Buffalo Public Schools created the Office of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives (CLRI) to support schools in establishing a community that embraces, values, and infuses culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning for all students. This page is a homebase for some of those initiatives as they pertain to BPMC, including reading lists, events, book clubs, and more!
Some general questions to help start your Courageous Conversations:
The questions below are just a starting point for parents and children to talk. Of course, you know your child best and you know what they are and are not ready to observe, acknowledge, and talk about. Please know that these are general questions and may not be appropriate for every story or situation but might be just the ones you are having trouble finding the words for.
What did you notice here?
Why do you think that happened?
How did it make you feel?
What do wish had happened?
What is the message the author is trying to get across?
If you had been a character in the story, what would you have done the same? Or differently?
What is a solution for the problem the characters are experiencing?
Have you ever noticed something similar? Where? What do you think you could do to help someone who was having a similar problem?
Let’s Celebrate! Special Days Around the World by Kate De Palma
Just Ask: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor
All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color / Todos Los Colores de Nuestra Piel by Katie Kissinger
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
My Family is Forever by Nancy Carlson
Red Shoes by Karen English
My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed
I Love My Hair by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley
The Day You Begin by Jaqueline Woodson
The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! by Carmen Agra Deedy
Binny’s Diwali by Thirty Umrigar
Under the Ramadan Moon by Sylvia Whitman
Drawn Together by Minh Lee
The Deaf Musicians by Pete Seeger and Paul Dubois Jacobs
Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox by Danielle Daniel
He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson
The Colors of Us by Karen Katz
Charlotte and the Quiet Place by Deborah Sosin
Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell
Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park
French Toast by Kari-Lynn Winters
The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal
Yo Soy Muslim by Mark Gonzales
Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
Under my Hijab by Hena Khan
Where Are You From? by Jamie Kim
The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad
I Love the Skin I’m In by Mayma Raphael
Did You Know?
That there are several resources teachers can use on the BPS website to use when planning lessons that are Culturally and Linguistically Responsive? You can peruse them too!
That the book your child was given (grades K-6) called Born on the Water came from the CLRI office?
That teachers from Montessori participated in writing the original curriculum the district is using and even more are working on those efforts now?
That your child’s teacher (grades K-6) will be given 50 titles to have in their classrooms to use with students to make sure that children are seeing stories with characters that look like them?
…and that Bennett Park Montessori participated in a district-wide event called Hope and Healing for Humanity?