This op-ed was written by Melissa Morgan, Jerlene Tatum, and Dr. Kim Tabari. Melissa Morgan is an LBUSD parent and BSAI Advisory Member, and member of the LBUSD Equity Leadership Team. Jerlene Tatum is an LBUSD parent and Founding BSAI Advisory Member. Dr. Kim Tabari is a former LBUSD parent and Founding BSAI Advisory Member.
In late April, after more than 15 months of Black families raising persistent concerns and community calls for accountability through meetings, public comments, restorative processes and direct advocacy, Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) removed Norma Spencer as Director of the Center of Black Student Excellence.
Many Black families across the city hope this marks a turning point.
This spring, families should have been preparing for the 5th Annual Black Student Achievement Initiative (BSAI) Symposium, a vibrant gathering we co-created. Parents connected across packed rooms. Students saw Black educators, leaders and families affirming their worth and potential.
Instead, the event was silently removed from the LBUSD calendar. No public notice. No community forum. No explanation from district leadership. No acknowledgment of what this gathering meant to the families who helped build it.
What We Built and Why It Matters
This ecosystem of support began with accountability. A 2018 legal settlement required LBUSD to redirect misallocated funds toward mental health services, tutoring and family engagement for its most underserved students.
Then, amid the 2020 COVID-19 crisis and national reckoning after the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, Superintendent Dr. Jill Baker’s administration adopted an Equity Policy. This policy was co-developed by parents, guardians, staff, educators and community members, and endorsed by all but one board member.
From that foundation emerged the BSAI, a growing ecosystem of support that included the Sankofa Parent Village, Sankofa Saturdays, Sankofa Summer Academy, school-site Sankofa Parent Groups, the Black Literary Society, and an BSAI Annual Symposium. For many families, these were the first district spaces where their Black child’s success, brilliance and identity was centered rather than pathologized.
Parents who had never met became allies. Families left the Symposiums equipped with A-G college requirements, social-emotional resources and knowledge of their rights. Parents and community volunteers donated hundreds of unpaid hours planning, facilitating, outreaching, mentoring and helping families navigate systems that have historically failed them. This was not just programming. It was hard-earned trust between Black families and a school district. And trust like that is rare, fragile and difficult to rebuild once broken.
The Gaps Persist and We Demand Action
LBUSD’s own 2025-26 data underscores why the BSAI remains urgent:
| Metric | Black Students | District Average | Disparity |
| ELA Standards Met/Exceeded | 34% | 49% | -15% |
| Math Standards Met/Exceeded | 20% | 36% | -16% |
| Suspension Rate | 9.3% | 2.7% | 3.4x higher |
| A-G College Eligibility | 46% (Grade 11) | 66% | –20% |
These numbers are not abstract statistics. These are our children. These disparities are exactly why Black family engagement, culturally grounded programming and sustained accountability structures matter. Weakening them now moves the district in the wrong direction.
What’s Happening Now and Why It’s Failing
In May 2025, the Center of Black Student Excellence opened and was grounded in research and the district’s “10 Elements of Black Excellence”.
The Center was supposed to expand and institutionalize culturally grounded support and accountability structures for Black students. It has not done that. At the same time, the district’s own 2025-26 LCAP (Local Control and Accountability Plan) allocates approximately $2.6 million toward BSAI-related staffing, programming, partnerships and support. Yet the public still has no clear accounting of how those funds are specifically being spent, what outcomes they are producing or whether they are meaningfully reaching students and families.
Core programs like Sankofa Saturdays and Summer Academy remain inconsistently supported, with staff sometimes forced to secure outside venues because of internal coordination breakdowns. The BSAI Advisory Committee, a group of parent volunteers providing community expertise, has been sidelined. Parents who once helped shape the BSAI now describe feeling excluded from meaningful decision-making and informed only after major decisions have already been made.
In Superintendent Baker’s final months before retirement, this year’s symposium vanished without replacement or notice. Community concerns, raised via internal channels, restorative circles and board comments, met no substantive response. One parent described the situation plainly: “They asked us to build it. Now they’re changing everything without us.” That statement reflects a growing concern across the community that partnership has been replaced with centralized decision-making and diminishing transparency.
A Defining Moment for LBUSD’s Next Leader
As Dr. Baker departs, her successor inherits more than a leadership transition. They inherit a decision about whether LBUSD’s commitment to Black students and families will continue in practice or slowly disappear through neglect and inaction. We are calling for immediate action and accountability:
- Restore the BSAI Advisory Committee with formal charter, monthly meetings and authority over program changes.
- Release transparent public data related to Black student success quarterly, including outcomes (e.g., GPA/suspension trends), A-G progress, program participation and detailed budget line-items tied to BSAI and the Center of Black Student Excellence for accountability.
- Appoint a dedicated, compensated leadership structure for the BSAI, including full-time coordination accountable both to the district and to families.
- Reinstate the Annual BSAI Symposium with a confirmed annual date, venue, budget and parent engagement plan.
Equity is a practice, not a phase. Parents and caregivers show up, month after month and year after year. LBUSD must keep its word. Our community built this infrastructure.
We are still here. We are still watching. And silence is no longer an option.
