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The application window for the 2016 Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching closes on December 15. Read how this award has impacted Amber Strong Makaiau, a 2011 awardee.

Educators can play a real role in ensuring the Trayvon Martin tragedy does not happen to other children. It starts with how we perceive black boys.

Last month, we tracked 50 school-based episodes of hate in 22 states.

Several stacks of fake dollar bills enclosed in a Plexiglas case sit at the center of an exhibit entitled “RACE: Are We So Different?” at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. One stack towers over the others. This teetering pile of bills represents the average net worth of “white” people’s assets in relation to those of other racialized groups based upon data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau from 1997 to 2000. While the “Asian” stack is almost as high, the “black” stack can hardly be called a stack at all; the “Latino” stack is almost as low.

Yesterday, you needed to reassure your students and keep them safe. Today, you need to tell them the truth: Everything is not OK. We have work to do, and we can do it.

It’s summertime, and students have replaced class time with free time. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, parents and teachers are painfully aware of the widespread racial profiling targeting men of color—particularly younger men who are more apt to be out and about during these summer months.

Every city, town and hamlet has them: monuments commemorating pivotal events; memorials to heroes; parks, schools and public buildings named in honor of someone whose legacy is worth preserving.