Dear Parents, 

We must come together to demand more and we must do so now more than ever.

Covid 19 has shown us what we already know. Children who live in certain communities in Atlanta Public Schools  are getting denied a high-quality education. 

As Atlanta Thrive has learned from conducting hundreds of parent surveys, parents have never been more aware of the education realities that have affected students in black and brown communities for decades.  

Data suggests that low-income children of color have lost more ground as a result of the COVID shut down of their schools than more affluent children.  In some cases, these missing months of school will leave our children a full school year behind where they were.  If we are serious about ending the systemic oppression that has kept our children from receiving their fair shot. APS children CANNOT go back to business as usual in our schools this fall.  

We know our school leaders join parents in wanting what is best for kids so we are respectfully and strongly requesting that school leaders adopt the following recommendations as they create their plans for what school will look like this fall:  

Every student receives a personalized plan for academic recovery by November 1.
Each student has access to a connected device loaded with the district’s learning programs and that can connected to the internet. Parent training for district learning programming is necessary, so that parents can champion their child(ren) education.
Parents who are not comfortable sending their children into school buildings are given the choice to continue with a district-provided at-home learning program for part or all of 2020-21, without being asked to provide any justification.
Parents who are dissatisfied with their district’s home learning program can choose a different home learning program with our funding following the child.

Atlanta has come together before to fight the inequities for the  black and brown communities and we must come together again to change education for black and brown children in APS!  

We hope you will join Atlanta Thrive by electronically signing this statement of support.  In doing so, you give permission to Atlanta Thrive to use your name and the name of other supporters in the media and press to show widespread support for these recommendations.  Finally, as a supporter of these recommendations, we promise to keep you updated on our progress and to let you know other ways you can be involved to make sure these recommendations are adopted.

If you want to make sure our kids get what they need to succeed, please sign our petition in solidarity! 

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS PARENTS:  If you are an Atlanta Public Schools parent, we really need to hear from you.  In addition to supporting this petition, we ask that you please leave us a comment explaining why these recommendations are important to your family.  Your voice is important!  No one knows better than parents what their kids need!