The Vashon school board elections matter not just to those of us that have children in the school system, but also to those of you who fund our schools through your taxes. Please pay close attention because a new racial equity policy has just been adopted and will be implemented over the coming months and years. This new policy involves racial awareness trainings for students, faculty and staff that are aligned with much of the writing from the SURJ group that has been expressed in this paper over the summer. These ideas include that our country was founded on racism and is a largely white supremacist nation to this day.

The new policy will use racial metrics to compare student’s outcomes and will likely be a factor in budgeting, hiring and recruitment. Am I crazy? Or did we just institutionalize racism?

— Joe Yarkin