The Truth Manifesto

At The Sojourner Truth School, we are passionate about the education of the whole student and the deliberate development of the adult.

We believe that Montessori is an engine for personal liberation, and that it will empower our students to create a more peaceful and just world.

We are committed to celebrating the uniqueness of every individual and to dismantling institutional racism.

Black Lives Matter: Our Commitments

June 4, 2020

Dear friends and Truth family, 

While we hope that this message finds you all okay, we unfortunately know that this is not the case.  

George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight in front of passersby 10 days ago.  Just weeks before that, Breonna Taylor was killed by police in her own home, with no arrests yet made.  Police murdered Eric Garner less than six years ago, and there have been over one hundred other black men killed by police since then. One of Eric Garner's last moments alive was spent breaking up a fight.  Minutes later he was put in a chokehold and killed.  Notably, his last known words were the same as George Floyd's: I can't breathe.

While in many ways it seems like a crazy time to open a new school, we have come to believe that it is the perfect time.  We stand with the Black Community.  As an organization, one of our core values is to “pursue justice everywhere.” Systemic racism demands our action and attention. 

Over the last two centuries we have seen what regularly happens following protests against racism in the United States: very little.  It is time, as Caroline Hill from 228 Accelerator has said, to "rewrite the story." If we want real change, we cannot respond with the same old playbook.  We need a new course of action, and school provides us with a frontline opportunity to write it and to create real, lasting, systemic change.

As co-founders at Truth, we commit to never becoming inured to the disparities between the experiences and outcomes of our Students of Color and their White peers.  We commit to ongoing and honest dialogue around race with our students, teachers, and families. To fostering brave spaces for all community members. To ensuring that our students have voice, agency, and that their work helps to sustain and elevate them as humans. To prioritizing social-emotional learning every bit as much as traditional academic achievement. To doing everything we can to make Truth a new and different kind of school that helps create new and different leaders and a new and different society. To not going back to "normal." To making every effort possible to breathe life in to our students.

While the last week has been challenging on all kinds of levels, it has made our collective mission at Truth and the need for a new approach to school - one that focuses on self-development and student voice - even more evident than ever before. 

We are proud of the strong community that we have built together, which leads with love and where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. We believe in the power of community, the possibility that comes when we work together, and that love will always overcome hate.

We are grateful to be on this journey alongside you.