Lisa Gregoire, Isaac Fox Elementary School principal:

“I believe racism exists everywhere. I do not believe that one community is more sheltered from the effects of racism than another. The most difficult day, as an administrator or as an educator, was when I had to, two years ago, around the end of the school year, I had to speak to my staff and students because our school was peppered with racist graffiti and sprawled all across our playground. And the reaction of our students was sadness. They felt like somebody had attacked them and our school, they expressed as much. They took it personally. And they felt very aggrieved by those actions. And they were traumatized by the event. Truly traumatized,” Gregoire said. “For me, that was a difficult day to stand in front of, to speak to every single grade level, about what happened. And to tell them it was okay, and tell them, and to hear their concerns and their sadness. But just imagine what it is like if that is your day to day experience as it is for so many, you know, black and brown kids and immigrants in our community or across, I don’t even want to say in our community but nationally if that’s their experience. That was their one day experience.”