Sunday marks the start of Kwanzaa and one woman is turning to education to celebrate the special tradition.

It's a seven-day, non-religious holiday observed in the United States. Kwanzaa is meant to honor African Americans' ancestral roots.

"It’s so important to convey this tradition because it’s ancient. It’s not new, it’s old, and it brings us together," Doris Fields, who celebrates Kwanzaa, said.

The tradition often involves symbolic items like a candle holder (Kinara), unity cup (Kikombe cha Umoja), placemat (Mkeka), crops (Mazao), corn (Muhindi) and gifts (Zawadi).

Fields has celebrated the holiday for over 35 years, from paying homage to ancestors to sharing hopes for the new year.

"Usually there are people in their 90s [who attend], and they have so much wisdom," Fields said. "They have so much to offer to us."

While Fields' annual events may look smaller due to the coronavirus pandemic, she said she doesn't stop the opportunity to teach.

On Sunday, her home was a haven for a small group of friends, eager to learn more about the tradition.

"There were people here who had not had Kwanzaa with us before, so it's very nice to be able to share our thoughts," Fields said.

The holiday involves seven principles, represented by candles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

"I’ve been celebrating Kwanzaa with my family. probably for the last like 10 or 15 years," Markella Clinton, who also celebrates Kwanzaa, said. "It’s something I look forward to every year. It’s a great family excuse. It’s a great community motivator as well because you don’t just have to be family to be able to come and enjoy."

According to UCHealth, a not-for-profit health care system, Kwanzaa is the fastest-growing holiday in the world.

As popularity increases, Clinton said it's important to ask important questions.

"Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to look for information," Clinton said. "Educate yourself, because it’s not a religious holiday. It’s about community engagement and having faith in yourself and having faith in your community."

The celebration lasts until Jan. 1.

CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Public Schools announced every child in the district will get access to digital learning, but exactly how big of a role that will play next school year is still to be determined.

With CPS students being out of class since mid-March, nearly 400 people tuned into the district’s Wednesday evening special meeting. Superintendent Laura Mitchell outlined four options for the fall, something she called “the presentation of a lifetime.”

“I hope that we’re never, ever in this situation again,” she said.

The options for fall include:

• In-person learning five days a week -- Of the four, this would present the highest COVID-19 transmission risk and require more money for buses and staffing in order to observe social distancing. Members say it would handle many parents’ childcare concerns.

• Blended learning -- This would bring students in one or two days a week, which would present a medium infection risk and partially address childcare.

• Distance learning with everyone at home -- This would present the lowest risk of transmission and keep costs low, but it leaves many parents returning to work with nowhere to send their children.

• Hybrid learning -- This would mean in-person instruction for students pre-kindergarten up to 6th grade and keeping 7th through 12th graders home except for one or two days a month. That would present a medium infection risk and address childcare concerns for those with young children.

Schoology, an online grading and assignment sharing platform, and CPS-TV, a dedicated local channel for educational material launched in April, comes with each option. The district also has a digital school.

“We identified what has to be in place in order for us to be able to say we are ready to go,” Mitchell said Wednesday night.

More than 6,000 students, parents, employees and community members shared which option they would like to see in the fall, and 71% of parents surveyed said they were "extremely concerned or concerned" with "students' ability to effectively learn in a remote environment."

Additionally, 74% of parents said they were "extremely concerned or concerned" when it comes to "students' mental/emotional health during periods of remote learning."

“Pretty impressive sort of feelings, strong feelings about mental, emotional health as well as ability to learn,” said Krista Boyle, CPS chief communication and engagement officer.

Through the survey, CPS found that four "high level" concerns emerged, including consistent learning standards and equitable access to best tools and instruction, targeted communications, universal access to technology and IT support and social and emotional development "as important as academic growth."

While the details for fall are ironed out, it’s clear no option comes without its challenges; questions remain about how each option affects staffing, busing, after school sports and extracurricular activities.

“A group of 22 kids might all go to gym together from a classroom, so maybe you break that down into a smaller group,” Mitchell said.

Board Member Ben Lindy questioned if staffing changes were feasible during the transition this fall.

“Does this mean we’re doubling the number of elementary school teachers we have in CPS? Do we have money for that?” he asked.

Additional funding beyond the recent CARES Act would be needed to support meal distribution, technology, connectivity as school leaders estimate pandemic costs ranging from $35 million to $70 million. Officials are encouraging "direct-to-district funding" and hope to meet with legislators soon to learn more about a new recovery bill and the status of additional K-12 funding.

The Board is scheduled to vote on the fall plan on June 22, and a Strategic Engagement and Planning Committee will meet prior to that vote.

Also in June, CPS is launching a “Connect Our Students” program, a no-cost offer to qualifying families without internet access. The program will launch at a date to-be-determined for 2,000 students at five pilot schools: Rockdale Academy, South Avondale School, Hays – Porter School, Roberts Academy and Fairview-Clifton German Language School.

The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is administering the “CPS Technology Fund” without fees (except for required credit-card processing fees) so the fund receives 100% of donations. You can donate through ComputerXpress here or to the fund directly here.

The idea of teaching critical race theory has become a contentious issue. Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and a handful of other states have banned the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 classrooms in recent weeks.

But, what is it?

“Critical race theory is the theory that our systems in this country are bound up in race,” Kerry Goldmann, a lecturer at the University of North Texas, said.

“It pretty much offers a space where we recognize how race plays a part in everything that happens in the lives of people in this country,” Jalaya Liles Dunn, the Director of Teaching Tolerance program at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said.

The center is a national nonprofit that specializes in civil rights and public interest cases.

“The idea was to research the institutionalization and the systematic use of racism or some kind of discriminatory behaviors in laws, policies, behaviors, social norms,” Diane Birdwell, a high school history teacher, said.

Birdwell has been a teacher for over two decades in Texas -- one of the states that recently banned the teaching. She said while she’s not opposed to critical race theory, it’s not commonly seen in her history lessons.

“It’s not taught in schools. It’s not a curriculum. It’s a theory,” she said.

Birdwell said what she teaches focuses a lot on primary documents, having students look at context, perspective, and purpose.

“What we’re trying to teach students is the why,” she said. “Critical race theory doesn’t mean you ignore anyone. It doesn’t make anyone evil or bad. It just says make sure you tell the story.”

However, that’s not how everyone sees it. Parents and teachers have been voicing their opinions across the nation.

“How are our youngest learners supposed to love and accept one another when they are told they are inherently bad or inherently a victim because of the color of their skin,” one woman said at a board meeting in Wisconsin.

“I don’t think children should be focusing on the color of their skin, focusing on past traumas,” another woman in Florida said, referring to critical race theory.

“I think the reaction to critical race theory is fear, to be honest. I think it’s fear of accepting that our history is not always pleasant, it's not always pretty, and it was downright wrong in a lot of cases,” Birdwell said.

While it’s creating quite a bit of buzz, University of North Texas history professor Kerry Goldman said up to now, critical race theory was mostly used by academics.

“It really hasn't been brought to the forefront of the public realm until really this past year, and it’s been really politicized,” she said. “Critical race theory started as an intellectual movement and a legal theory in the mid-1970s and really formally organized by the 1980s.”

Goldmann said it started as a law theory and slowly found itself in other fields such as humanities and social sciences. As for banning it from classrooms, Goldmann said she’s seen instances like this happen before.

“If you look at the early to mid 20th century, you had a lot of pressure put on educators K-12 to not teach about class inequality. And the reason for that is because politicians were fearful that children would be indoctrinated into ideals of communism simply from learning about class inequality existing,” she said.

“Teachers have a fine line to make sure students feel safe, but understand they don't live in a safe space. The world is not safe for them, not for all of them,” Jalaya Liles Dunn said.

For teachers like Birdwell, she plans on continuing to teach history with the facts she has at hand, with context. “Part of history is to see the things that make us uncomfortable, that make us unhappy,” she said.