Schools across our district are celebrating Black History Month with a wide range of activities related to this year’s theme of health and wellness, including author visits, research into famous Black artists, scientists, and politicians, and visits by prominent Black artists and professionals.
 
Otis Elementary School, for instance, is holding a career panel of Black health professionals later this month.
 
Paden Elementary School has invited author JaNay Brown-Wood to read her new picture book “This

Hair Belongs” aloud to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders, while 5th graders will be reading “One Crazy Summer,” by Rita Williams-Garcia. The schools also engaged in art inpired by Alma Thomas and Reginald Laurent. Thomas was the first African American woman to have her artwork included in the White House’s permanent collection. Her pieces are widely celebrated for their vibrant colors, rhythmic patterns, and striking circular designs.
 
Love Elementary School is taking a holistic approach to the health theme by focusing on different activities at each grade levels. TK, kindergarteners, and 1st graders are learning about the body wellness through hip-hop, line dancing, and other types of joyful movement; 2nd and 3rd graders learning about spiritual wellness through poetry and self care; and 4th and 5th graders are focusing on the mind by studying Afrofuturism, mutual aid, and “ubuntu,” a southern African theory of community and interdependence.
 
A number of elementary schools are also inviting parent volunteers to come read to their students, holding poetry slams and oratoricals, studying Black artists,  and having art gallery walks around their campuses.

Meanwhile, last weekend the Office of Equity’s Black History Month event celebrated the same themes with a paint party, dominoes contest, salsa lessons, bike repairs by the Alameda Bike Mobile, and free fresh produce.
 
Lincoln Middle School is also teaching about Afrofuturism, as well as taking a field trip to the Black Panther Party Museum in Oakland, while Wood Middle School is hosting Black informational video or slide show about lesser-known Black inspirational figures.
 
Alameda High School is featuring weekly guest speakers, as well as displays of information related to African-American history and culture, and food and culture fairs. Students in ASTI’s Health and Wellness seminar will interview prominent Black people in the health and wellness industry and create posters about unsung Black heroes in the health sciences.
 
We thank our administrators and teachers for coming up with so many creative and informative ways to celebrate the past and current contributions of Black people in our country.