Saba Weatherspoon, a senior at Ithaca High School, MC for a student-led rally against racism in ICSD, and a member of the new anti-racism group funded by ICSD and the Ithaca Youth Bureau, sits down to talk about the changes she’s hoping to see from ICSD, and what the new group, I-RISE, is doing about it.
Frances Klemm’ 23: So, in June you MC’d a rally at Ithaca High School where students of color spoke about their experiences at ICSD. How did that rally come to be?
Saba Weatherspoon ‘21: J.T. Stone (a class of 2020 IHS graduate) started a group for giving out accurate information about wearing masks and COVID. He asked me if I wanted to be a part of that and I said ‘Sure!’. So he made a group chat on instagram with other people who had agreed to help and share instructions about the pandemic. So we did that for a little bit and then after the murder of George Floyd… It seems to me that racism in the U.S. was already evident but there was a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. So people on that same group chat wanted to organize a protest. The people who were on it all agreed to help pick a place and set up a date. We agreed that we wanted the people who led it to be people of color so that there wouldn’t be a white savior type thing, but anyone could still help and organize. There were some other people of color who were going to speak at the protest but weren’t able to be there at the start so they were going to speak later. So when I got to the protest I wasn’t planning to speak at all. It was just people waiting around for something to happen. But like I said, they wanted people of color to be the speakers. And so I was like ‘okay, people have been waiting, we want to get started, the other speakers will come later.’ So I started MCing it on the spot. And more and more people came to speak later on which was really nice.
FK: So at the rally was this your first experience outwardly complaining about ICSD or had you spoken about it before?
SW: That was my first time though I know that there were other people who had spoken with administrators, Cailtin Mallory for example, but yeah, that was my first time.
After the Rally took place, an instructor from the Cornell STEP Program who had attended the rally reached out to Saba, telling her that he and Mr. Mitchell [the 9th Grade Associate Principal at IHS] could help the group keep up its momentum. The Cornell STEP program’s goal is to help students of color in the college seeking process.
FK: What happened after that?
SW: At first, Ray, [the aforementioned instructor] emailed me to communicate that he and Mr. Mitchell would support us in any way they could. They also sent me a PDF of a written report about racial tensions in 2007 in the school district and I noticed how many of the problems highlighted in that report are similar to what’s happening now in 2020. Mr. Mitchel then went on to form the I-RISE.
FK: So how did I-RISE really begin?
SW: So a lot of us [IHS students] connected through email and chats, specifically students of color from Ithaca High School, we were communicating about things that we wanted to see change to improve our experiences as students of color. And then Mr. Mitchell said ‘let’s move this dialogue to actually form a group, called I-RISE, (which stands for “Ithaca High School Rising, Inspiring, Succeeding, and Excelling).” He asked if we wanted to be part of it. It’s also an internship partnered with the Ithaca Youth Bureau. So it’s a paid internship and we meet with Community leaders and learn about how race has impacted the Ithaca Area.
The Job Description is this: Interns will participate in a combination of activities, training, research, and google meetings. These activities will be designed to increase student voice and active engagement at all levels within Ithaca High School. Interns will have the opportunity to support Ithaca High School Peers through ongoing mentoring. Interns will work directly with Ithaca Youth Bureau Staff, IHS administrators, staff department leaders, and classroom teachers as well as district level administrators and community leaders throughout the length of this project. Interns will be in the position to receive work-based credit from IHS.
So basically we have a bunch of meetings with administrators, community leaders and the Youth Bureau so that they can hear what we need as Black students from the School District.
FC: What would you say that is? What would you like to see from ICSD?
SW: Well, right now we’re in the process of making video testimonials which I think they’re going to use. I’m not sure if they’re going to be public, but they’re going to show them to administrators I’m fairly certain. For me personally, I can speak of myself, in my video I talked about how I wanted more Black teachers in the school district because I’m a senior now and I’ve never had a black teacher ever. As of this year, there are zero Black teachers at Ithaca High School. There was one, the art teacher, but she’s an administrator now, she’s no longer a teacher. I definitely think it’s great that there are Black administrators and staff in the district, but it’s also important that we have people to advocate for us in the classroom as well because our parents can’t be there all the time. So it’s really important to have more Black teachers. I also said that when we learn about Black history I want to learn about more than just slavery and oppression, which are very important things to learn but it’s not all that Black history is. I mean, I took AP European history and I was saying, ‘I know more about Europe than my own family history.’
FK: So a typical week of I-RISE begins with an hour-long meeting on Tuesday which serves as a community education meeting with classroom teachers in attendance. Could you go into more detail about your weekly schedule?
SW: We had a meeting with the principal, Mr. Trumble, where he asked us about different ideas for reopening so his decisions are more informed and inclusive. We also have a meeting every Wednesday for an hour where we meet with more administrators for anti-racism strategic planning. Later that day we’ll meet with a community leader, for example we’ve met with a professor, Sean Eversley Bradwell[Board of Education member]. He talked about the history of Black people in Ithaca, which would be quite informative to learn about in school. Another community leader we spoke with was Eldred Harris, a lawyer, who informed us on just how much New York State and The United States rely on the prison industrial complex. All this stuff I had never learned before. And then on Thursdays we meet for a second session with the community leader. We’ll have four meetings a week. There are 15 people, and normally since not everyone can come to every meeting there will be about 10 people at each meeting.
FC: So what is I-RISE for? What is the primary goal of the group?
SW: So it’s mostly about educating ourselves on the history in our local area and when we’re not meeting with community leaders, we’re discussing with ourselves. So I wouldn’t say it’s much like ‘you learn about the history and then collect research to do a project’ or something. It’s more just to educate ourselves. It’s a platform where we can openly speak about our experiences and then talk about what we can do based on those experiences to make it better for younger students so they don’t have to go through the same things that we did.
FC: Has ICSD made any specific actions to address your complaints?
SW: One thing my English teachers told me is that they want to incorporate a more diverse English book curriculum [An article will be coming out shortly about this process].
Many thanks to Saba Weatherspoon for agreeing to this interview and I will continue to follow up on the changes ICSD is making to diversify its curricula, teachers and more.