Manassas teachers were told to confront race and racism head-on during the city school division's annual convocation.
On Tuesday, August 3, the virtual event welcomed teachers back to the classroom before students are scheduled to return Thursday, August 12. Tyrone Howard, a professor of education and associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLA, was the keynote speaker.
PLN obtained screenshots of Howard's presentation, which states, "teachers can't just be non-racist. They must be anti-racist." The slides also encouraged city educators to specifically teach about the activist group Black Lives Matter, whose members led violent and deadly protests in cities across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, a man who died at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.
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