NEWLY OPENED TEXAS CHARTER SCHOOL CONTINUES TO EMPOWER BLACK AND BROWN STUDENTS AFTER ANTI-CRT PUSHBACK
October 2022
Despite legislative pushback for its anti-racist mission and the Texas ban on critical race theory, Essence Preparatory Public School opened its doors to more than 100 students on Aug. 15, 2022.
Located in the East Side neighborhood of San Antonio, Essence predominantly serves Black and Latinx kinder through fifth-grade students. Now in its second month, the public charter school has overcome its contentious battle with the Texas Education Agency.
During the charter’s application process, debates about critical race theory spread across the nation. Effective Dec. 2, 2021, Senate Bill 3 replaced House Bill 3979, which passed June 15, 2021, creating more restrictive guidelines for how educators teach about topics such as race and racism. This bill further limited public school K-12 educators from teaching “widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.”
Despite initial enthusiasm for Essence and its goals, the TEA sent Essence board members contingency requests to “remove references from website of any statements, authors, or written works in violation of Texas Education Code amended by HB 3979.”
To conform to the TEA’s requests and subsequently gain final charter approval, Essence board members removed the words “anti-racism,” “Black” and “brown” from the charter application and website.
Amidst the removals was a quote by Black author and activist Ibram X. Kendi, according to reports from the Texas Tribune.
“These statements boldly stated by the Texas Education Agency…degraded everything about the process for us,” Akeem Brown, founder and superintendent of Essence, said. “The 490 parents, the 62 students that participated, the conversations we had with mothers that cried about their own experiences, these Black women and Black men realizing that the systems that were in place years ago are still reflective of the systems that are in place today.”
Despite initial setbacks in the charter application process, the administrators and teachers can still empower and affirm their students how they originally planned – with the help of the community, Brown said.
“I knew that there was a need for a high-performing school that would have a track record of success, with students who will live in and will ultimately improve the community,” Brown said. “We were created to meet the educational, social and emotional needs of Black and brown children, boldly, here in San Antonio.”
Jennipha Ricks, Essence principal and chief learning officer, said self-expression is a key aspect of the Essence experience.
“It's just something about being with your own that allows you to be more comfortable and a lot more vocal,” Ricks said. “It makes kids more willing to be vulnerable, more willing to express who they are, more comfortable to speak, you know, the way that they speak without feeling like they're going to be corrected or they're going to be looked at differently,”
Lining the walls of the school are posters and flags displaying historically Black colleges and universities to remind students of what they can achieve.
Every morning the students recite their daily affirmation, Ricks said. “They say ‘I'm a blessing, not a mistake…I can be what I set out to be. The royal blood of my ancestors runs through my veins.’”
Mornings and after-school dismissals are filled with music and laughter as students, parents and teachers are encouraged to dance.
“The essence of Essence is to be able to support Black and brown students who are usually counted out in ISDs,” Ricks said. “We provide the love and support that they need to be academically, mentally, emotionally successful and also have the experience to be taught and be led by individuals that look like them.”
Ricks said the critical race theory controversy has not caused any anxiety among staff members since the school's opening because elementary school educators are not teaching critical race theory.
“That is not our focus; our focus is making sure that we are supporting scholars in a way that gives them agency, gives them the opportunity to think critically, yes,” Ricks said. “And so in the matter of thinking critically, we want them to be able to go into the space, and yes, have intelligent conversations about race – if that happens to be the topic at that time.”
Kizzie Thomas, Essence dean of empowerment and culture, said her duties include reaching out to community partners and activists and advocating for social-emotional learning and development practices for both staff and students.
“When it comes to our scholars, it's more or less, giving them opportunities to see things in the community that they're interested in, giving them a voice for advocacy, to be able to advocate for themselves and their future, as well as letting them see that there are other things besides just what’s in their narrow frame,” Thomas said.
Recently, fourth and fifth-grade students conducted interviews with staff members to discuss issues that face the East Side community and presented their findings and possible solutions to their respective classes.
“Our mission is to coach agents of change and advocacy,” Thomas said. “In order for society as a whole to change it starts with us giving them a voice and giving them an opportunity to speak their truth.”