DEIB Capacity Building and Training.
Creating and sustaining a culturally proficient school system requires deliberate and consistent attention in building staff capacity in cultural proficiency awareness, knowledge and skills.
What is a culturally proficient school district? In culturally proficient school district staff work effectively across cultures and social identities in ways that acknowledge, respect and include the cultural and social identity of students, families, and community members served. A culturally proficient school district recognizes how current and historical socio-political forces impact schooling and disproportionately harm marginalized groups and proactively advocate for change.
EJP’s understands that each equity journey is unique and collaborates with each partner to design workshops and professional development to meet their needs. Customization may include:
· Specific workshop topics.
· Target participants.
· Cohort size and the number of sessions.
· Use of district/school data or scenarios.
· Virtual or in-person delivery.
An equity journey requires both self-reflection and dialogue—all professional development includes interactive group activities, opportunities for reflection, and other modalities of learning. Participants receive workbooks with material relevant to the training, including recommended resources, reflection exercises, and classroom/school applications. Schools and districts receive all workshop materials, including a detailed facilitator's guide, allowing school districts to reproduce the training. The facilitation of all professional development promotes safe and brave spaces, includes all voices, and respects differences in beliefs and values.
Current offerings.
Building cultural proficiency is a journey with no endpoint; no specific moment to declare victory and move on. It is a lifelong journey of learning, unlearning and relearning. Research tells us that single, stand-alone workshops is not an effective professional development delivery model. This is particular true for cultural proficiency which requires participants to explore and challenge deeply held beliefs and norms and grapple with complex issues such as racism and unconscious bias.
Cultural proficiency school-based leaders program.
The Cultural Proficiency School-Based Leaders program is a two-year program that builds the capacity of educator leaders to: (1) train staff in cultural proficiency, including awareness, knowledge and skills, (2) identify practices and policies across functions (instruction, discipline, etc.) that violate cultural proficiency values and advocate for change, and (3) serve as the stewards of an inclusive and respectful culturally proficient school system.
Equity book study groups.
Equity Journey Partners is offering virtual and in-person (if appropriate) book study groups during fall 2021 that will provide educators the opportunity to deepen their knowledge around racism, power and privilege with other educators in a facilitated setting. We currently plan to offer book study groups using the following books but are happy to customized based on district or school interest:
“Why are all the Black Kids Sitting together in the Cafeteria? And other Conversations about Race.” by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D.
“Waking up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race” by Debby Irving.
“So you want to talk about Race” by Ijeoma Oluo.
Educators may register individually or as a school or district team. Consider including an Equity book study group as one of your professional development menu offerings for your teaching staff!
Registration is $150/person and includes: Four 2-hour book study sessions, an interactive web-based platform that allows participants to dialogue between sessions, and study group workbook (electronic) with guiding questions, exercises that link the work back to the classroom, and a list of related resources.
Cultural proficiency training topics.
The following topics may be included in cultural proficiency professional development. The breadth and depth of coverage depends on the design of the program.
Becoming a culturally proficient school district.
Learning Objective(s):
The elements of culturally proficient school/district.
The current status of the school or district on its journey to cultural proficiency.
Mitigating unconscious bias to help close the achievement gap.
Learning Objectives(s):
What is unconscious bias?
How unconscious biases of staff (educators, administrators, support staff and operations) impact the implementation of district and school institutional practices (ex. human resources, student programs, behavior policies) to create inequitable student opportunities.
Strategies for mitigating unconscious bias.
Responding to micro-aggressions.
Learning Objective(s):
What are micro-aggressions and how do they manifest in schools, classrooms and family interactions?
How micro-aggressions impact school culture, teacher-student relationships, and a student’s sense of trust and belonging.
Responding to micro-aggressions, as the person who received, committed or witnesses a micro-aggression.
Understand how social identity, power, and privilege impact school culture.
Learning Objective(s):
The concept of social identity groups. The various ways individuals identify, how those identities become visible or felt depending on context and how privilege operates to normalize some identities over others.
How social identities, power, and privilege impact student opportunities.
Understanding race and systemic racism
Learning objective(s):
Understanding race as a social construct.
Understanding systemic racism and its impact on schools and disparities in student opportunities.
Workshops.
The following topics are offered as 1-2 session workshops.
Using data to understand equity.
Potential Audiences: District and School leadership, budget and finance personnel, Superintendent and administration membership groups, parent and community groups.
Learning Objective(s):
Define the quantitative and qualitative data necessary in an comprehensive equity audit across critical institutional practices.
Use of a root cause analysis to uncover additional data needs in understanding the role of biases, cultural ideologies, and community capital in creating student opportunity gaps.
Implementing a culturally relevant curriculum.
Potential Audiences: Teaching Staff, District and school leadership, Chief academic officer and curriculum staff, academic coaches, parent and community groups.
Learning Objectives(s):
Characteristics of a culturally relevant curriculum beyond a “heroes and holiday” approach.
Understand how biases are reflected in both packaged and individually designed curriculum.
Strategies to mitigate biases presented in curriculum.
Using the district budget to promote equity.
Potential Audiences: District and School leadership, budget and finance personnel, Superintendent and administration membership groups, school boards.
Learning Objective(s):
Best practices in allocating resources to achieve equity by student and school needs.
Transparency as a tool to achieve equity.
Using an equity audit to close the achievement gap.
Potential Audience: District and School leadership, Superintendent and Administration membership groups, parent and community groups, school boards.
Learning Objective(s):
The impact of unconscious biases and community capital (social, economic, etc.) on the implementation of race-neutral institutional policies in creating student opportunity gaps.
Elements of an effective equity audit including, participants, priority institutional areas, qualitative and quantitative data needs.
Designing an inclusive hiring process for a diverse community.
Potential Audience: District and school leadership; human resource professionals.
Learning Objective(s):
How unconscious biases and cultural ideologies impact the recruitment, hiring and selection process including the design of job descriptions, recruitment strategies, interviews, and selection.
Being an effective ally.
Potential Audiences: District and school leadership, all district staff, school boards.
Learning Objective(s):
Characteristics of effective allyship.
Specific strategies for being an effective ally to colleagues, parents and community members and students.
Embracing and Empowering Student Voice.
Potential Audiences: District and school leadership, educators.
Learning Objective(s):
Understanding the importance of student voice as an equity driver.
Best practices in embracing and empowering student voice.