July 13, 2021

A Message from the Mountain Brook Board of Education and Dr. Dicky Barlow:

The Mountain Brook Board of Education would like to thank all participants, attendees and the community at large for yesterday’s monthly Board of Education meeting. In particular, we appreciated the spirit of moving forward expressed by the citizens who spoke during a special public comment period. Regardless of the perspectives, the common threads of community and the concern for the well-being of our students were clear.

We truly see signs of hope as we continue our efforts at working with the community around implementing goal number four of our 2017 Strategic Plan.

As a follow-up from the meeting:

• If you have an interest in being part of the Diversity Committee, please email MBSDiversity@mtnbrook.k12.al.us. In addition, local school committees will be created and will meet this fall to plan activities for the upcoming school year, and we invite your participation in those efforts as well.
• Moving forward, and as we stated last week, MBS will review resources that may be considered for continuing anti-bias training for teachers. The Board and the System will also take the training once a provider(s) is selected, in advance of rollout to teachers. In addition, the selected materials will be made available for parents to view prior to implementation.
• Importantly, MBS and the Mountain Brook Board of Education will remain politically neutral in pursuing this strategic goal.
• Finally, we are also exploring ways to come together as a community for less formal, ongoing dialogue around this topic.

Your input will continue to be heard and respected as we together achieve a structure for respecting students so that all can feel included in an environment conducive to learning and future success.

Thank you again.