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A coalition of Black community leaders is calling for action to address racism within New Brunswick’s public school system as it says it continues to document cases of racial profiling, slurs, harassment and even physical violence directed at Black students.

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At least 41 families have reported incidents of anti-Black racism across 16 different school settings over the past year, according to Yusuf Shire, president of the New Brunswick African Association.

The association is leading a coalition of community members and organizations like Black Moms NB in advocating for accountability on the issue of racism within the school system.

The reported racist incidents – which have targeted Black students from kindergarten through to high school – are occurring during the normal school day and into extracurricular activities, Shire said.

“(The schools) keep framing this as isolated incidents. There’s repeated patterns across the institution for us,” he said.

In one case, several girls wearing hijabs were jumped in a washroom by a large group of their peers, Shire said, despite the girls telling their teacher prior to the fight that they were being followed for days.

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The teacher had advised the girls to ignore that they were being followed, Shire said, noting one of the victims’ families decided to move to Ontario after the fight for the safety of their children.

“Our kids are coming home telling us they don’t want to go to school,” said one New Brunswick mother, who asked not to be named in this story.

“Kids are reporting feeling watched, feeling labelled or (saying), ‘The teacher punishes me more than my friends or other classmates.’”

Brunswick News spoke with two Black mothers who say their children have experienced racism in New Brunswick’s school system. The newspaper agreed not to identify the two mothers, who said they feared unintended attention or repercussions like other families have faced in speaking publicly.

All those with lived experience Brunswick News spoke to for this story detailed how the handling of complaints from Black families varies widely across school districts.

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In cases of peer-to-peer disputes, they say some districts will label incidents as bullying rather than identifying them as acts of anti-Black racism. As a result, these families say there isn’t data illustrating the extent of racism within the school system, and that in many cases those who are targeting Black students aren’t being appropriately punished.

Families have also identified a lack of expertise on anti-Black racism within schools, finding themselves stuck in a “cycle of perpetual advocacy” with staff and often leaving them to turn to time-consuming processes through the province’s child advocate office and the human rights commission.

In an interview, Education Minister Claire Johnson acknowledged she’s aware of anecdotal reports of racism within the school system, although she hadn’t heard the figures provided by the New Brunswick African Association.

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When asked what she would say to Black families who have come forward, Johnson said, “I would voice my empathy and my concern, and I would say that I’m really sorry to hear that this was happening in our schools and that I’m aware and saddened by it.”

As minister, Johnson said she expects that schools are following Policy 703, which sets general standards for acceptable behaviour and discipline within schools.

However, Johnson acknowledged that more work needs to be done to specifically address racism in schools.

“It’s unacceptable and we want it stopped,” she said.

Anti-Black racism strategy needed, leaders say

The coalition of community leaders is calling for the creation of an anti-Black racism strategy for the province’s public school system.

The strategy should create a standardized, transparent process for handling acts of racism within schools, according to families, along with instituting a process to collect race-based data to track incidents of racism but also graduation and suspension rates for Black students.

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Appropriate expertise in racial justice also needs to be made available to schools as part of the strategy, according to families.

“There is currently not a standardized approach to dealing with anti-Black racism that emerges,” one mother said. “If you do not have a structure in place, that means each school is going to respond as they see fit, and as they see fit varies depending on the school.

“We have some schools with principals and leadership that understand what is at play, what the issue is, and their response is completely different from schools that don’t have that understanding of racial justice and are approaching this from (the perspective) that it’s a bullying incident or a misunderstanding.”

Racism and bullying can “sometimes overlap, but they are not the same and they should be treated differently,” Johnson said, noting she trusts how schools are handling incidents but wants to learn more from families.

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An anti-racism survey was conducted to collect data on the frequency and types of incidents, the minister said.

Results of this survey, which was conducted in the francophone sector last year, are currently being analyzed and will be available before the fall, the education department told Brunswick News.

Both sectors already collect data on the experiences of racialized young people through the annual New Brunswick Student Wellness and Education Survey, the department noted.

That survey, for example, specifically asks Grade 6 to 12 students about incidents of bullying related to the “use of mean comments about their race, religion or personal features” within the last two months.

About 28 per cent of surveyed students who identified as racialized reported they had been verbally bullied over personal characteristics within the last two months, well above the provincial average of 19.5 per cent, according to 2024-25 survey results.

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Since 2024, a group of equity and anti-racism education specialists have been working in the anglophone sector with experts with lived experience to address racism in schools, the education department said, including “reviewing data regarding incidents of racism and other forms of discrimination.”

All of this information will ultimately help shape a provincial strategy to address racism within schools, said Johnson, who also spoke of some intercultural competency training for education staff and resources available in schools to discuss Black History Month.

The coalition stressed there’s a difference between promoting multiculturalism and ensuring racial justice, the latter of which has a focus on accountability to dismantle systems that uphold racial inequities.

In January, the Holt Liberal government released an anti-racism strategy in response to a 2023 report from the province’s commissioner on systemic racism.

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Among the commissioner’s recommendations – all of which were accepted by the government – included the creation of a “province-wide anti-racism policy for all schools with clear definitions and steps for dealing with racist incidents.”

The issue of anti-Black racism within schools was raised with the former Higgs Progressive Conservative government, as well as the Liberals when they were in opposition, according to Shire, of the New Brunswick African Association.

Community leaders say they want to see action finally taken to ensure the safety of Black students, who can often feel gaslighted when their concerns aren’t validated at school.

“I think there’s just a lack of understanding of how to respond well,” one mother said.

“That’s why a strategy that supports a proper response would support the educators in the school board. Many are doing their absolute best within the system that exists.”

Johnson told Brunswick News that she’s willing to meet one-on-one with the coalition to listen to their members’ experiences and have a dialogue with a focus on addressing racism within the school system.

“I don’t foresee a silver bullet in fixing it, but I am committed to action.”

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