New York advisers aid Marin City school desegregation effort
by Keri Brenner
December 29, 2019 (updated December 30, 2019)
Marin Independent Journal
“Two leaders in educational equity from New York City have joined the advisory group working on a desegregation plan for the Sausalito Marin City School District.
The consultants are Matt Gonzales, director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, and Zarith Pineda, founder of the independent organization Territorial Empathy. They met this month with the local advisory group formed to comply with the state attorney general’s settlement order in August to desegregate the district’s TK-8 school, Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City, within five years.
‘Our interest is really to help create some coherence between the unification work, the comprehensive plan that’s required by the AG’s office, as well as the local control accountability plan,’ Gonzales said during a visit in Marin City. ‘All of these things hopefully will fit and work together.’
The district also oversees a K-8 charter school, Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito, which is intertwined with the desegregation plan and a parallel effort to unify the two schools. It has not been decided whether the unified school would be a traditional public school or a charter school.
‘Dr. Gonzales is a leader in desegregation efforts nationwide through his work as part of the National Coalition on School Desegregation [sic] as well as his work desegregating schools in New York City,’ Sausalito Marin City School District Superintendent Itoco Garcia said in a text message. ‘Zarith is an expert on urban planning and architecture and offers expertise in the areas of desegregation as it relates to housing, urban planning and school desegregation and has worked with Dr. Gonzales in NYC.'”
Matt Gonzales is a long-time NCSD member, and serves on NCSD’s steering committee.