Some things are true and documented: children of color are more often described in harsher language for the same behavior, disciplined more often for the same acts, referred less often to gifted programs at the same scores. If you have felt this in a school building, you were not imagining it. The second true thing must be held in the same hands: the teacher across the table almost certainly chose this work for the same reason you showed up. The adversary is not the person; it is the format, the shorthand, and the history. Every tool in the meeting season is also a protection: the one-pager puts your words in the file before anyone's shorthand, verbs crowd out the labels where bias hides, the companion is a second set of ears in the oldest tradition our communities have, and taking papers home means no signature happens under schedule pressure. If a meeting goes wrong anyway, record the disagreement warmly and in writing, and call in the people whose job this is. No file, fair or unfair, gets to be the final description of your child.