Since enrolling my kids in Alameda public schools, the amount of email in my already messy inbox has probably doubled. Just this week I lost track of the number of reminders of the upcoming pajama day (although in fairness, if we had forgotten about that, it could have been a rough day :)

Joking aside, tough topics do come up. Throughout my kids' time in elementary school, I've been impressed with Alameda Unified's attempts at thorough and clear communication.

Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi's most recent email to families addresses the times in which we now live. It may not fully quiet fears of what we can't directly control, but I found myself agreeing with his framing — and I found it reassuring to hear a vision that's positive (rather than negative or just reactive).

For others in Alameda who don't have kids in public schools but may still appreciate this framing and this argument for supporting, educating, and caring for students, the superintendent's letter is worth a read:

Dear AUSD Staff, Students, and Families:

The flow of executive orders from the White House continued last night with an order entitled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools.

While we have previously reached out to the community in response to executive orders regarding our commitments to our LGBTQ+ students and families, and to ensuring just and caring commitments to students and schools in the face of a shifting immigration enforcement landscape in schools, I feel compelled to reach out once again as the week winds down.

My aim is not to overwhelm folks with messages, nor to counter every jarring proposition the federal government makes regarding public education. However, the consistency and content of these orders does, in my view, warrant some comparable level of general reassurance, response, and a reminder that our team will follow these developments closely and stay in continuous contact with our colleagues across the county and state to ensure we continue to educate in line with our local values and commitments. This will not change.

I am fortunate this week to be attending the Association of California School Administrators annual Superintendents’ Symposium, along with a few hundred other district leaders across the state. There is a significant sense of collaboration and concern here as we unpack the potential implications of the current federal direction, and at the same time think and strategize together about how best to support our communities through and around these developments.

Yesterday’s EO threatens to withdraw federal funding from public school districts that include instruction on "radical, anti-American ideologies,” such as gender identity, equity, racial history, and privilege.

At the same time, the order broadly and notes that schools are required to promote “patriotic education." I would offer that patriotism, particularly in education, becomes richer not through expressions of unconditional loyalty and allegiance, but through the critical engagement with national and historical values when rooted in a commitment to making our communities and country better.

To include, protect, recognize and support our students, all our students, many of whom are part of the LGBTQ+ community is in my view hardly an act of “extremism” or “subversion” (as the latest executive order suggests), but rather a humane obligation to meet our kids wherever they are on an expansive, beautiful, and nuanced spectrum of identity.

To insist that our schools remain protected spaces that should be exempt from the complexities and legal dynamics of immigration enforcement is not anti-American. It is to me pro-child.

To discuss in our schools the legacy of race and ethnicity, and their roles in shaping the historic and current upsides and downsides of our collective culture is hardly, in my view, an act of “subversion” or “indoctrination.” Instead, I see it as an opportunity for honest, albeit sometimes difficult, discussion and analysis. And both hold the potential to generate a broader and more authentic reconciliation that can strengthen and deepen relationships in our community and in our country.

Forgive what may feel like a politically tinged tone. It is neither my place nor my intention to use my position and office to advance a political agenda or opinions.

But advancing an educational agenda is absolutely in my job description, as is ensuring that our community knows that we will do everything we can to contest the notions that some students should be invisible, or unprotected, or that honest explorations of the past and present are un-American.

It is also in my job description, by way of student safety, to support the proposition that children who are undocumented – or whose parents are undocumented – deserve to grow and learn free of harassment in their schools.

This reminder feels important in this moment; as is the realization that preserving inclusion and intellectual freedom in our schools will take more than the expressed values of a single leadership voice, but also the commitment of a broader community.

I look forward to working with our community of students, staff, and families in the weeks and months ahead to guarantee and protect the rights and freedoms of all our students. That, in my mind, would be the best form of “patriotic education” we can offer.