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My students are too young to remember the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Just four years before their birth, they refer to them as something from “back in the day.”But the themes of police brutality, poverty and racism are all too familiar. And most drew an immediate connection between the Rodney King verdict that sparked those riots and the 2009 fatal shooting of Oscar Grant. Grant was shot in the back by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle less than one mile from our school in Oakland.

How does a school community deal with the violent loss of a student? Unfortunately, this is a question my school has had to answer too often. Still, no matter how many times I’ve been through it, trying to understand my own pain while holding space for my students to feel theirs is something that pushes me beyond my capacity as a teacher.

It’s time to update the way we think—and talk—about immigrant students.

When the Dallas Texas Public Schools District decided to show its fifth-graders Red Tails, an action-adventure film based on the Tuskegee pilots who formed the country’s first black aerial combat unit, it was a tremendous idea. The district felt students would be inspired by the story of these men who fought segregation, integrated the Army and were trained as combat pilots for the United States during WWII.

This toolkit accompanies the article “Set in Stone,” and provides classroom activity ideas to bring monuments to life and engage students in learning the full story behind a given monument.

Making the conference experience more supportive to families ultimately benefits students.

ESOL program coordinator Ann Marie Batista is a “barrier breaker” for ELL students and their teachers.