Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor and to the countless other families of those who have been the victims of bigoted hatred.

We live in a country that explicitly names freedom and liberty as key tenets for all people. However, these are not shared experiences for everyone who live here. We’ve witnessed over the past few weeks how bigotry, racism and hatred have led to murder and left many feeling that freedom and liberty are concepts that for them do not exist.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools joins with others throughout our community who seek to eliminate bias, bigotry and racism. We recognize that while we’ve worked to develop cultural competencies in leaders throughout the organization there is still much more work to be done. We know that educating children is one of the most impactful ways to change a county, a nation and a world. We can do that only by speaking truth in love and by disrupting the systems and mindsets that would actively create hatred or passively allow bias.

Our children deserve a world that sees each of them as worthy and valuable. We are committed to do our part in this community to ensure that ours is an educational system that embraces our obligation to educate all who attend our schools, to make sure we do not tolerate the mindset that there is such a thing as “good enough.”

As we reflect on recent events and remember the cycles of injustice, inequality, and unrest that came before, we pledge to join leaders in our community and throughout the country in participating in the sometimes difficult conversations and developing actionable solutions that leverage the power of education to lift up those who need the most help. In so doing, we will enable development of generations of citizens capable of moving beyond historic divisions and shaping a nation true to its ideals.