News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Tom Orth, left, and Dave Rabbideau sit in front of a monitor in Fitzpatrick Hall at Alpena Community College’s Van Lare Hall on Jan. 15.

ALPENA — As a special event for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the MLK Jr. Committee of Northeast Michigan hosted a discussion open to the public in Fitzpatrick Hall at Alpena Community College.

The event was led by Alpena Public Schools Superintendent Dave Rabbideau who shared his thoughts and experience as an educator who previously worked in a system that changed from a mostly white student body to mostly Black students. During that same time, the staff remained nearly all white.

According to Rabbideau, the research he explored from his experience was the subject of his doctoral thesis and explored the demographic changes in Harper Woods Public School District from 1999 to 2017, a district he served from 1999 to 2019.

The research also included Rabbideau studying himself through journal entries he wrote during his thesis.

“The purpose of my autoethnographic study was to explore the role that race played in shaping my responses to the demographic changes in the public school district that I served,” Rabbideau said. “Then I wanted to know how I can use this new understanding to improve my practice as an educational leader in how my research and experience serve as a model for other white leaders who, like me, represent most educational leaders serving all students, and in particular, African American children.”

Rabbideau went on for about 30 minutes of his presentation before turning to the discussion period, moderated by Tom Orth, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church and chair of the MLK Jr. Committee of Northeast Michigan.

During the discussion, Orth asked Rabbideau about how his thesis changed the way he manages Alpena Public Schools.

“When we’re talking about race here in Alpena, we have 0.63% of our students that are African American and I think 4% identify as multiracial,” Rabbideau said. “I don’t say that to say that even one student is less important than the other, but how do you apply those lessons to a staff that is likely not to interact with people of color, in helping them understand that?”

Rabbideau said that understanding the perspective of the world through others’ eyes is an important aspect of his research.

He said that the process of researching himself and his mind in a critical view was difficult, but that it changed the way he was able to empathize with others and acknowledge the problems others face.

“Being able to take that deep look at myself, in a time when it’s pretty obvious that most of us are really struggling to be self-reflective, self-critical,” Rabbideau said. “I think if I could get people to say I’m willing to take a look at myself critically, and not just accept the world the way I think of it, but listen to someone else’s story, hear their experience and actually interact with it and consider it versus just dismissing it — Again, I think that opens the door.”

After many questions from Orth, Rabbideau was open to questions from the audience of about 25 people present, either in-person or through WebEx.

An attendee mentioned how Rabbideau said he lived in Rochester Hills during his time working in Harper Woods and that his children attended schools with limited diversity. The attendee asked why Rabbideau did not give his children the opportunity to go to a more diverse school, to which Rabbideau replied that he acknowledged that contradiction in his thesis.

Rabbideau hopes that with his new perspective on race, he can bring his insight to Alpena Public Schools in an impactful way. He’s just not sure how to do that, right now.

“One of the themes that I discovered in my research was that I was a fraud,” Rabbideau said. “I lived in Rochester Hills because I chose not to live in Harper Woods. I made those decisions and I never thought about it until this whole experience started happening. I started realizing I’m living a segregated life by choice … and that’s not something I’m proud of.

“We’ve got to find a way to really bring multicultural experiences into life so that people can better understand and apply those diversity lessons,” Rabbideau continued. “Right now, the majority of our staff (at APS) are going to be interacting with people of color, so it makes bringing those lessons in for students a little bit more challenging.”