Kia Burton

Kia Burton, alumni counselor at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis, stands in front of a display she put up at the school called Periodic Table of Influential African Americans. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Sasha Kirk, 15, a freshman at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, said in April she sometimes talked with friends during lunch about the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death last year of African American George Floyd, which set off waves of protests and riots in the Twin Cities and around the country.

“Many of my friends are telling me experiences that they’ve had, like with police being around their houses,” Kirk said, “and some of them were talking about, ‘What if it (the verdict) didn’t go the way it should?’ Their main concern was that we wouldn’t get the justice that we needed.”

Two of her teachers asked students before class if they wanted to talk about the trial, Kirk said, which was being conducted only a mile from the school in downtown Minneapolis. “Right after the bell rings, they would say, ‘Before we start class, would anyone like to talk about what’s been going on?’”

“One or two would speak up,” she said. “People were just saying how they felt about it, like if they were upset.”

DeLaSalle’s openness to students’ thoughts and feelings and its willingness to discuss issues of racial prejudice and inequity that emerged in the wake of Floyd’s death is one example of Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis taking on the unrest as a teaching moment. Listening and dialogue were commonly offered to engage students.

Chauvin, who is white, was convicted April 20 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, death of Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in south Minneapolis is the closest Catholic high school to where Floyd died, and it was vandalized in the rioting that followed. Principal Erin Healy said Chauvin’s trial, and the April 11 deadly police shooting in Brooklyn Center of another Black man, Daunte Wright, during a traffic stop, also was an emotional time for the school’s community: students, families, faculty and staff. “Our biggest focus has been how our students are feeling and processing,” she said.

“This has stretched us to consider what is most meaningful and impactful for students — how to listen, how to center students’ voices, how to be responsive when something so traumatic feels overwhelming,” Healy said. “The verdict may have been a moment of accountability,” she said, “but this is still a somber understanding of how much work is ahead of us where each human life is valued and seen as a child of God.”

Among her responsibilities, Kia Burton serves as an alumni counselor at Cristo Rey and staff advisor for the school’s Black Student Union. In the months following the deaths of Floyd and Wright, Burton has led many efforts to support students and graduates during a challenging time.

“It’s been a journey of supporting our students, a learning opportunity, because these have been trying times over the last couple of years for many,” she said. “And being located where we are, we are definitely not immune to the widespread impact these tragic events have been having on our communities.”

In addition to various listening sessions, the school hosted a prayer service after the verdict came, and brought in spoken-word artists, Burton said.

“It was great because their art spoke of the heaviness of what people of color go through,” she said. “But it also motivated us to continue to ‘rise up.’”

At Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in St. Louis Park, administrators and teachers worked to create an open dialogue about Chauvin’s trial to give students an opportunity to share their feelings, said Kari Knoll, director of communications.

The school prioritized making sure students knew they had several avenues for support, she said. The campus minister made himself especially available the day after the verdict was read, Knoll said, and in the days leading up to the verdict, even for a Zoom conversation.

For several years, Benilde-St. Margaret’s has trained students in the tenets of “respectful dialogue,” Knoll said. This school year brought a more concerted effort, she said, with training offered last fall.

“It was an important strategy for encouraging respectful dialogue in the classroom when some difficult topics come up,” she said. “It’s a lesson to really benefit from, whether you’re interacting with people on social media or in the classroom.”

At DeLaSalle, Kirk said she also participated in several restorative circles that were offered to students and faculty members as they processed the trial.

DeLaSalle Principal Jim Hanson said restorative circles, which encourage dialogue around hurtful events, are one way people can learn to better relate and listen to one another without judgment. A practice rooted in Indigenous tradition, the circles were introduced to the school by Roslyn Harmon, an alumna and Christian pastor who is executive director of the Dispute Resolution Center in St. Paul.

“It allows each person in the group to be heard,” Hanson said. “Each person gets to speak their truth with grace and respect. People listen without judgment.”

Kirk said she found talking with others in the circle “very relieving.”

“It was just a very nice and calm space for everyone to share their opinions about what was happening,” she said, and hear others’ points of view.”

Besides DeLaSalle’s restorative circles, teachers in many classes, including theology, social studies and English, provided time to ask questions about what was happening during the trial and what it meant, and for students to talk about what they’re feeling.

Cristo Rey helped students and graduates process the Chauvin trial by offering several avenues to meet different needs and experiences, said Jessica Cass, marketing and communications manager. Those included the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee hosting virtual listening and conversation sessions for students and alumni.

Several courses incorporated reflection, writing or discussion time into the classroom, allowing students to discuss the issues with their teachers and classmates, Cass said. The DEI Committee also reached out to faculty with emotionally supportive messaging and instructional options for the classroom.

Cristo Rey faculty and staff also offered resources to families of students who live in Brooklyn Center, where Daunte Wright was shot during a traffic stop. Days of unrest in the suburb followed the shooting, which made it difficult for some residents to leave their homes to visit a grocery store.

Burton recalled hearing from a Black faculty member about his fear of the possibility of not making it home to his family because of the color of his skin, and the fear of negative interactions with police — not because he is doing anything wrong, Burton said, but because of systemic racism and bias that some officers may have. He alerts his wife when he arrives at every destination.

“I’m a Black woman and this is our daily life,” she said.