Mo Charnot
SFPS Safe Routes to Schools Coordinator Ryan Harris reads the story of Ruby Bridges to students from Chaparral and EJ Martinez elementary schools at their Walk and Roll to School event Friday morning.
64 years ago on Nov. 14, Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to attend a previously whites-only school in New Orleans, La., following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools.
To celebrate the anniversary, Santa Fe Public Schools hosted several events throughout the week where students who walk or bike to school can learn about Bridges’ story through the children’s book she wrote.
On Friday morning, students of the consolidated Chaparral and EJ Martinez elementary schools gathered at Ragle Park for their weekly Walk and Roll to School event, a district-wide program that has been running at Chaparral Elementary for three years now to encourage physical activity and environmentally friendly transportation to students.
At this week’s events, known as “StoryWalks,” the scenic trail students take to school was dotted with 20 signs printed with pages from I Am Ruby Bridges, detailing her first day attending William Frantz Elementary School.
Ryan Harris, the district’s Safe Routes to Schools coordinator, led the reading of the book as Chaparral and EJ Martinez students walked on the trail. This year, Harris tells SFR, is the first year SFPS has participated in Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day, a growing national movement that originated in 2018 with a fifth-grade class in San Mateo County, Calif.
“It's a really important cause, and I think it's a great way to start introducing kids to the idea of equity and talk about the problems in our past, and kind of celebrate how far we've come from there, but also recognize how much further we have to go,” Harris says. “It helps empower kids to understand that they can make changes and make the world better.”
As Harris read aloud from the book to students, he asked them questions about the story and engaged with their opinions: “Can you imagine being the only person to go to your school? Do you think it was fair that Ruby had to take a test to go to school? How does equality make the world better for everybody?”
One student, Diego Peinado, tells SFR he learned about Bridges’ story for the first time today.
“I thought it was special for Black people to go to the school, so that way they can go to school with white people and could learn more,” Peinado says.
The StoryWalks at SFPS this year were funded by a grant from the national nonprofit Safe Routes Partnership, which encourages students to walk to school and “engage in a day of dialogue about activism, anti-racism, and anti-bullying” to honor Bridges. Harris says he also worked with the district and the local NAACP to set up the events.
At the events hosted so far, Harris says incoming winter weather has made getting more students in attendance of the StoryWalks “a little challenging,” but the students who have shown up “have really engaged.”
“We've had some really good conversations, some really insightful stuff coming out of 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds,” Harris says.
Mo Charnot
Students write and draw their ideas of how to make the world a better place after completing the story.
At the end of the StoryWalk, students were brought to a table with a cloth over it, where they were tasked to write one way they would change the world to make it a better place, some with illustrations. The responses varied from “save the environment” to “help the homeless” to “no more homework.” More than a few students wrote “be kind.”
“There's a push to make [Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day] a national holiday, and so next year, we'll probably appeal to the superintendent and City Council to try to see if Santa Fe at least will adopt it as a holiday,” Harris says.
The last StoryWalk event this year will be held on Nov. 21 for students walking or biking to Aspen Community School. The group will meet at 7 am at John Griego Vietnam Memorial Park.
