment. She lives in a house.” She's like, “I love your house.” You know, like my big vaulted ceilings. It was just like I was like, “Come on in”. And she was like, “I’d love a house like this.” You know… What do I say? What do I say? “I'm gonna showcase all that I have. Come on in.” You know, it just felt, I just felt I don't know what. It just felt bad. It just felt bad.

COURTNEY: At her old school, most of the families come from similar economic backgrounds, similar levels of wealth and privilege, and in many ways, that makes things much easier. The vast inequities that our country tolerates aren’t quite so visible. Social interactions in this new setting are uncomfortable for Beth and can make it even harder to build the relationships she's hoping for. She's committed to working through this - for the promise of deeper, more meaningful relationships on the other side, but is realizing that there's a skill set involved that she, like most of us, has very little practice with.

ANDREW: As Beth is grappling with the challenges of building relationships outside the classroom, her kids are also working on building relationships in the classroom. They’ve made friends and are finding their place in the school community, but again, it's not always easy.

BEHAVIOR ISSUES

BETH: There's a girl in my younger one’s class who, I believe she has significant problems. I have no idea. But based on what I have heard from my daughter and a couple of my daughter's classmates who have come over, you know, like this girl is, she really is struggling and it plays out in school, in class on an hourly basis, maybe even more frequently.

Anyway, so it's a lot. And at one point I asked my younger one, “Are you scared?” And she said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Are you scared she's gonna hurt you?” And she said, “Yeah.” I said, “You are?” And she said, “Yeah, every day.” I’m like “alright.” I said, “Has she hurt anybody?” And she said, “Yeah, kind of. She’ll just like smack people or whatever?” I said, “Has she ever done it, too?” You know, it's an issue. A management problem, right?

I feel like I talked to my younger one about this particular girl almost daily, and it's about sort of helping her stand up for herself, find a voice for herself, set a limit, firmly, set a limit, and also have compassion because I think something's going on with this girl. I feel like I'm not saying that this is helpful for my daughter, but it's just it's just life. It's a situation to manage. Work around. You know, learn something about yourself little seven year old. You know, like, it's about getting out of your comfort zone, you know, sometimes it still happens and it's OK and I'm gonna support you and the teacher's going to support you and also do her best to support this other girl. You know, just shit happens and it's just about, like, dealing with it.

COURTNEY: Beth expected to see students struggling with behavior issues in this way -- It’s a familiar story, and one often used by White and/or privileged parents to explain why they couldn’t consider desegregating their kids. Students living in poverty, exposed to trauma, disruptive behaviors… Beth has heard this a lot. And when she thinks of this student, she finds herself feeling that narrative.

ANDREW: But this narrative assumes that these kinds of behaviors are inextricably linked with poverty - that you can know something about an individual by their circumstances, or that you can know something about a school by the circumstances of its student body. While Beth tries to avoid overly broad and racist tropes to make sense of what is happening in her younger daughter’s classroom, she also doesn’t want to gloss over the very real and shameful effects of racism and poverty.

Of course, her old school wasn’t immune to these issues, but the response was quite different....

BETH: And I'm sort of in this comparing mode like, and I recall problem kids in the kindergarten class when my daughter was at the old school and how the parents were organizing and the emails that it went around and the attorneys that were talking to the school board and they wanted to get these kids kicked out. And, but it was for the benefit of the kid -- this kid needs more services. Oh, my God. Are you kidding me with this BS? Like, come on, we know why you want these kids kicked out of school. The three kids that they wanted out of the school, they were not White, and they all ended up leaving. They all went to different schools.

Anyways. I just compare, like this one girl management problem in my younger one's class versus, like, other problems in the other school, like how the parents are dealing with it, are not dealing with it.... I'm not gonna make a big deal about this girl in my daughter's class. I'm just not gonna do it. The principal’s on it, the teachers on it, like my daughter says she's scared but she's fine. She comes home from school like, yeah, how's school? Good. She had a good day. Look, I'm not gonna… The teacher and the principal are on it. What, what more can I do?

COURTNEY: Beth looks at the ways that parents at the former school simply got rid of the quote “problems”, how they worked to protect their space… and she also sees how those 5 & 6 year olds were treated as if the problems are THEIR problems and not problems of structural inequity and race and poverty… as if these are not OUR problems. For Beth, the situation is one that she is helping her daughter learn how to manage -- not teaching her how to avoid.

ANDREW: There’s no question that growing up with fewer resources and more opportunity barriers affects people in powerful ways... and sometimes these manifest as what we tend to call “behavior problems.” But how we define “behavior problems” is often based in racist assumptions. Our educational system understands the behaviors of Black and Brown kids differently than White kids. And, while White/privileged-concentrated schools may see fewer problems grounded in poverty and racism, that doesn’t mean that those schools don’t also have problems .

COURTNEY: We might not call them “behavior issues” -- maybe it’s just a spirited child expressing her creative choices -- but White/privileged kids in White/privileged schools behave in plenty of ways that are disruptive, and hurtful. Kids are not only treated very differently, but the very definition of “behavior problem” is curated by race and class.

ANDREW: In coming to terms with this “behavior issue,” the differences between Beth’s old school become harder to ignore. She finds herself mostly avoiding the topic of their new school with her friends from her former one…

BETH: And I guess the reason why I don't talk about it is because I don't want to do the compare and contrast thing with the friends that I have in the previous school. I just don't want to do that. It's going to bring up a lot of uncomfortable conversations, and ultimately it's gonna bring up a conversation about values, and different style of parenting. Because ultimately, I feel like that's what it comes down to for me, a discussion about values.

And I'm not sure that I have the language right now to sort of diplomatically discuss that. And I guess what I'm talking about is, in its essence, like sort of resource hoarding and how sick of it I am - really disgusted by it. And I think that needs to be on the table, but I don't, I feel very kind of fired up about that at the moment, and I have for a while, so I don't know that I have the language to diplomatically discuss it.

COURTNEY: As Beth is avoiding conversations that she feels unprepared to have, she is hearing about the 4th grade class at the old school - the one that her oldest daughter would have been in…

ACADEMIC CONCERNS

BETH: Of course, I have friends who remain at the old school, so I do hear from them that the fourth grade homework is a lot every night and my fourth grader has reading every night, and that's basically it. And so I started to wonder like, do I need to do something? Should I supplement? I just organically don't have it in me to sort of like, be a teacher, at the end of the day, I just… It's just not… I feel like it's not my realm, it is not my forte. And then to nag my girls about one more thing like, I don't know, like… Do I get them started on Khan Academy? Yeah, I set it up. I'll admit, I set it up. Do they do it? Maybe 20 minutes a week. It's obviously not a big priority for me, but is it that I'm just being lazy? I don't know. Like, should I try to keep up with the more complex spelling words for a second and fourth grade that the former peers are doing?

I don't know. I think I'm still... I notice it. It's a difference, and I'm trying to figure out what my role is. Do I supplement? Do I need to? Should I? I'm not sure. I guess that's the bottom line. So it's a difference that I notice, and I'm not sure how to handle it at this point.

ANDREW: It's early in the school year, and it's hard to know in any given moment how to evaluate the instruction her kids are getting. And while assessing this is tricky anywhere, the former school was labeled a “good” one and so the sense of risk there felt much lower… But Beth is wondering. Are her daughters getting less “rigor” at the new school? Are they learning LESS? Was this decision somehow depriving her kids of the education they need? Her kids seem to be learning something everyday. But when the comparisons to her old school come up, it creates some anxiety, so Beth checks in with their oldest daughter.

BETH: You know, Friday night my older daughter, she's nine and a half. She was so, so energized and really wanted to tell me about her week, and she basically told me that they had a program this past week for the fourth graders. She learned about school segregation and how the Black kids had to go to one school, the White kids were going to another school, and then they integrated. And my daughter, which was, I mean, she just kind of blew my mind, she remembered Little Rock Nine, and she remembered Melba Beals. With her learning difficulties and was just shocking, so it made such an impact on her.

She's talked about Melba Beals and what she went through. And you know, these other girls, like fire bombed her while she was in the bathroom and she wasn't hurt. And so she finished by saying it was the best week of her school life. And I, I was just, I was floored. And then later she was telling me about Frederick Douglass. I‘m, like you learned about Frederick Douglass, and she's, yeah, the abolitionist! I’m like, you remember that word? It was just It was just great.

I just thought -- this is what’s important. All that other stuff isn't important. You know, it truly isn’t, it’s just not important. It just blew my mind. And at that moment, I thought, I'm not gonna worry about this anymore. I am not depriving my kids at all. It's the exact opposite. This is exactly what I want her to learn about -- among many things. But this is exactly what I want for my children. I never learned about the Little Rock 9 in school. Never. It was incredible. It was, I was so grateful for the time and interaction and just and that the programming was there, you know that she has been taught about this.

COURTNEY: Beth sees her daughter making connections between this history and her own experiences at the two very different schools. This wasn't just some history lesson, but rather a story about real people whose struggles and legacies are connected to these schools, and being felt by these fourth graders. And this made Beth realize that some of what they were getting at the new school mattered more than what they had gotten at the old school. And while that brought Beth comfort, it also pushed her even further from her old friends.

BETH: I'm really struggling with that right now, actually, because it does feel like a moral choice. It doesn't feel, I mean and so how do I? What do I do with that? How do I relate to the people who are not making the same choice? How do I talk to them? How do I talk to them in a way that isn’t offensive?

I feel like the way I have dealt with this lately is that I've just kind of stepped back, not way back, but taken a step back, because I'd be a little protective about my experience, my girl's experience at the new school and my experience with the parents. And I even said this to a friend. I said, You know, I'm not, I appreciate you asking me about school, and it means a lot that you're asking. And I said, I think I'm just not ready to talk about it. I think it's so new. And I think I haven't figured out the words, and I think I'm just not ready to talk about it.

ANDREW: So she just sits in the discomfort, the uncertainty, and the growing isolation from her old friends. And while it's hard, when she thinks about what really matters for her kids… …

NOT A SACRIFICE

BETH: This is absolutely not a sacrifice. As I see it, I actually feel like, and this feels sticky for me to say and a little bit distasteful, but I actually really I'm doing right by my kids. Sheltering them in a White, upper middle class community is not doing right by them. This is not the world. This is not reality. This is not our community. This is not our city. It's just not real. This is a bubble, and it's a very uncomfortable bubble for me to be in, to live in, to function in. I can do it. Don't get me wrong and I feel like I have, like 90% mastery of this bubble. I can do it, but I want my girls to expand their experiences and their mind and their viewpoints. You know, I want them to do well in math, I want them to read well, I want them to know about science, social studies and all that stuff. But is this experience gonna make or break them? Is this gonna help them get a job when they're 20 or 30? You know, like, is that what this is about? There's something.. I'm aiming for something else.

I don't care that there's no fall carnival and that there's no festival at the end of the year with jumpy slides, you know, like I don't care about that, Really. I want them to know, like there are other people in our city, in our community, just two miles down the road, who look different, who talk different, who act different, who listen to different music, and it's cool and it's different and some of it's not cool, some of that you don't like, and some of it you do like and it's just different, that's all. I want them to see things, I want to experience something different than just White, rich culture.

COURTNEY: Beth is clearly grateful for this experience... but is also aware of the challenge in talking about this part. It’s “distasteful, sticky to say” that there are things that she thinks she and her family are getting from this move. It risks sounding too much like opportunity hoarding, but ignoring the good she is getting from this experience, and pretending that this is all for social justice doesn’t feel right either. Beth feels like she has to say all the things at all the same time - how can she talk about the benefits they’re getting and the ways she’s living her values all at once?

ANDREW: So as she settles into the new school, getting the kids routines down, finding the quickest route across the interstate, maintaining that balance in how to talk about this is getting even trickier. It may even be getting harder to believe in...

BETH: So here's the thing I'm beginning to feel like, maybe this is a cop out decision - like everything's fine. Like, I don't know, maybe I made the wrong decision. I should have sent them to the “2” school that's a little bit farther, like maybe 4 isn't low enough. What am I missing? Like maybe, what's the problem? What is it? So then I just feel I have a little guilt now.

You know, and I still have concerns about my older daughter in her learning difficulties and, you know, is she gonna get what she needs. And of course, she's gonna get what she needs, because I'm getting it for her. You know she doesn't get it at school. It's fine, I can get her whatever, she IS getting what she needs in school. So it's been great and I feel like a cop out.

COURTNEY: Beth went looking for a school that wasn’t serving a disproportionately White and privileged student body, and, due to structural racism in our school districts, this was also likely to be a school that was poorly rated. While it seems a bit absurd on its face, Beth was seeking out a “bad” school, and the one she found, at least on paper, had many of the characteristics of what we think of as a “bad” school.

ANDREW: And yet, now that she is there, and part of the school, it doesn’t actually feel that “bad”. Maybe, instead of finding a truly bad school, Beth just lucked into an aberration - a school that hasn’t made it onto the White / privileged lists of “good” schools, but will soon.

COURTNEY: If this school is an outlier - a fluke - is she actually pushing back on segregation - on opportunity hoarding - or is she just an early adopter - one of the lucky ones who found the “hidden gem” before the rest of her privileged peers? She struggles with the feeling that what she anticipated isn't actually her experience.

BETH: You know, I guess I anticipated seeing things that I really didn't like, and I would really have to just like, you know, do a lot of self talk around. Or like I don't know, like I don't like the candy at school. The principal gives it out, but oh well, like I can't stress about that, I really can’t. So there's nothing for me to worry about. There's just nothing for me to worry about. And I was anticipating, like having this uncomfortable feeling. That's why… I was just anticipating that.

ANDREW: The assumptions that she had led her to believe that there would be really intolerable things going on at school. The candy hand-outs aren’t her favorite, the strictness of the school is different -- but these things don’t feel like dealbreakers. Beth expected some existential crisis, some shocking or grievous things that would challenge her commitment... but that is not what she found, and it makes her wonder why she expected those things in the first place.

BETH: So I think part of this is like for me to look at my internalized racism, because I breathe the same toxic air that everyone else does. And so I didn't have any fears like Oh my God, safety and drugs. That, I feel like, is ridiculous.

COURTNEY: The toxic air, the smog that says that schools serving disproportionately high percentages of Black and Brown kids and especially those who are growing up in poverty, that they are going to be rife with awfulness just didn’t seem to be a reality. She had moved past the racist stereotypes about violence and drugs before showing up, but she still expected bigger challenges -- and wasn’t finding them. Is her school an anomaly or were the narratives she was working from inherently flawed? She just expected this to feel like more of a sacrifice.

BETH: Well, not only am I not sacrificing, I'm living my values. So there's not, they're just, it's not a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice. There is no sacrifice.

ANDREW: And so, two months into the school year, Beth is feeling good about her decision. She is grateful for the experiences her kids are having, and the things they are learning. There are challenges, just as there were at her old school, but, at least for her kids, she doesn’t feel like this is a sacrifice.

COURTNEY: For Beth, personally, there have been some real surprises. Feeling like the school might not be “bad” enough is unexpected, and she is working through her feelings of pity. She is also struggling to find her place in the new school while feeling increasing distance from people at their old one.

ANDREW: In Part 3, we’ll catch up with Beth later in the school year. Has she come to terms with her pity? How is she feeling about the new school community -- is she still referring to the PTA as “THEY”? And where does she stand in the neighborhood community? Where does Beth feel like she belongs - who is her “WE” - after making this move?

COURTNEY: If you are enjoying this series, please share it with a friend, leave us a rating or review to help other people find it, and consider donating to this all volunteer project - go to integratedschools.org and click the DONATE button.

ANDREW: Music in the episode is from Blue Dot Sessions - thanks to Beth for sharing so openly and honestly with us.

COURTNEY: ...and, as always, we’re grateful to be in this with you, as we try to know better and do better.