This week, the middle and high school students at our Windsor Terrace campus closed out Black History Month by raising the Black Lives Matter flag, along with the U.S. and IB flags that are traditionally raised daily on the campus flagpole. As part of the ceremony, students sang the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” read poems and gave speeches about what the month, and the movement, mean to them.
The early morning event was organized and led by three 8th grade student leaders who were inspired by a school in Vermont that flew a Black Lives Matter flag and included discussion of how the school community is working to deepen the cultural relevancy of its practices to make sure every student sees themselves reflected in the faculty, in the books they read and in the history they learn. The students invited the school’s community liaisons from the NYPD, who, though unable to attend, expressed support for the event and recognized the significance of the flag.
As Windsor Terrace Middle School Principal Carolyn Michael said, “We raise the flag to affirm that our black students matter in our schools. More than anything, we are raising this flag because we love our black students and we treasure their lives and their futures.”
The BPCS community sends a special thanks to educators Julia Daniels and Vince Burwell for supporting our students that morning and helping them bring the ceremony to life.