In This Issue (bolded items are new for this week)
- Final PFC Meeting Tonight via Zoom
- Construction Update - New Bridge and Parking Lot at St. John's
- 2024-25 PFC Board Slate
- Sing Karaoke in the Studio Where Thriller Was Recorded!
- Get your Thunderbird Swag this Friday!
- Thornhill Inclusion Book Club
- Clean Grounds after Spring Clean!
- Tomorrow, Wednesday May 15: Extending the Benefit of Walking to School to the Farthest Families!
- Two Weeks Left Before all Lost and Found is Donated
- End of Year Party at Taps and Takeout - May 22
- Community Information
- OUSD Announcement
- Calendar of Important Dates
PFC MEETING TONIGHT AT 6PM via ZOOM!
Thornhill Inclusion Book Club
Hello Thunderbirds,
Welcome to May’s Inclusion Book Club! This time, due to popular demand, we are focusing on a wonderful podcast, Seeing White, rather than a book. We hope this will make it easier for everyone to enjoy it on the daily work commute or while cooking dinner, rather than sitting down to read a whole book, which we know can be very time consuming, especially as we approach the busy last weeks of school.
Seeing White is Season 2 of the Scene on Radio series, which is produced by the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. It is a podcast for adults and the series aims to turn the lens on what it means to be White in America today, unpacking much of the history that led to notions of race and to racial inequality. As each episode delves into the history and construction of these ideas, the conversation is always led back to what this means for our choices and actions in the present day and how we can move towards a more equitable and informed approach in the way we attend to ourselves, our communities and how we teach our children.
Each episode focuses on a different theme, including the slave trade of the 17th Century, how the Supreme Court defined ‘whiteness’ and privilege in the 1920s and making sense of affirmative action in the modern day. For example, episode 2 is titled “How Race was Made” and focuses on the statement “Today, science deems race to be biologically meaningless. Who invented race as we know it, and why?”
Episode 4 focuses on “All men are created equal” and how the intention of that phrase when it was written is different to how we understand it today. Episode 6 is titled “That’s not us, we’re so clean” and asks us to consider how the weight of race and racial injustice is shared by all parts of this nation and is not unique to any particular state or political party.
In each episode, John Biewen, an ex-NPR journalist and leader of the podcast, joins a conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika, a journalist who teaches at Rutgers University. Their conversations give an opportunity to consider in more depth the implications of some of these historical moments in a really approachable, thought-provoking and entertaining way. They challenge each other (and us) to consider questions beyond what they have previously taken for granted, including how attached are you to the idea of being white?, when did you first realize you were someone who was categorized within a race? and how has your sense of your racial privilege (or disadvantage) changed as you have grown older?.
This podcast is a really wonderful introduction to the history and current state of race and in/justice in the US and we hope you will enjoy listening to all the episodes over the long summer ahead! We cannot recommend it highly enough! If you would like to listen along, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. You can click here to access more information on all the episodes.
Thank you for joining us! We look forward to sharing more books with you when school starts again in August and in the meantime, please keep an eye out for exciting news about some upcoming in-person book club meetings we hope to host over the summer break.
Thornhill Inclusion and Belonging Team
Further recommendations for adults:
Do the Work! by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Guide for Selecting Anti Bias Children’s Books: Link here
Further recommendations for children:
Stamped: For Kids. Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi
Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o
The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler
Magnificent Homespun Brown by Samara Cole Doyon
The Antiracist Kid by Tiffany Jewel
End of Year Party at Taps and Takeout - May 22
Details: Wednesday, May 22 starting at 1:25pm at Taps and Takeout. Hope to see you then!
Community Information
Hope you all enjoyed the fabulous music concerts this past week! Continue the fun this summer with Summer Town Strings, sponsored by The Harmony Project.
Register HERE!
Calendar
Tuesday, May 14: Last PFC Meeting of the School Year via Zoom @ 6:00 PM
Wednesday, May 15: 2nd-5th grade author visit (details in Konstella)
Saturday, May 18:Family Karaoke Party! (buy tickets here)
Monday, May 20 - Thursday, May 23: Minimum Days and Spirit Week
Monday, May 20: BAC Ally Brainstorm and Social @ 6pm (details in Konstella)
Wednesday, May 22: 5th Grade Promotion
Wednesday, May 22: Deadline to claim Lost and Found items!
Wednesday, May 22: Taps and Takeout End of Year Party @ 1:25pm
Thursday, May 23: Last Day of School
Be sure also to subscribe to the Thornhill Google Calendar here, and download the OUSD District calendar here.
About the Thornhill Newsletter
The Thornhill Parent-Faculty Club (PFC) Communications team publishes this weekly newsletter each Tuesday in the school year to communicate school, PFC and OUSD news, events and information. We all have plenty of other things to do, but please try to read it weekly, as it will more than likely answer most questions you have about what’s up at school. Information about how to submit to the newsletter is below, but you can reach out at any time at newsletter@thornhillschool.org.
Email submissions to Annie Sartor, at newsletter@thornhillschool.org by 8 p.m. Thursday for approval—nothing sent after this will be included in the following week’s newsletter unless there are extremely compelling extenuating circumstances. It’s fine to include text in the body of the email with links and no formatting, and attach photos preferably as 150 x 150, 72 dpi JPG or GIFs only (not embedded in email or word file). Submissions may be edited for spelling, grammar, brevity and clarity. Advertising and items not related to Thornhill are not accepted, as we need to keep the newsletter focused on need-to-know info for the community.
THANK YOU to everyone who submits articles and to PFC Board Members, Teachers, VP of Communications Jill Evans, PFC Presidents Evie Nagy and Catrina Vrankovich, and Principal Steve Daubenspeck, member of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).
Email: webmaster@thornhillschool.org
Website: thornhillschool.org
Location: 5880 Thornhill Drive, Oakland, CA, USA
Phone: 510-339-6800
