SAYS PROJECT HEAL
It all started when…
SAYS Project HEAL: Health, Education, Activism, and Leadership is a specialized course aimed to work exclusively and unapologetically to address the experiences of 25 Black girls who were disproportionately confronting oppressive social systems, including their school campus.
For over a decade SAYS has challenged the lack of access to culturally relevant curriculum and lack of culturally responsive teaching in Black and Brown schools. Through the creation of a social justice oriented curriculum SAYS has helped dismantle the school to prison pipeline, lower suspension rates, as well as increase graduation rates and increased achievement levels for African American and Latina/o students. The most successful program, to date, in achieving these goals, in particular academic support + arts education + violence prevention, is the yearlong elective course at Luther Burbank high school called Project HEAL: Healing/Health, Education, Artivism, and Leadership. This specialized course led by two Black Poet-Mentor Educators, aims to work exclusively to address the experiences of students who were disproportionately confronting oppressive social systems, historic marginalization, underrepresentation, and a lack of access to resources.
At the onset, students were referred into the course by a teacher, administrator, or campus counselor based upon the following criteria:
Consistent absenteeism
Receiving a D/F in more than one subject
Multiple detentions, suspensions, and/or referrals
Recently incarcerated and/or on probation/parole
From a high-poverty area of Sacramento
From a high-violence area of Sacramento
Receive free/reduced-fee lunches
Designated as Emotionally Disturbed by a school IEP
Gang-involved or affiliated
Will be the first in their family to graduate high school and/or first in family to attend college
While many teachers and administrators considered these students to be menaces, as described in detail on their disciplinary records, this was not the case in the Project HEAL space. Led by two Black women teaching artists in their mid-thirties, this course was designed to align with student’s life experiences and elevate their aspirations. Inside the Project HEAL classroom, Black women worked holistically to help Black girls tease through their trauma, providing space to discuss the multiple forms of violence—gang, sexual, and emotional—as well as income inequality and health disparities.