Kensington Elementary

There are serious issues with racism at Kensington "Hilltop" Elementary School in Kensington, CA, and they should be heeded if you are considering enrolling your child at this school. Racialized harm remains a persistent issue at the school, largely due to the lack of resources in the district, which is unable to provide training to the nearly all-white teachers and staff at Kensington to address their unconscious biases and racial and cultural insensitivities. Moreover, the teachers themselves seem uninterested in their professional development in this regard. Of particular concern is the prominence of anti-Black racism and the climate of hostility it creates for the very few remaining Black students at Kensington "Hilltop." Just a few years ago, there were about as many Black students at Kensington as there were in the overall West Contra Costa Unified School District today, there are just a handful remaining, and every year, the parents of Black and mixed-race African American students choose to remove their children from Kensington, which continues to fail its Black students and their families. Beyond the school itself, Kensington as a community seems unwilling to even acknowledge this issue, let alone do anything to solve it. The ample parent group resources, up to half a million dollars a year, go towards enrichment programs that largely benefit white and upper middle-class students while completely ignoring the needs of historically underprivileged groups. Kensington parents continually fail to impart anti-racist values in their children, and this is reflected in the commonplace usage of racial slurs directed towards East Asian and especially Black students. Teachers at Kensington continue to single out Black students for discipline while giving preferential treatment to their white students. A Black student at Kensington is more likely to be seen as having "behavioral problems" to be addressed with discipline while white students exhibiting the same behavior (talking in class, fighting at recess, etc.) are viewed as "kids being kids" or having "emotional issues" that require love and support. There is a great deal of ignorance in the community regarding these issues, as the community would like to see itself as progressive and on the "correct" side of racial issues. Yet the woeful segregation and racial hostility at Kensington "Hilltop" would not be possible without the community's white fragility and complete unwillingness to address the fact that it remains unwelcoming and inhospitable to kids of color.

Kensington "Hilltop" Elementary School has a climate of anti-Black racism that has made both the school and community unwelcome to Black and African-American families and their children. With just 1 of the student body identifying as Black and African-American, it is a highly segregated school with nearly all-white teachers and staff. You will see plenty of "Black Lives Matter" signs in the yards of the wealthy suburbanites in this community, but talk is cheap, and they don't practice what they preach.

Black and African-American students are highly visible among the majority white student body and singled out for discipline. Their experiences are not countenanced. The teachers lack training in unconscious bias and racial sensitivity. The school has a hostile climate for Black and African-American students. Racial slurs are bandied about by the white students, none of whom are ever disciplined. White students receive preferential treatment from the white teachers and staff. The overwhelmingly white community is complete uninterested in acknowledging these issues, let alone solving them.