Uncommon Schools is taking an organization-wide mental health day June 1, 2020 for the sake of our community.
Like you, we spent the weekend watching, reading, grieving, raging, reflecting, and marching. We spent the weekend trying to explain to our own children what was going on, as we tried to explain it to ourselves.
As we thought about how to address the murder of George Floyd and the protests of the past several days, we concluded that taking a day off for everyone’s mental wellness — across our entire organization — was what we should do. We are doing this because we recognize how deeply exhausted and upset so many of us are — especially our Black and Brown colleagues and friends — and want to provide the additional time to process and support. And we want to send our own message of shared frustration and anger to our students, to each of us, our larger community, and the wider world.
We believe words are powerful. But we want to complement our words with action and on behalf of our organization, this is one action that we can and will take publicly. Nothing is more important than human dignity. That is an enduring truth and more important than anything else we could do tomorrow. This feels needed. This feels right. We care about you and want you to know your sadness, frustration, empathy, anger, and fear are shared across our Uncommon family.
Brett Peiser, CEO
Julie Jackson, President