‘We have moved the ball… but if it’s a hundred yards, we’ve moved it inches’
In 2018, Jason Wilson became the first African-American elected to the Clayton School Board. Wilson, a businessman and entrepreneur, has long been involved in social justice causes. Here are excerpts from remarks he delivered at a school board meeting on June 10. Wilson, who had been serving as the board’s treasurer, nominated himself to be the board’s president. The board instead voted to retain Joe Miller as president, with Wilson continuing as treasurer.
I don’t want to continue the speech I had on Monday (at an anti-racism rally organized by recent Clayton graduates), but I do want to make sure that everyone will change. Real change. We’ve all seen you talk about a million words like equity, responsive teaching, and all these things are seen, and what happens is, we’re smart. We’re academically trained, right? We went to college to get our Masters and our PhDs.
And we become so good at adopting language. What we’re not good at is implementation. I think this is literally a moment in time and this, by the way, this isn’t just about Black Lives Matter (but) how are we going to make our school system, our school district the best it can be?
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I’ve been on the board for two years and I see a lot of things in the way of plans and like I said before, a lot of words around equity and things that we’re going to do, but yet still we kind of wallow in the face of complacency. And things aren’t necessarily being done. And this is not a knock for any one person, but it’s more so a knock towards the ethos around the school board and the community as well. It’s going to be tough to sit here for another year and possibly watch things not change. There’s a history of things not getting better.
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Things have not changed …for African American kids. (It has) not gotten better. Racism is the same as it was maybe 10 years ago, 15, 20. It’s still these issues that keep popping up on a consistent basis. Not just with black kids. The Jewish kids, kids that are Asian, kids that are of all ethnicities, all faiths. And it’s problematic for learning in the classroom.
Now all of a sudden today or the last two weeks, everyone is now engaged in the idea of race being at the forefront and very important. Well, I want to make sure that it is. I would like to be the president of the board. I feel like I can help steer the district in the right direction, help Sean (Doherty, district superintendent), help the board. It’s tough doing it from this position (as treasurer). Not that it can’t be done. We’ve done some great research. We have moved the ball… if it’s a hundred yards, we’ve moved the ball inches, though.
If this were a white student in any way not getting what they need to be successful, you would be up in arms. And what’s funny is, and what’s interesting is that this is nothing new. This is nothing new that I haven’t seen at the board table. I think when we first sat down and saw the scores two years ago, the test scores of African American children, black and brown, compared to everybody else, we were all like… somebody said… and I’m not saying quote unquote, but, this is par of the course and how it is around the nation. And that to me… that’s intolerable.
There’s not a game I play. There is not anything I do in life where I can accept less than average. And I’m not saying that you all, administration, hasn’t done some great work. The point is that I want to push on the board to really get more out of everybody… We should be leading the charge in education, as well as innovative stuff, and looking at other folks who are doing good thing…I’m not saying you haven’t. I’m saying we should be doing more…
So once again, this is not an indictment. Don’t hold me down on one word or one thing to find a flaw, or find an argument. Just hear me out and understand what I’m saying.
