Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

PSD promises that those we serve are honored for who they are.

We promise to create and uphold equitable, inclusive, and rigorous educational opportunities, outcomes, and experiences for all. 

We will create policies and enact practices that ensure outcomes are not predictive by identify or demography by:

• Confronting and eliminating disparities and inequities through inclusive leadership.
• Developing and expecting an inclusive climate and culture based on trusting relationships between students, schools, families, and community.
• Developing and expecting culturally responsive pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment.
• Ensuring ongoing quality professional learning with implementation of strategies for all staff.

 

Inclusive Leadership

Inclusive leadership asks those who have positions of power and authority to be in the service to the communities they serve (students, staff, families, advocacy groups) in order to guide decisions and efforts.  Our leadership will be charged with re-centering and enhancing staff capacity to do their part in strengthening school structures, disrupting inequitable practices, and a sustained commitment to developing teacher-leaders in this work.

Build avenues for staff and community voice that leads to decision making involvement and feedback 

• Establish and engage the PSD Staff Equity Coalition and PSD Student Equity Coalition (completed Fall 2020)
• Establish structure, membership, and bylaws for the PSD Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee (in progress)
• Engage with Community Advisory Council to study the impact of school resource officers in PSD schools (in progress)

System-wide, PSD staff will use data visualization tools to effectively identify and respond to actionable patterns that exist within our equity data

• Create and share internal PSD Equity Insight Dashboard (completed Fall 2020)
• Schools and stakeholder groups engage in data analysis protocols to identify current state, root cause, and action plans (in progress)
• Report annually within Monitoring Report progress and changes in data (in progress)

Ensure intentional hiring, recruitment and retention practices (in development)

 

Climate and Culture

Develop and expect an inclusive climate and culture based on trusting relationships between students, schools, families, and community.

Commit to the PSD Principles of Community

• Finalize and introduce Principles of Community (completed Fall 2020)
• Identify relevant policies and procedures to tie to Principles of Community such as evaluations (not started)
• Target opportunities to increase awareness and use of Principles of Community such as trainings for classified, licensed, and administrative staff (in progress)

Develop a bias incident reporting platform to provide students and families a mechanism to communicate their experiences in our school community that may not uphold our Principles of Community

• Design reporting platform (completed Fall 2020)
• Establish and communicate process for responding to incidents through partnership at schools and with central office support (in progress)
• Release platform (not started)
• Develop site-based contact team to provide training and support in anti-bias/racist facilitation, culturally responsive practices, and restorative practices
• Report aggregated data about incidents and responses through Monitoring Report (not started)

Implement No Place for Hate (with Anti-Defamation League)

• Host initial kick off (completed October 2020)
• Continue implementation at current sites (in progress)
• Expand involvement to more schools (Fall 2021)

Ensure school-wide positive behavior models and non-discriminatory / non-exclusionary discipline practices

• Strengthen current practices and current state of behavior & discipline practices by reviewing approaches and supports currently in place in schools (in progress)
• Establish common collective system-wide learning for the continuum of restorative practices and pedagogy (in progress, training for secondary schools January 2021)

Establish staff affinity groups to ensure staff have small support communities of peers who share common identities or experiences

• Develop BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Affinity Groups (in progress)
• Key leaders participate in Affinity Group Training (completed December 2020)
• Collaborate with HR and other groups to expand groups (in progress)

 

Curriculum and Assessment

Develop and expect culturally responsive pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment.

Focus professional learning and collaboration on culturally responsive pedagogy

• Engage with staff to identify specific components of the PSD Standards-Based Teaching and Learning Framework that rely on culturally responsive practices (not started)
• Through targeted professional learning opportunities, engage teams in designing and observing instructional practices that match the culturally responsive components (not started)
• Provide multiple trainings to explore theory and practice for culturally responsive pedagogy (in progress) 

Ensure culturally inclusive content

• Review and revise current curriculum adoption process to include culturally inclusive content (not started)
• Develop culturally inclusive and responsive rubrics so staff can reflect on current content, assessments, and practices (not started)

 

Professional Learning

Ensure ongoing quality professional learning with implementation of strategies for all staff.

Deploy targeted professional learning opportunities for all staff

• Design and implement required training modules for all staff (in progress)
• In partnership with Staff Equity Coalition, design and offer opportunities for self-growth in the areas of equity, diversity and inclusion (in progress, book studies starting in January 2021) 
• Design menu of activities to embed in any professional development offerings that connect directly to Principles of Community, anti-racist practices, equitable access, and meaningful student experiences (not started)