The Alachua County Community Remembrance Project will host a community forum on Nov. 5 on racial disparities in the local school system.
The forum, titled “Why Is Our School System Failing Our Children,” will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Greater Bethel AME Church (701 NE 43rd St., Gainesville). Residents will also be invited to share their concerns with the School Board of Alachua County as it begins searching for a new superintendent.
Organizers point to persistent racial disparities in elementary reading proficiency in Alachua County. According to information they provided, English Language Arts assessments show a 42- to 47-percentage-point gap between Black and white students in the county. That exceeds the statewide gap of 29 percentage points and the estimated national gap of 25 to 35 percentage points.
The forum will allow community members to raise concerns and discuss challenges facing local students as the School Board searches for a new superintendent.
The Alachua County Community Remembrance Project is a local community group that partners with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. The organization works to promote truth and reconciliation by educating the community about the county’s history of racial terrorism during the Jim Crow era and the legacy of racial disparities.
The forum is sponsored by the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. Cosponsors include the Alachua NAACP, Cultural Arts Coalition, Racial Justice Committee of United Church of Gainesville, Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville, First Trinity United Methodist Church, St. Paul AME Church, African and African American Historical Society, and M.A.M.A.’s Club.
For more information, contact Carl Smart at 352-231-1649 or csmart@alachuacounty.us.