Molly McKay Bryson

“In Boston Public Schools, our Counseling & Intervention Center (CIC) supports students who are suspended for causing harm or who are participating in a restorative alternative to suspension. Students working with the CIC reflect on the impacts of what happened and co-create a plan for repair and for their holistic wellbeing. So far this school year, we have worked with 626 students, and nearly one third of them were referred for an incident related to civil rights or bias-based bullying. Additionally, as a result of community-led efforts, BPS created an Ethnic Studies Instructional Coach role in 2021. That role is held by Katie Yue-Sum Li: a long time educator and organizer who works in partnership with our Teachers Union Ethnic Studies Organizing Committee. One piece of our shared vision is to: "build on the collective power of communities of color and their social movements to inspire us to act locally and globally towards justice and transformation." Our Counseling & Intervention Center and Ethnic Studies Coach seek to collaborate with Boston youth to co-create multi-media narratives that middle and high school students will learn from to prevent, and respond to, bias-based harm. We would support students with marginalized identities to create auto-ethnographies — an Ethnic Studies practice — about what it's like to exist in their intersectional identities within Boston Public Schools. They would preserve their narratives in film and text case studies to be shared with students in the future as part of deepening understanding of identity, oppression, and impact.”