School Districts
California
- 7/1/2020 - 8/28/2020 - San Diego Unified School District, $11,000
- Castro Valley Unified School District
Michigan
- 2/18/2021 - Oakland Schools, $8,000
New Jersey
- Newark Board of Education
South Carolina
- 5/20/2021 - Charleston County School District, $3,500
Wisconsin
- Madison Metropolitan School District
Report Details
What is Love Educational Services LLC?
On Jan. 6, 2017, Bettina Love registered Love Educational Services, LLC, as a limited liability company, based in Atlanta, Georgia, with the Georgia Secretary of State, providing “educational services.” Her resume is at this link.
Love’s website states her “writing, research, teaching, and educational advocacy work meet at the intersection of education reform, anti-racism, carceral studies, abolition and Black joy.”
The website states: “The aim of her scholarship is twofold: firstly, to advance how the field of education understands and critiques the systemic and structural racism of public education within the U.S.; and secondly, to advocate for abolitionist approaches in the field of education that seek new possibilities for educational justice. In the pursuit of making her scholarship a reality, she works with activists, communities, youth, families, and school districts to build communal, civically-engaged schools rooted in the aspirations of abolitionist strategies that love and affirm Black and Brown children.”
What K-12 work has Love Educational Services LLC done?
In May 2019, Love, then an associate professor of educational theory and practice at the University of Georgia, wrote about incidents across the country, including Black girls strip-searched in their Binghamton, New York, school, when school officials thought they were on drugs. “Physical and psychological attacks on Black and Brown children’s bodies and culture are more than just racist acts by misguided school educators; they are the spirit murdering of Black and Brown children,” she wrote. Her column in EducationWeek was headlined, “How Schools are ‘Spirit Murdering’ Black and Brown Students.”
In February 2020, she posted a series of tweets about speaking to a “gym full of students” from CVLCC High School in south San Diego, California, thanking Jorge Ramirez for the invitation.
On July 24, 2020, in the summer of 2020, just two months after the killing of George Floyd, Love registered the Abolitionist Teaching Network as a new 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, based in Montgomery, Ohio, with the Ohio Secretary of State. The organization’s registration documents described its mission is to “develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities.”
What is the Abolitionist Teaching Network?
On July 24, 2020, in the summer of 2020, just two months after the killing of George Floyd, Love registered the Abolitionist Teaching Network as a new 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, based in Montgomery, Ohio, with the Ohio Secretary of State. The organization’s registration documents described its mission is to “develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities.”
The organization’s registration documents described its mission is to “develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities.”
In April 2021, the Biden Administration’s Department of Education included the Abolitionist Teaching Network as a resource in a handbook, “Ed COVID-19 Handbook: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students’ Needs,” sent to the over 13,000 school districts in the country. It linked to the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s “Guide for Racial Justice & Abolitionist Social and Emotional Learning,” published in August 2020. The guide argued, “most” social and emotional standards are “rooted in Eurocentric norms, not to empower, love, affirm, or free Black, Brown, or Indigeonous children.”
It further argued: “Remove all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children.” It said that social and emotional learning “can be a covert form of policing used to punish, criminalize, and control Black, Brown, and Indigenous children and communities to adhere to White norms.”
The handbook was said to be created by the office of Acting Assistant Secretary Donna Harris-Aikens, former senior director of education policy and practice at the National Education Association, the country’s largest teacher’s union. In late June 2020, Love was a speaker at the kickoff event for an online National Education Association series, “Summer Justice Series: Building a Community of Love, Power & Liberation.”
In late July 2021, the Department of Education issued a statement: “The Department does not endorse the recommendations of this group, nor do they reflect our policy positions. It was an error in a lengthy document to include this citation.”
What K-12 is Love Educational Services LLC?
CALIFORNIA
Castro Valley Unified School District
“Black Futures & Black Joy,” Feb. 25, 2021, “Our future is BLACK and filled with JOY. This beautiful panel will take us on a journey of a Black future filled with joy, justice, art, and love. Join Gholdy Muhammed, Yolanda Ruiz, and Stacey Robinson for a conversation facilitated by ATN co-founder Bettina Love at 8:15PM EST.” Registration.
The four speakers were: Stacey Robinson, an assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad is an associate professor of language and literacy at Georgia State University; Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is an award-winning associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, with research focuses on “racial literacy in teacher education,” “Black girl literacies,” and “Black and Latinx male high school students.”
The advertisement said: “Join Gholdy Muhammed, Yolanda Ruiz, and Stacey Robinson for a conversation facilitated by ATN [Abolitionist Teaching Network] co-founder Bettina Love at 8:15PM EST.”
San Diego Unified School District
On Aug. 19. 2020, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten welcomed Bettina Love as the keynote speaker to the Summer Principals Institute, paying her $11,000 for the virtual appearance, according to a copy of the Vendor Expenditure Report. (The Board Docs link to the contract is visible at this link.)
A San Diego elementary school purchased $256 of Love’s book, “We Want to Do More Than Survive.”
She spoke about how to “challenge the oppressive practices that live within the systems and structures of school organizations.”
The school district booked her to “discuss Abolitionist Teaching, which is built on the concept of creativity, imagination, boldness, ingenuity, and rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists to demand and fight for an educational system and world where all students are thriving, not simply surviving.”
The $11,000 fee included $1,000 for a one-hour preparation conference call, $8,000 for a keynote address of a minimum 45 minutes on Aug. 19, 2020, and $2,000 for a 30-minute question-and-answer session by Aug. 28, 2020.
The budget source was “Title IV Funds,” according to a copy of the agreement with Love Educational Services, LLC., including in the agenda of the June 23, 2020, school board meeting.
The school district described the leadership professional development series as “focused on culturally sustaining and relevant teaching.” Marten featured inviting Love in her official biography as an example of her “commitment to equity.”
In February 2021, the Biden administration nominated Marten to be deputy education secretary in the Department of Education, and she was confirmed soon after. That month, students at four local schools in the San Diego area led a virtual, two-day conference, “(Un)Covering You: Privilege and Vulnerability,” with Love as a speaker.
MICHIGAN
Oakland Schools
On Feb. 18, 2021, Oakland Public Schools, Michigan, signed an $8,000 contract with Love Educational Services LLC to have cofounder Bettina Love speak later that month on Feb. 25, 2021, for a one-hour webinar for teachers and administrators, consisting of a 45-minute lecture followed by a 15-minute Q&A for up to 500 attendees. The topic: “Educational reform movement of Abolitionist Teaching where all students are thriving, not surviving.”
NEW JERSEY
Newark Board of Education
On Feb. 5, 2021, Love delivered a talk sponsored by the Newark Board of Education to University High School in Newark, New Jersey. The advertisement said: “She is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers, studying how anti-blackness operates in schools, Hip Hop education, and urban education.”
Love met staff and students at the University High School-Home of the Humanities to “lead a discussion with students from the Teacher Academies for Social Justice,” an academy of University High School and East Side High School. the Newark Board of Education said copies of her book, “We Want to Do More Than Survive,” were provided to “all teacher academy students” through funding from a grant by the Victoria Foundation, a private foundation based in Newark, New Jersey.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston County School District
According to its Expenditure Report for May 2021, Charleston County School District paid Love Educational Services, LLC, $3,500 on May 20, 2021, as a professional development speaker on cultural competency.
WISCONSIN
Madison Metropolitan School District, Wisconsin
On Monday morning, Aug. 26, 2019, Bettina Love was a guest speaker in Madison Metropolitan School District, Wisconsin. According to a local media article, Love delivered a speech on “Black Excellence” during a “major rally of local educators” at Alliant Energy Center.
“Whiteness does not like black excellence,” Dr. Love said. “So, Madison, you’re calling yourself a city that’s gonna do black excellence? Look out!”
Love spoke in the school district after alleged issues regarding race. The article said, “2018-19 was a racially tumultuous year in MMSD. In November a Hamilton Middle School teacher resigned after using a racial slur. By January, MMSD had removed an additional 7 district teachers (2 from West alone) for using racial language. And, by June, Madison365 was reporting that 8 teachers and substitutes had lost their jobs or resigned for using racial slurs in front of students. And those were just the incidents that made their way into the media.”
The article continued: “Lines of speakers running, 80, 90, close to 100 people deep took to the podium to rain down torrid comments and exasperated feelings onto members of the School Board. In addition to the racial incidents and culture of whiteness that youth of colored faced at school, there was the issue of police patrolling the hallways. It went to the core of racial tension in MMSD as some in the community perceived that people like Mueller-Owens were able to avoid criminal charges and resign with dignity while police cited and ticketed black and brown youth for any small transgression.”
It said: “By the end of the year, MMSD Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham had resigned, the Board of Education underwent a facelift with the additions of candidates of color like Ananda Mirilli and Ali Muldrow, and the scramble was on to make sure the 2019-20 school year would be different.”
Love spoke, the article said, with “the seeds of change…evident.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Georgetown Day School (private school)
Oct. 28, 2020, Love spoke at Georgetown Day School on the topic, “With Their Souls Intact,” repeating to faculty and staff her thesis that schools often engage in “spirit murdering” students “of color.”
The school featured the speech on its website.
The website said that Love “discussed how in schools across the country, when curriculum doesn’t include the stories of people who look like their students of color (except in the contexts of oppression, enslavement, or protest), their humanity is invalidated.”
It continued: “They and their peers don’t learn about the contributions of BIPOC historically. The ‘methodical and slow’ diminishing of the joy and light of students’ spirit ‘is a death.’ Dr. Love called the systemic, sinister disdain and disregard for the humanity of students of color in this country ‘spirit murdering.'”
ORGANIZATIONS
PORTLAND
Portland Association of Teachers
On May 12, 2021, Bettina Love presented a virtual talk, sponsored by the Portland Association of Teachers, for an undisclosed amount. The website advertisement is at this link.
HIGHER EDUCATION
CALIFORNIA
Riverside Community College District
Riverside Community College District paid Love Educational Services, LLC, $8,500 for “Lecturers.” The total included $4,250 for “Students Services – Riverside,” $2,125 for “Institutional Support, Instruction & Curriculum” and $2,125 for “Student Services Grants & Equity Programs.”