The Martin Luther King Jr. Committee is supporting a fresh social studies vision at Arlington High School. Janice Bakey, the chair of the committee, details this effort and others in the following report. She wroe:" "The new social studies curriculum is a huge and welcome change!  The APS are to be commended!"

Sponsors and Friends of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Observance who contributed $3,667 this past January.  Expenses for yearly fees, equipment, rental, services, speaker, music, mailings, etc. were $957.99.

For more than 20 years, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee has donated funds earmarked to further the message of the civil-rights leader, slaim in 1968. He believed that educating the next generation was our only hope for equality, justice and peace for and among all people.

To that end, the committee has funded the purchase of books of all cultures in our school libraries, embraced annual training for teachers in [the curriculum called] "Facing History and Ourselves," helped with a civil rights tour to Georgia and Alabama, and helped fund a multicultural festival at AHS that is now an annual event.

Last year, we chose not to make a grant to the Arlington Public Schools (APS) because of staff transitions. Since then, a new K-12 social studies director has been hired and the curriculum has been reviewed and revised.

The new social studies vision statement includes but is not limited to: 

• Diversifying social studies staff;  increasing global studies throughout the K – 12 curriculum;
• Expanding coverage to include Canada, Mexico, native peoples of the Americas and the broad topic of immigration to the U.S.;
• Maximizing teacher use of professional development resources and;
• Instituting coherence and consistency across the district in social studies.   

This huge undertaking, costing approximately $90,000 over a three-year period, will include money from many sources.

The MLK Committee was asked to fund $7,040 over the next two years. The committee is very enthused with the quality, inclusiveness and cohesiveness of this project and voted its support of $4,500 this year, with the intent of raising the money and funding the balance next year. 

This is a reach for the committee, but one that we and others have worked very hard on over the years to see fulfilled – the integration of diversity into the curriculum.

In addition, donations were made to:

• The APS civil rights tour toward a scholarship for $250;
• The Dr. King Memorial in Washington, D.C. for $500;
• the Arlington African-American Scholarship Fund for $500 and;
• the Mystic Valley Branch of the NAACP of $100.

 The committee thanks all of the APS staff involved with the social studies project and its sponsors and friends for their financial and spiritual support that has helped lay the groundwork that moves Dr. King's goals of equality, justice and peace for all people closer to reality.

If anyone would like to donate to the MLK Committee, a check may be sent to MLK, P.O. Box 320, Arlington 02476.

  The Martin Luther King, Jr., Birthday Observance Committee

    Janice Bakey, chair
    Karen Bishop-Williams
    Regina Caines
    Jack Cooper
    Colleen Goodsell, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
    Sherry Hahn, Temple Emunah
    Roberta Lasky, Temple Shir Tikvah
    Ann Mathes, First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church
    Pearl Morrison, Arlington African American Society
    Judi Paradis, St. Eulalia's Church
    Stephen Pereira, METCO Director
    Rev. Ronald Ramsey, St. John's Episcopal Church
    Rev. Mikel Satcher, Trinity Baptist Church

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