Going Deeper: Integration Leader Pushed Us to Really Think Hard about the Choices We Make

Courtney Everts Mykytyn - an Appreciation

By Susan Savitt Schwartz, PEN Program Director and Parent Advisory Board member, Integrated Schools

Courtney Everts Mykytyn, a Highland Park mom and a fierce, funny, humble, thoughtful advocate for integration, died late last month after being struck by a car outside her home. She was 46, and leaves a husband and two teenagers, as well as a national network of parents who learned – from her blog, podcast, and most of all from her personal example – that each of us has a part to play in reversing segregation and achieving a truly integrated, equitable society.

Courtney’s message was simple. White and/or privileged parents have – as much through our individual actions as through our political power – undermined public policy efforts to desegregate our nation’s schools. The organization she founded – Integrated Schools – seeks to disrupt this trend by supporting, educating, and mobilizing families to “live their values” and to leverage their choices for the well-being and futures not only of their own children, but of all children, and for our democracy.

I met Courtney in April 2017, when a KPCC reporter who had contacted both of us for a story suggested we connect. We traded stories. She expressed interest in PEN’s approach and invited me to work with her and a group of Integrated Schools (IS) members from around the country on a “how to” guide for white and/or privileged families enrolling in schools predominantly serving families of color. (She was adamant about the phrase “white and/or privileged,” noting that she was not about to tell a parent of color – whether or not that parent identified as privileged – where or how to educate her children.)

In many ways, Integrated Schools’ work closely aligns with PEN’s mission. IS shares PEN’s belief that all children benefit from an education that is culturally, socio-economically, and racially diverse. Just as PEN encourages families to visit their neighborhood (assigned) school before exploring other options, IS urges parents to commit to a 2-Tour Pledge: “With an open heart and mind I will tour two schools that serve a majority of students from different racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds than my family.”

But where PEN’s theory of action starts from the premise that parents choose schools based on what they think will be best for their child, IS starts by examining the impact that white and/or privileged families’ school “choices” have had on public education.

“…school segregation is as much a story of failed public policy as it is one of white/privileged families thwarting it… [and] …the large and immediate brunt of our segregated schools has fallen on the heads of poor children.”

“The ‘failures’ of our public schools, such as they are, are failures on the part of privileged white families to participate in these institutions. We know that integration works to improve educational outcomes. Rather than twist and turn and tie ourselves into knots to avoid it, Integrated Schools intentionally, joyfully and humbly embraces this work.”

And where PEN works to move parents along a continuum from maximizing the individual interests of their own children towards greater awareness and advocacy for the needs of all children, IS focuses on white and/or privileged families choosing to enroll their children in schools predominantly serving children of color and of less economically advantaged circumstances. PEN measures its impact in part by the high percentage of members who get involved in ways that strengthen schools and improve opportunities for students throughout the district. IS asks integrating families to just show up – with humility and patience – as immigrants rather than as change agents.

An anthropologist by training, Courtney read voraciously and shared what she learned via her blog posts, an online book group, website (be sure to check out the “theory of change” video on the homepage) and a popular podcast. At the same time, she was an incredibly down-to-earth person, as interested in other people’s stories as in her own journey, and honest about her own failings and lessons learned as an integrating parent. She challenged others to examine their choices – but no more than she challenged herself. Having started her schools journey by rallying other middle-class parents in her gentrifying Highland Park neighborhood to lobby for a dual language program at their local elementary school, she came to question the practice of “rallying.”

“Would you want a faction of strangers parading in to your home, rearranging furniture, and pointing out all the things in your living room that don’t jibe with their aesthetic?”

My interactions with Courtney and with IS have deepened my thinking about the work I do with PEN. On the one hand, I understand the parental “herd instinct” that drives us to rally our peers when we set out to try something new or scary (Kindergarten! Middle school!) I know that involved parents support our schools and students in ways large and small.

On the other hand, what does it say to families who already attend a school that you don’t feel safe enrolling your kid without a posse of your white peers? What does it say when you start looking for ways to improve the school before you’ve even consented to join the school community? I think about the conversation at a recent Muir parent coffee. When one prospective parent asked, “How can we help support the school?” the answer was simple: just enroll your child. Join our community.

Our schools can always use more resources, but the single most meaningful form of parent participation is getting your child to school every day, ready to learn. And as parents, we can model that behavior by showing up ourselves, as our busy lives permit, equally ready to learn.

As with PEN, Integrated Schools’ work is less about policy than about individuals making choices, and about the immediate as well as the larger, longer-term impact of those choices. That work is ongoing. In her last podcast (All I Want for Christmas is 3.5% with Denver dad Andrew Lefkowits), Courtney noted the results of a meta-analysis showing that when as little as 3.5% of the population are actively engaged in a different way of doing things – prioritizing meaningful integration of our children, say – societal change is apt to follow. (PEN’s work illustrates the point on a local scale; over the past 14 years our families and allies have helped to change the conversation about – and participation in – public education in the communities served by PUSD.)

Courtney recognized that “thoughtful and intentional integration is deep work and might not be what everyone is on board to undertake.” She had the gift of being able to challenge your thinking and your choices without making you feel judged. She constantly re-evaluated her own choices, not on the basis of intent but on the impact of her actions. And where some people would find themselves paralyzed by such self-scrutiny, Courtney had the grace to commit herself to action, and then assess, acknowledge her mistakes, and re-calibrate her next move based on what she’d learned.

Far-flung members of the IS community – parents in communities around the country and abroad, myself among them – are in the midst of re-calibrating our next moves in the wake of Courtney’s death. She was our lodestar, our connector. Though she often spoke about calling out racism and white license, she accomplished the more joyful and generative goal of calling people in: helping, goading, nudging, challenging us (herself included) to be our best selves – not only for ourselves, but for the sake of the world we are building (every day, with every choice) for our children to share.

There have been many eloquent tributes to Courtney Everts Mykytyn on social media and in the national press. (A favorite of mine is Conor Williams’ piece for the74million.org.) But Courtney would be the first to say, “it’s not about me!” – and so I encourage you to look beyond the tributes and take some time to check out IntegratedSchools.org. I believe that Courtney’s work – her generous spirit, her willingness to learn from others, and her commitment to keep “humbly, joyfully” showing up for integration with equity – will challenge and inspire you as it continues to challenge and inspire me.