On Tuesday, December 7, representatives from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights visited Raleigh as part of their investigation into the Title VI complaint filed against the Wake County Board of Education by NC HEAT and the NAACP. Read more about the complaint by clicking here.
The investigators from the Office of Civil Rights spent the day meeting with different community members and organizations about the impacts and consequences the new board majority’s push for neighborhood schools has and will have on Wake County students’ education, particularly for low income and students of color. They were taken on a tour of neighborhoods in the county to get a sense of what the racial composition of these so-called neighborhood schools would be. Throughout the day, they were accompanied by members of the Wake Education Advocates (WEA), including two members of NC HEAT.
At the end of the day, a final meeting was held between member organizations of the WEA and the OCR investigators at the YWCA in Raleigh. Members of NC HEAT began arriving at the Y for a planning meeting before the speak out action that was called for at the school board meeting later in the day. As the OCR investigators were leaving, NC HEAT lined the hallway with signs they had made for the school board action and spoke with investigators about the organizing they had been doing and why they were speaking out for just and equitable schools for all students.