School Board Study Session: October 25, 2022

001oh [Music] thank you very much good evening everyone thank you for joining us this evening Welcome to our staff and our student guests we're here today to do a school board study session on parameter nine Equity I'd like to turn it over to superintendently thank you vice president kogan um of course this is one of our foundational policies and we are thank you for the opportunity to provide you a study session on the work that we do as a district to promote our Equity initiatives within the district I'm going to turn it over to our exec director of racial and educational Justice Dr Chris Bigelow to introduce his team and all of those who will be participating in this study session this evening okay thank you thank you once again I'm excited to be here

002I want to say once again I'm going to I'll go back and tell you what I mean by that we come here every year to do this work and it's always exciting for me to present you know the work that we've been doing in the district and I truly do mean that I don't get a chance to do this often but before I begin let me let my team introduce themselves and we work in Regents and so I went to Boston City regionally working as well thank you hi everyone my name is Ava Thomas see her pronouns I'm the director of racial and educational Justice and I work closely with the west region hi everyone my name is Rena harp she her pronouns I'm the specialist for the department and I work with the east

003region Al Assistant Director of Education and I work in the North Region and we have a critical friend to help us with the work hi I'm Dr Tracy Malloy and I'm the I'm the strategy officer thanks all of us to do this I always say it's not the word doesn't belong to just one department but what I mean when I said I'm excited to do this work and to be here to share this work with you I don't get a chance to do this often I belong to a snow King group we call ourselves the smoking Equity committee and it started out three years ago it was just 12 of us and it's grown at about 40 and it's 40 people in job life job likes like my own across the entire state of Washington

004so we have people we meet once a month uh they could be or between us superintendents or immune assistant superintendents in line with the design work directors and very few errors executive directors like myself but we need to talk about our work our field on this work and I don't say much and only because I feel like if I do I'm bragging because we're we are so far ahead of where they are in the work and the level of work that they're doing which is so far ahead so I feel like if I start talking too much I feel like I'm bragging so I don't get a chance to say a lot about our work and when they asked me you know how are you doing these things I always say support supporters superintendent supported

005School Board without you without your efforts and supporting our work we could not do this we really could not do this and so that's the biggest supplement I can give to you as a board and superintendent and to my team doing this work is hard work but uh we have done quite a lot and North Shore is highly respected around the work that we do around region educational Justice and so tonight we're going to go deeper into the work they share with you some of the things that we're been doing this year we'll be doing this year and future projects also could have come to come for a ride for next year so I'm gonna turn it right now over to Ava Thomas yeah also I think in this work it's critical that we're not

006only working for students but we're working with students and so we thought it was very important to invite students to the table physically here today and I see them as already brilliant Scholars and leaders in this work and they've been critical thought partners and partners in this work as we've navigated it and really helped to shape and inform the work that we're doing so I'd like to have each of them introduce themselves name pronouns and what your role is or school um hi I'm Joni I you see her pronouns I go to Woodville high school and I'm a senior hi I'm Tessa I also use here pronouns I go to Woodinville High School and I'm also a senior okay I'm Sam I use data pronouns I go to England high school and my company has

007pin you to him she's not here but she currently uses cheaper pronouns and we're both part of the in the war Equity team uh I'm Scarlett Jones I'm interning with Ava and Rena right now um I'm not actually part of North Shore School District I go to kamiak high school in Mukilteo School District um so we will get started with the work all right so um just to situate us we want to acknowledge the land in which we reside upon and the long-standing history um that we are on so um as a precursor we know that land acknowledgments do not exist in the past tense um colonialism and colonialism is an ongoing process and then land acknowledgment is a way to be mindful of the present participation of colonialism um so with that I'm going

008to go ahead and read Our Land acknowledgment we acknowledge that the North Shore School District functions on co-salish lands in the areas that have been colonized occupied and renamed to Bothell Kenmore Redmond and Woodenville we acknowledge the experiences of genocide forced relocation ethnic cleansing and land theft of indigenous peoples and sacred lands so we can build our awareness of how subtler colonization still exists today we honor the ways of knowing and the ways of indigenous peoples and the ways of being of indigenous peoples and tribal Nations who are still here and thriving in our district community we resolve to learn from these realities and partner with local indigenous peoples and tribal leaders to work toward a justice-driven educational experience for each student family Community member and educator in North Shore we also acknowledge that this

009is a working land acknowledgment that will continue to evolve as our partnership with local indigenous peoples and tribal leaders expands um so we recognize that a lot of the language in here is Hefty and can sometimes be daunting when we're also trying to have elementary students understand what a land acknowledgment is so with that we worked with Mary Wilbur Who is our Native American Education coordinator for the district to create a Elementary adapted version of a land acknowledgment and this doesn't necess this doesn't water down what the land acknowledgment it is it rather makes it more accessible so students at the elementary age can understand that the lands in which we reside upon are colonized and are unseated so I'm going to go ahead and read it my classroom and my school are in the

010North Shore School District which is on Coast Salish lands indigenous peoples and their lands have gone through hurtful things in the past and some of those things still go on today we respect indigenous peoples and tribal Nations who are still here and living in our community we will work with local indigenous peoples and tribal leaders to keep learning and to keep learning how to make a difference in our community and in our school um so yeah I was gonna add something but I'll hand it back to Ava so we've broken down this presentation at various levels because the work is not only being added to but it's expanding and deepening so we wanted to break down kind of every level at which this work is happening and we're going to start with the district level

011and Tracy is going to talk about Point number one yes so thank you very much Ava um as you know school board members um and directors you were the ones who have helped to refresh our strategic plan um specifically by refreshing the measures and so what I wanted to share tonight was how the North Shore leadership team has taken time not only to review those new revised measures for the plan but also the work that we've done to develop metrics to align with those new measures we have used also the new measures and metrics as schools because within every school we are looking at the developed metrics that we have mapped on to the different measures and those are informing the ways that our principles are identifying strategies and work to include in their strategic

012action plans the bulk of the metric development was done in July and we provide the entire North Shore leadership team with the opportunity to see the revised measures to see the new metrics that are associated with each of the measures during our August Leadership Learning week and what I think is really critical to understand and that we are really excited to see was the fact that not only does every goal have a set of measures but there is a specific Equity measure for every one of the the goals and having those Equity measures has enabled us as we're looking at developing our strategic action plans to focus our attention on some specific things so I went through our metrics document which is quite extensive if you've seen it and I want to call out where

013the metrics are helping us hone in some of our work so specifically with Goal one we are going to start looking at seeing an increased percentage of students that are meeting standards in reading and math by the end of third grade because that's a part of the equity measure and we're especially looking at seeing the percentage of students who are meeting those standards for the students that we identify as furthest from educational Justice or who have typically been from the margins in our school system with Goal two we're looking to see an increase in opportunities for each and every student to contribute their voice to the shape of our education programs and to increase the representation of historically underrepresented student populations in our curriculum materials and as you can see here today we have students

014at the table to talk about where they have been included in Opportunities throughout last year and where they see opportunities for this year so this is goal two's Equity measure in action with Goal three and also with Goal five we're looking to see an increase in the number of students that are enrolled in and successfully completing Advanced courses and core sequences and that includes CTE courses the Career and Technical education courses and we're also looking to see an increase in the number of students that are going to participate in our AP and IB end of year assessments because those those become a way for our students to earn a additional certifications in high school the IB diploma for example and also they can earn course Credit in college when they successfully pass the AP exam

015and then finally we're looking to see an increase in students who enroll in our ethnic studies course and other courses such as the theory of knowledge and AP seminar this maps on to goal Four's Equity measure and we'll also be looking to see that how many students begin to enroll in an increase in enrollment especially in terms of our students that are typically not always accessing clubs and activities so I just wanted to bring to life the ways that the new Equity measures that are embedded in our strategic plan refresh are coming to life in the schools today and it's been a real a nice way for us to focus our efforts and move forward with our racial and educational Justice work speaking of racial and educational Justice work and planning oh do you have

016a question I'll pause yeah I did I did we are so excited that we might overwhelm the students with their enthusiasm um so over the weekend the native test scores got released it was huge news yep or but that's education Geeks right and the rest of the world didn't pay attention but we all read the article so in there there's a The Narrative that students part of this away from education Justice Just got farther away over the pandemic I'm did we see that in North Shore and what are the thoughts going forward to address that yeah I think that when we take a look at the data in North Shore um what we were able to see is that the dip in our reading our math our SBA scores um was there and it put

017us back to where we were right before the pandemic um and that's true across all of the demographic groups right so where we had students from certain demographic populations that were perhaps below standard those levels went back to the pandemic time what we know is that we are moving forward in having every school take a look at who their students are which students specifically may need additional support and they're in the middle and process of meeting with superintendent Tully their Regional assistant superintendents to talk about what their strategic action plans are and in each strategic action plan the principles and school teams have been asked to think about specifically the students that are in need of the most academic support and they're asked to name who they are so our schools know the students that

018will require some additional acceleration to recover their learning and they all have plans to help support them in terms of meeting standards this year thank you for that question thanks part of what is going to help inform that work is domain three of the equity inventory it worked quite nicely and so this serves as not only a what to do in terms of culturally responsive practice but how to do it and how to measure so this has been converted into a Google form survey that every school has made a copy of and they will be they already have taken the survey sent it out to all of their staff to analyze where they feel their school is at within and among all of the indicators then to measure progress and to track growth they will

019also do the same survey in the springtime to to compare and contrast also in the school action plans the building administrative teams were asked to identify which specific indicators they'll focus on for the year and that was informed by the staff responses to the Google forms survey as you can see here is domain three we chose goes to roll over domain three this year because we felt like we needed to go deeper with the work it's just a lot in terms of teaching and learning and critical self-reflection to try to cover within one year and then all things pandemic considered we felt like we really needed to do it with Fidelity and keep building it out to go deeper this year so that's why we're focused on it again this work also aligns with the

020sap plans like I said the racial and educational Justice walks that Chris will talk about shortly and then the racial and educational Justice professional development plan that we've built out for the year that not only serves building admin teams but also District admin teams and all staff across the district I'm also excited to share that we got copyright approval for the equity framework inventory and handbook so that is officially official as a document in North Shore School District and back to trace yeah so one of the things that focusing on domain three enables us to do is to continue to build out our multi-tiered system of support whole child framework um because the the strategies that are embedded in domain three are all instructional practices and they are instructional practices that should be a part

021of what's known as tier one right the tier one and the mtss framework is that foundational tier that includes the strategies that support students academic behavioral social emotional learning and growth and it includes also the content and curriculum that is a part of that so I'm going to talk a little bit more about our mtss whole child framework and inclusionary practices at the same time because they go hand in hand just like the domain three strategies the inclusionary practices are also a part of tier one and what I'd like us to to think about and what I want to share with you right now is how the whole child framework continues to guide the ways in which we're supporting our students we know that all students deserve the right to access quality instructional materials we

022know that all students deserve access to having Educators who are utilizing instructional practices that are supporting their academic needs their behavioral needs their social emotional needs this year specifically in addition to continuing our focus with domain three we also are so excited to have adopted a new Ela program into reading that was selected specifically for the ways in which the materials not only provide foundational lessons in Reading instruction for our teachers to use and foundational experiences for our students but we also selected it because of the resources that it includes that help us to support our multilingual Learners and they are students that we need to make sure that we are focusing on so that they have as much success as our students who may be more typical and not necessarily learning English along with

023all of the other languages that they're speaking and all of the content that they're learning um additionally because of the fact that um we knew we wanted to provide all of our Educators with the opportunity to continue to build their instructional toolkit as it were we are introducing the sheltered instruction observation protocol also known as psyop but I try not to use all those acronyms um to our secondary Educators and so that work of introducing the instructional observation protocol strategies and our interreeding curriculum and the instructional practices that go along with teaching reading to students that's work that's happening during our district directed early release afternoons and again it's work that is targeting the tier one of our multi-tiered system of support whole child framework um I'm also excited to share that tomorrow um we

024are going to uh share out not only with the um in the ongoing professional development modules that are included in what's known as the North Shore learns announcements and updates email we are going to share out bite-sized professional development that addresses inclusive practices so Adra Davey who wasn't able to be here this evening has been working to uh create a scope and sequence of small 10 to 15 minute modules they're slide decks with her voiceovers and the first one has the cutest little hamster that's nibbling on a piece of cucumber because it's bite-sized PD um and the um modules are going to introduce our Educators to what we mean when we say inclusion and what we mean when we talk about inclusive practices so she will over the course of the Year share information about

025Universal Design for Learning which is a framework of instructional practices that really does make learning accessible to all students and especially students who have specific learning needs such as our multilingual Learners or students who are in special education programs she will also speak about co-teaching and how co-teaching co-planning and co-assessing where a teacher from general education classes um and a teacher from special education partnered together to co-teach general education content she'll talk about that and she will also support Educators in thinking about how we can create opportunities for our students who do require specially designed instruction to be able to access that instruction for as much time as possible in the general education setting which would be considered the least restrictive environment um by building a common understanding of these practices of the reading instruction

026practices of the sheltered instruction observation protocol practices of our inclusive practices we are hoping that we will make sure that all of our Educators know that they have the capacity they have the talent and the skill and the building knowledge to serve each and every one of our students and especially those that are furthest from educational Justice by making sure that all of our Educators have common knowledge and common information about instructional tools to use for students we are going to continue to move toward a more inclusive and racially and educationally just systems I have a question when we talk about supports for El students in the district do we consider that tier two supporter tier one support um I think that it's tier one support and then it is also tier two support for

027those students who require additional work um if we have multilingual students and we do in all of our classes um tier one instruction which supports students understanding not only the content objectives but also the language objectives when teachers are utilizing visual supports as part of their instructional materials when teachers are defining content vocabulary when they are making sure that there are strategies that our multilingual students can rely on such as turning and talking to a peer to practice the vocabulary and ask questions that is tier one and when our multilingual students require additional support then that becomes tier two support and possibly tier three for those who really like for example if a student were to just arrive in the North Shore school district and um be a an English learner without any English exposure

028prior to them coming we would definitely make sure that they were receiving additional support within tier tier three thank you very much you're welcome um so I'm going to speak to gender inclusive restrooms as a part of our inclusionary practices and creating inclusive spaces and spaces that where students feel that they belong so our department has partnered with capital projects to create gender inclusive restrooms on eight new site or eight at the eight new sites that the bond stipulates from February 2022 um so these gender inclusive restrooms are modernizations and they are also a part of the why of racial and educational Justice work it's the transformative action piece so we heard from students who were telling their principals we need spaces that are non-gender conforming spaces that everybody can use and the greatest part

029about gender inclusive restrooms is that anybody can use them there are some of them will also be Ada accessible so people who have people who use wheelchairs will be able to use them um so as I said it's a part of the transformative action and it's not student student voice is being heard and it's not just going through the feedback loop we're taking action to what student needs are um so in doing this too we want to communicate with our community so we held two meetings with um all the administrators who could attend and kind of just gave a rundown of the work we're planning on doing and now we're in the process Don Mark who is the capital who is the director of facilities planning and enrollment we are working through the district at

030various schools high school sites to give kind of a one-pager I guess you could say on what gender inclusive restrooms are and to just answer any questions that community members might have and also to get feedback from them we also met with our student board last Wednesday and they gave some really great critical feedback um and we will continue a meeting at so we have a meeting at North Creek inglemore and then one at Leota so it's this week and next week um will be our community Pathways gender inclusive restroom conclusion um and then so in hopes we are wanting to work with the community to create an educational specification that will be produced to create gender inclusive restrooms okay you've been hearing inclusion and belongingness belong to and the supernetali has been mentioning in

031his all his messages like belonging and inclusion is absolutely important critical that's where it comes to the communication so what we have been working with the communication Department also sending messages or messages that they go home not that many parents do not understand English but if they receive these messages in their own languages they feel close connected they build included right so I get so many emails when I said that it's all thanks so much and we feel included so uh some messages either about Libyan Bond or maybe some important messages that are going from superintendent staffies or some other departments so we uh transfer help them to translate into multiple languages and the partnership is going really well and we want to take into the next level so that they are able to receive

032information important message in their own languages and read and feel good about it and again it's going back to why it is important it's kind of going back to Elementary level right reading English is one thing processing information is a different thing comprehension is a different thing not necessarily they speak really well they are rightful it doesn't mean that when they understand the educational jargon right sometimes they miss it so that's where we felt that when it is critical that we need to enhance that communication in their home languages and we are exploring every time we learn something new and we move on to the next one hey we could do better in this way so that communication piece is going really well and that leads to the next expand with food options in school

033cafeteria also again inclusion belongingness that goes back to like been working with the food and nutrition Department last couple of years because of kovate you know we could not execute the meal like a vegan and vegetarian option that so many who are changing their options and they want Capital to be included and last week the department has tried it sharadal one you know vegan option oh my God I got so many emails are pretty good at some kind of you know feedback also from parents and one of the feedback at this introduction supernatology this morning was in the leadership team also one kid in the fifth grade one student who said that one oh my God I feel like as if you have been given 10 million dollars to do this job initiative so I

034mean it it's they feel that one yes finally my prayers are answered because one parent was saying that when he did that the entire family they don't uh you know like allergic so many so many things there are so many not many choices left there at all so those are the options that we are taking we are exploring into the areas where we have not explored before so that every uh student feel that when they belong to North Shore school district and the comfortable and and happy okay okay we'll get delusion about that we're gonna put us waiting for the slide to change okay that was my key to go so anyway we're getting the leadership level as we said we keep saying this work belongs to all of us I think um when I

035think of myself and my team I feel very fortunate to have four people you know I'm one we're one of the only districts that truly have a department you know and I have an awesome team and I feel very fortunate to have the people in my my department but um but anyway well look at the equity policy I think you always hear when we passed that we were the first district to pass the equity policy to have any type of equity policy and so this year we're going to be doing a refresh of that policy that was I think seven eight years ago so and we're not going to change the goals of the point do we have a is do we have a picture of policy on we can't put it on screen can

036we oh yeah yeah okay read this real quick Equity policy yeah yeah and if you can't write a number okay yeah don't look at my screen for a second again anyways I just want to I guess it doesn't show some things we're going to be changing but anyway the goals are not going to change group seven goals please yeah so those are not going to change but we are going to be doing a refresh of some of the language and then we I know our department name has changed so we feel about eight years you know things change and so we're just going to be doing a little refresh of something like interesting the policy to reflect more on what the work that we're doing today you know but but I always felt it's a

037document I've always been extremely proud of knowing that North Shore and the people in this room first first people to say First District state of Washington have an equity policy I was more proud to be very proud of that so going back to the slide there so so the cabinet work uh Delete and delete at the cabinet work you know I've always felt that um each person in the cabin has a position that corresponds to the operation of the district in other words those 13 people in that room really only ones that run the district so we need to be a part a large part of the work and what's happening work and how they work transforms not only from um I guess in cabinet but he's transform also to the schools and to the

038different Community programs and services that they are in charge of so that's been a big part of what we've done the last two years in cabinet each person has has been asked to take on one of the seven goals you know and they're championing that goal and so they come back to us every week you know not everybody of course but who's ever in charge of number one comes back that week and talks about what they're doing in that particular in that particular area for example want to get equity and assessment and outcomes I think that was a date relative not mistaken uh he's in charge of that so I think he was the first presenter that came back and presented to us using also the um consultant protocol which I think you're familiar with

039I'm not mistaken do you mind going over it that's open protocol okay okay okay well the purpose of it really is the Foster Rich productive conversation okay when I think about it from from the principal's perspective the principles brings us a I guess a um problem I guess we call it what Michael promo practice summer practice pomegranate business problem of practice and it's something that they have struggled with maybe they're building you know something may need some help and thought Partners on so they bring that to us and we go through a process and the process confers to be they present the problem of practice we take the time then to ask questions then we ask probing questions and then we give them a chance to sit back from the table and watch us talk

040about their problem and I think in that process you know what I've learned from it anyway we've been away from the table is that we're trying to help them resolve it resolve their problem and what I've always said what I love about this practice is is that we get to help leadership resolve an issue in their ability and so they have experts around the table with all just talking about how can we help better resolve their issue or I would call it the issue of their dilemma so so I I've always thought it worked from my experience this year it's worked extremely well I think principals walk away with with at least some strategies I'm not going to say we always resolved our issue but at least they walk away from the strategies they take

041back your bills and at least try these things they might work because we all have different I guess the people on the table have different expertise around that particular issue and so we're able to bring that to them suggest that to them give them solutions from going back to their building and maybe trying to uh Implement some of those strategies until they're into their problem I guess that's the overview when somebody doing that no I'd say so we're using that same strategy to address the goals within this particular board policy and have the champions for each of those goals actually present a problem of District implementation uh practice as it relates to that particular goal and as a Cabinet have that conversation so the individual Who's the champion steps back listens to the conversation that

042reflects back what are some potential strategies we can move forward with to try to resolve that particular implementation uh dilemma as as Chris pointed out so that it just creates a great opportunity to go deeper into the conversation around this work I think principles I've said Dave really enjoyed it they don't feel like it's uh they're just coming in and just talking they get an opportunity to present the problem and and hopefully walk away with some ideas and strategies in the back we're building I really enjoyed the process you know then again I enjoy trying to solve problems you know I was director of student services before I was in this role so I've always enjoyed that role in trying to help leadership resolve some of the problems in my buildings I've always enjoyed it

043so so I guess that takes care of the set we do the same thing in the staff meetings as Michael described and we do that as also in the cabinet as well so um that's the um something protocol and I guess leadership and learning monthly meetings Tracy yeah so another way that um we are infusing our racial and educational Justice work throughout all of our leadership at this school district level has to do with the way that we've been reframing um and structuring our monthly meetings so previously you may have heard the phrase ATM or administrative team and that label certainly was fine it describes the group of people that come to the monthly meetings however more than or more often than not the opportunities that we have together are focused on learning as leaders

044and so we've rebranded I rebranded the meetings to um be Leadership Learning opportunities we have a Leadership Learning week in August and then we also have our Leadership Learning monthly meetings during the monthly meetings we have begun to utilize some new structures and some new routines these are inspired by the work that Rena and Ava and Adra and Ebony Harvey and I have had as part of what's known as the street data Learning Network which is sponsored by the Puget Sound Education Service District and it's based off of the book Street data and so some of the specific structures that we're using now is that we have whole group time with common content and the common content is focused specifically on our racial and educational Justice work it includes our leadership monthly meetings include breakout

045time for instructional and operations leaders so instructional leaders school-based leaders are talking about then how they're moving forward with multi-tiered systems of support and how that is enabling us to better serve our students I work with the operations focused leaders on how the racial and educational Justice through line is connected through the work that they're doing in human resources or business services or wherever else and then we also have some whole group time for debriefing within our whole group time some of the new routines include making sure that we're really centering the work on who we are bringing with us and by that I mean we're inviting our leaders to reflect upon a student or perhaps a person in their own life or someone who has inspired them they're we're asking them to think about

046who those people are um that they can then um frame their thinking around so if I'm a leader who's thinking about a particular student maybe I've had an interaction with a person as a as an elementary principal I would have had interactions with lots of little friends right who might have come and visited my office and so I can think of a person that I might bring with me into my learning space during the monthly meetings and I would then think about that particular student and how what I'm learning about the importance of not um there's a video that we watched a week or so or last time we were together and it was about not and I'm going to spell the word out so that it doesn't sound wrong when I say it but

047the word was s h o u l d and the title of the video was don't should on me right because we don't want to make presumptions about what we think students should be able to do right so if I'm engaging in that learn learning as a leader I'm thinking about that young person that I had the interaction with and how I can then go back and support that individual with the new learning additionally we're asking our leaders to start thinking about how they're in learning intention and specifically how that learning intention can help them frame what they're thinking about and finally we are also in encouraging and setting aside time for our leaders to engage in Affinity dyads so as a leader who is a white female an affinity individual for me would be

048another white female and so during the Affinity diet time I would go and partner with someone and we would process the learning together and the Affinity dyads are intended to support all leaders in processing the ways in which the learning is landing and how it is affecting the way that we are perceived leaving and thinking about the leadership moves that we're going to be taking I finally want to call out the learning targets that we have been using since our August week and the reason that I think that these learning targets are important to share with all of you tonight is because they are focused on our racial and educational Justice initiative over the course of the Year we're asking our leaders to think about these three things or actually we're adding a fourth but

049I don't have the fourth language in my head but I'll do my best with that but the first Target is that we're asking leaders to be able to identify students furthest from educational Justice supported by my work as a leader and identify the tools necessary to meet their needs that's the first Target the second target is that we're asking leaders to be able to compare and contrast and connect the tools available to identify and meet the needs of our students for this from educational Justice and finally as a leader we want our leaders to successfully apply the tools necessary to be able to meet the needs for the from educational Justice and disrupt the systems that are preventing their success we're also adding in a fourth goal and the fourth or the fourth learning Target

050and that learning Target will be around how then leaders are able to be able to State and be able to identify and then State actual leadership moves that they will make that will help positively impact outcomes for our students and our theory of action behind this whole shift of labeling and the structure of our leadership meetings and the way that we're spending time during our Leadership Learning meetings is that if we intentionally use the time that we have available as Leaders during these opportunities to focus our professional development on strategies that ensure educators are more effectively engaging students from the margins in learning then we will all we will be able to better serve all of our students across the system as we build consistency and coherence as it relates to not only our racial

051and educational Justice work but also to our mtss whole child framework and inclusive practices okay the National Education Justice walks we're still doing those we've been doing those now for the last two years this is something that myself and OB started um I don't know we started uh about three years ago it's just an opportunity for us to work with collaborate with building leadership on the work that's being done in the buildings uh and what I do when I go in the buildings and we have one today Believe It or Not which was fascinating because we wouldn't fashion would be able to see what one of the teachers were doing it was really exciting but I I go in with my lens as I do we started these walks it was more or less you

052know Chris you've been a person of color could you come in and walk to the building with your lens you know and so that's how I approach it you know I look at it from the lens of a person of color what would I want to see in the building and and as I shared today you know when I when I walk into when we do the walks we walk in the cafeterias libraries and a couple of classrooms hallways and that's what I'm looking for I'm looking do I see myself as a person of color in that classroom do I see myself in the library so and we give just recommendations or suggestions you know around your things hey you have thought about doing this here to give you an example I was at a

053school at an elementary school last year and they have these big podiums that are outside and I looked at the principal and I said have you ever thought about doing something with these podiums you know you have so many of them around the building they're just they're just there they're not they don't do anything for the building they're just care so I give them an idea of looking at Inglewood ingomar's done any more High School how they painted their podiums and and I think the principle this year and the principal of last year also started the process but she took it upon herself this year to start painting those produce unless she but she took suggestions from her community and I know she brought her Hispanic community and they started working on one of these

054podiums and what she did she went out and started a conversation with them and within that conversation she began to engage with them you want for your student you know what do you want for me as a principal and that created just a whole new Dynamic of her in that Community because because just by cleaning that Podium and it happened also with very East Asian Community my point is when we do this Equity walks those little things matter those little things matter I mean when I recommend hey just put something that you welcome me because you have this in all languages right away when that happened one of my principles the parents came in right away and said thank you are you feeling welcome in the building so the point of Beverly walks is just

055to make suggestions of things that from my from My Lens what I would like to see in the building if I was a student and it could be just something something you know do I see do I see myself in the library you know I want to see I want all students to be able to see themselves in our school I think that's very important so that's the whole point of equity loss and it's just to go deeper into the work and maybe we sit down afterwards and ask a few questions of the principle you know how he's working with domain three you know reflecting back on domains one and two but that's the whole purpose behind the uh the race and education of Justice walks it's just to look deeper into the work to

056work with the principal and just to give suggestions out of building Canada from the student's perspective earlier I mentioned the racial and educational no justice yes for your um racial and educational Justice walks do you do that primarily with the administrators or Jenna a mix of Administrators and students are like how is that organized it depends I mean I know I know some buildings have wanted to have their students there we only be known in there for the last three years some have wanted also their racial education just leads there today we had our special education director there as well as part of the walk you know but there's been talk also having students be part of those walks as well because I think you have a good point there Sam I think they'll be

057very crucial to have students be part of that yeah because I know at least for our Equity team we've been planning to do one later in the school year with the blend of student volunteers from like a variety of backgrounds but also include the teachers so they can understand this is where our students are coming from they can understand the diversity that they're in right I also think it's important as well for teachers to be able to walk for example ingomar you are your principal you know he had some of his teachers just do their own walk and Justin let's see what was going on when the classroom was powerful as well so so I do the more people you can get to walk through the building with different blends as you said student lens

058as well as well as a personal color it's important I mean that could that voice matters to what you recognize and what you've seen in the building that's not there yeah okay yeah so um as I was listening to your work and also Tracy's work that was something that really spoke to me about representation and I think like um in this conversation we talked a lot about like representation in like books and media that we have and that is something that's incredibly important but it also reminded me of another club that I'm in at school so for HOSA one of our goals for this year was that we wanted to create a mentorship program between high school students and Elementary School students and I was especially thinking of this as like students of color so

059if you had like a student of color from a high school mentoring like another student who may like look like him from an elementary school I think this creates a lot more of like a realistic representation where they know like this is another student that is like on the same path as I am and then they can really help them have like a really successful and like a good role model to guide them through the process and I thought that that was just something that would be really cool if we could establish that as a program and maybe see if we could do because like schools and districts since we've been like trying to reach out to different schools so it's a bit harder like just one of the high school club it's a great

060idea thank you thank you Okay so going to talk about the racial and educational Justice scope and sequence that we created as part of our year-long professional development plan so Ryan is going to pull that up on the screen um there's two separate ones but they run in alignment with each other there's one for building administrative teams and racial and educational Justice school teams and then another one for teachers and instructional staff and that work is meant to align and inform one another but there's a little bit different roles and responsibilities depending on which role you have within the school district so the central focus of the scope and sequence is on domain three as we're working on that this year and then the central themes are student voice and humanizing data collection we also

061have key text to excerpts from Street data as Tracy mentioned I can pass this book around by Shane saphir and Jamila Dugan and we got to attend our first in-person Institute session with Jamila Dugan and then another co-facilitator it was that a few weeks ago and learn more in depth about the book and the learning and then take that work back to inform our practice and Leadership plans for this year we also have as part of the plan Dr emden's keynote address to our building and District administrators from our summer August days and then Dr Muhammad Khalifa's chart on critical self-reflection we had a book that we had gotten for our school teams and building administrators by Dr Khalifa a couple years ago I'm culturally responsive School leadership and we didn't want to lose sight

062of that work too so that's why we worked it into this plan also aligning with domain three the self-reflection component of the inventory and with this plan comes accompanied training modules that are monthly facilitated by Rena and I and it's meant to speak into the work that we're asking of staff and administrators to do throughout the year there's three chunks of work as you'll see there's right now you can see in purple so from September to December we're having everyone focus on unlearning relearning and grounding in the key Concepts and ideas for the year then moving into January and February is all about mapping and planning and that work is specifically meant to ask staff to work with their building admin teams and racial and educational Justice school teams to identify a group of students

063who are from the margins and or furthest away from racial and educational Justice to name that Community as Tracy talked about earlier than to identify a problem of practice at the school level with that and then engage in an equity transformation cycle the equity transformation cycle is outlined in Street data and it breaks down what that means it's essentially a type of inquiry cycle that really humanizes students and brings them to the center of the work so the four components of that are one is to listen to engage in active listening from students in various settings then to sit with that data and uncover what are students saying not what do I think about it but what do students say and what are they objectively saying then to reimagine So based on the problem of

064practice how can we reimagine Pathways forward and then to move so to move on the work and then the the taking action on the cycle will happen from March to June with move at the end of June that will then pour into next year this year we're really focused on student voice and then we really need to set the foundation for that work and build that out and then next year to kind of foreshadow we're going to get more into student agency so we'll talk a little bit later about student agency and what that means and what that looks like for us but we want to normalize that as a systems practice and these materials are available in a shared Google folder for professional learning for all North Shore staff and administrators then domain three

065back to that just a little bit um that work is being done at the classroom level through alignment with the school action plans also supported by our scope and sequence training modules the equity transformation cycle and the racial and educational Justice walks as you can see we're really trying to identify various components of building accountability and capacity for this work to really truly get down to the classroom level also ethnic studies Melissa Riley and I did a board session a couple weeks ago on all of that so I don't need to spend too long but what I did want to Circle back to was research because I know that you all asked to identify some research so I found some and I'll pass this along I didn't want to make all the copies because that

066would be a lot of paper but I will just briefly talk about it so in this first one you see it's research pulled from chapter three of transformative ethnic studies in schools by Christine Slater and Miguel zabala and just wanted to note in their table of contents they talk about how this work is beneficial based on research for both students of color and white students and they talk about it in the areas of positive identity development so not making anyone feel guilty about their racial identity but really sitting with what does that mean what is your positionality look like and how can you utilize it to advance racial and educational Justice or even social justice they also talk about student outcomes of belonging and how across the board it's generating feelings of student belonging for

067for the students enrolled in the class and then it also talks about this critical component of moving past representation so diverse representation is important exposing students to various stories narratives communities ways of knowing ways of being Community wealth all of that and it can't stop there we have to be able to push past that and get into critical thinking so these courses are sparking critical thinking among students in a way that's helping them engage in problem solving but then also getting them to think metacognitively about how they think about their own identities and then see that of their peers and the communities around them so the it's basically some of this research was saying that if students are just looking at diverse representation that might reinforce bias or stereotypes but if you're able to engage

068students beyond that and engage in critical thinking and why do you think that way and how can we think differently and how can we be inclusive that's really pushing to the next level and that's what ethnic studies is designed to do also this next one is based out of Stanford and research there were they focused on a classroom in San Francisco Unified school district and their ethnic studies roll out and just wanted to read this briefly it said a 9th grade ethnic studies class has a remarkable prolonged and strong positive impact on students increasing their overall engagement in school probability of graduating and likelihood of enrolling in college in relation to this study it also said it was able to change students life trajectories and engage students in feeling of belonging and I want to

069note too that this isn't about changing students it also prompts us to change teacher pedagogies and how we're engaging students in class so it's not that students aren't engaged and that's their fault it's that if they're students who are not engaged we have to look at our teacher pedagogy and our approach to teaching and learning and shift that so that all students feel engaged but then they also feel like they belong and their identities are affirmed in class so just wanted to share that with you yes I'm talking a lot because I just think this is super exciting but um I saw on the paper that you brought up that there was something that said that a lot of students had the chance to conduct like research projects outside of the classroom and I think

070that this is a really cool opportunity because I think like a lot of Hands-On activities and Hands-On projects like I'm in the Apple Ivy program and we're supposed to conduct like eyes and eees and things like that and there are a lot of Hands-On programs so I feel like those are often just limited to students who are already in the IB diploma program but a lot of students would also enjoy these like activities or projects that are outside of that so I think it would be really cool too um and yeah and the the so the high school curricular units and then the framework helps to have teachers engage students in ways it's Project based so it's not like standardized test type of framing of Student Success and intelligence but it's looking at student intelligence

071from a project-based collaborative and community-based way so it's getting at projects like you're talking it's really exciting yeah thank you okay moving into family and Community yeah so forth that I think study classes how are we planning to um train teachers to teach ethnic studies are we bringing in new teachers or are we training teachers that we currently have to be a part of teaching this program so we're teaching we're training teachers that we currently have with the understanding that we're continuing to hire teachers every year what we do have as an ethnic studies work team though that's comprised of the teachers who are teaching the ethnic studies High School course pilot and also teaching into the preschool through 12th grade ethnic studies framework so there's an ongoing training process and then there's going to

072be an on onboarding process as we continue to roll the workout because as the research also talks about it's very critical that we're training the teachers who are in front of and with the students in the classrooms yeah so I'm aware that there's a ethnic studies course at inglemore and this at least what I've heard there's a lot of negative negative stigma around that because the teacher is white and doesn't really seem to know exactly what's being talked about so it kind of makes me positive think about how how it's going to be like promoted more as a positive course and how it's going to be like moved forward yeah yeah and so the the course is designed to be a business so we already have an increase in student enrollment for second semester um

073we're also continuing to gather student data which I'll talk about later about uh the process of ethnic studies the rollout of it and then having students be a part of the recruiting other students to talk about it to sign up for the course what I can share is that and I brought this which the school board looked at last time these are index cards from students in the ethnic studies courses across all four comprehensive high schools and they were asked to answer questions about their experiences so far pretty much across the board students are saying that they feel like they belong in class they feel like it's a positive experience and so I think that this data and being able to share it out anonymously is critical in that work to promote the course in

074a positive way okay so next we're going to talk about the racial and educational Justice committee it's very exciting because as we continue to do this work there's more and more people in our North Shore District Community who want to not only be a part of it but help lead it so this year we had 153 applications come in for the committee which is a dramatic increase as compared to last year and that number keeps growing so we have about 20 returning members from last year and then about 50 new members for this year we have a set of subcommittee that I know situation yeah it's a lot but it's going to be great we had a set of subcommittees last year and every year we like to kind of check in with the with

075the team and ask them the type of work that they're identifying needs to be done and where the opportunities are so we did this big brainstorming session in our first meeting last Wednesday and we've identified a set of subcommittees for this year that is being responsive to the voices in the room and just um reminding or sharing for the first time the committee is comprised of students families community members staff and administrators so the new subcommittees that I will announce are student voice and agency student belonging and safety disability Justice and neurodiversity and then we have an lgbtq ia2s Plus subcommittee that's going to Branch out into two teams one one is going to be gender identity affirming and then the next one is sexuality affirming team and then we have a street data team

076that's going to be leveraging Concepts from Street data which is going to Branch out also into teams to measure progress and to generate a feedback loop and those two teams will focus one on pedagogy and instructional practice and then the next one will focus on hiring and retention efforts so we're very excited to engage in that work this year with more hands on deck all right so I'm going to talk a little bit about our UDA Buffalo course collaboration um so the department is continuing to partner with the office of community-based learning and research from UW Bothell um on student projects and workshops and on a quarterly basis so since 2019 we've partnered with a specific Professor her name is Professor Min Tang she leads a course on critical media literacy that's focused on how

077students think about media in the way to empower themselves and to empower their minoritized communities so the critical media piece is really asking how do you engage with what you're consuming and then we even I bring in concepts of race gender sexuality to kind of complicate the question of how are you consuming media and to also bring in um different different perspectives on the artifacts they're engaging with so they're engaging with videos articles Twitter feeds Instagram feeds um anything that is considered a media artifact they are critically analyzing um and through this they create a workshop so Ava and I get um do a guest lecture on the concepts of intersectionality and other Concepts as it relates to racial and educational Justice they pick a topic as it relates to all those things and then

078they kind of do a workshop pitch to us this Workshop pitch will be selected to be a workshop at the student Justice Conference so last year we had two workshops that were at the student Justice Conference and they were really great we've got such great feedback and also it was really cool to work with college students and see the work from where we started to where we ended and they were along the ride for the full six months of planning that we did um and we are continuing this partnership for this year and we're actually having our first meeting with Professor mintang tomorrow so we're very very excited um I'm also going to talk about quarterly Community panels so this year we decided to do um our community panels a little bit differently um we

079decided to do quarterly Community panels that are virtual to make it accessible for anybody at any time um so these panels bring together North Shore students families and community members and staff to talk about their own identities experiences and communities in an intersectional way it's also a space for panelists to be able to highlight the connections and solidarities between their specific communities so in September we did Hispanic and Latino Latina latinx Heritage um disability Justice and Native was it indigenous yeah native and Indigenous Heritage Month um so we had three people talk about what it means to them to be a part of their respective communities but also make interconnections between um the commonalities between the other folks that were also on the panels um and this is just kind of going back to our

080racial and educational Justice why um so that way it's not on the periphery of teaching and learning rather it's at the center of teaching and learning we want to move into student voice agency and Leadership and so for ethnic studies I've briefly mentioned before um the index cards are a way of collecting student voice and then having them kind of shape um the data that we're collecting but then also the trajectory of the course and then the content integration with the framework and we'll also be collecting family Voice through that process and I think it's critical that we're doing that because we're having students and families have a say in what this ethnic studies rollout looks like what the curricular units look like and what the framework looks like and how it's Landing next I

081am very pleased to have Joni and Tessa talk about the student Justice Collective and the student Justice Conference great thank you so much so um first I just wanted to thank the board members for giving us this opportunity to speak and share our experiences with the collective and Conference um and just to start kind of what is the collective um essentially to me it's a group of diverse students um from all around the district all coming together with the shared passion for social justice um I joined the collection Collective last year and uh the first time I saw it it was a plain black and white poster or choir on the halls I said join the student Justice Collective in all caps in a QR code underneath and it was honestly a little bit ominous

082it was like I don't I don't know what this is but as I looked more into it the more I found out um the more it was like an opportunity to use my time to create real change in my community um every meeting we would Gather in a high school library um oftentimes one that I've never been to and we would discuss various topics um we would we've learned about social justice organization and taking action and topics such as intersectionality or transformative action which aren't really things that you hear or I as a student don't really hear in my everyday life um they weren't just defined to us but they were shown to us through demonstrations um how they really impact Us and how they impact how we interact with the world around us uh

083additionally having access to our mentors was an incredibly valuable resource um because their expertise and their attitude really created an atmosphere for questions and for improvement um Beyond just learning about these topics we were also given opportunities to take action uh last year as uh Ava just mentioned we held panels so we held one in February for Black History Month one in May for API heritage month and then one in June for pride month I was lucky enough to be able to facilitate the first two and it was absolutely amazing to be able to talk to so many different people from North Shore with students staff and parents from all over the district sharing their experiences as a member of these different communities uh Additionally the audience comments were really heartwarming because a lot of

084them said things like wow you know I didn't know this before or just kind of thanks for holding these panels and that was something that you know you could kind of really see the impact that it had on other people um this kind of experience was honestly really what prompted me to stay on the collective um I love talking to other motivated students I love learning more more about my community and I loved bringing our community closer together learning about actionable ways to create Equity has been one of my favorite parts of being a part of the collective and these experiences are something that I hope to be able to replicate and even maybe improve for new and future members of the collective and it can be kind of nerve-wracking I think at first to

085walk into you know a high school that you've never been to and see all these students that you're like I didn't know you were in my district um but once you start talking and you start hearing their thoughts and conversations it's really I think just very inspiring um to kind of see like you know we all have a voice and we can make this change this year I appreciate that the mentors really took the time to genuinely Implement our feedback um I think that it's honestly kind of common to be a part of a club or an organization and I know I've had this experience a few times which is you know primarily made up of students and then the students give feedback and the feedback kind of gets brushed under the rug like you

086know um it would take too much time to implement that or you know what I don't really like that idea so we're not even going to discuss it and it's kind of you know it can be a little disappointing when that happens but um we were able to make changes we were able to give feedback at the end of last year and this year when we were introduced to what we were going to do this year we got to see that what we thought could be changed was actually changed um so this year we're going to be learning more about um creating workshops which Joni's going to talk a little bit more about in a minute uh we're also going to go more in depth about more nuance and a greater variety of topics such

087as from youth or lead organizing to identifying barriers and developing Solutions and you know these are just a couple of the dozen or so topics we're going to talk about this year this this year um and finally we're also going to be continuing the community our work on community events so primarily the panels and the conference developing leadership skills understanding Justice and taking action and working with other students are just a few of the most important things I've been able to take from my time in the collective I know that no matter what field I end up going into Justice is going to be a part of it just in our ever shifting Society it's more important than ever to be cognizant of issues in society and to be able to take action on what

088you think is right so I'm going to turn it over to Jody now to tell you a little bit more about the conference thank you Tessa um and again thank you so much for allowing us to be here and like share our thoughts as and one thing I kind of want to emphasize as I start talking about the student Justice Conference is that this is just one of the many successes that we had this year uh the conference gave students across the district the ability to meet with fellow civically engaged students and local leaders and I know that multiple students were able to walk out of the meeting actually being rejuvenated and actually reconnected with their Community as they're able to learn about issues that they had never even thought about I know from workshops

089to Keynote speakers it was apparent that the conference had just such an amazing lineup first of all and that I know that speakers who spoke about issues plaguing their communities really awoke students to justices to injustices that they'd never even seen even though it was happening in their own backyard one thing that kind of stood out to me actually was when a speaker shared her experience as a Native American and her reaction to the mass Graves that were found in Native American boarding schools in Canada students were not only receptive to her grief and her anger but they actually were able to carry on discussions on how they can Aid their local Native American community and how they can further spread Awareness on this issue which I just found so incredibly powerful and this conference

090just not only allowed students to learn about issues from other communities but also reconnect with members in their own as I know for my school our presence of our aapi club were actually able to connect with other presidents from other API clubs and we're able to really quickly create a bond just over lunch talking about their commonalities and their differences and that Bond actually allowed them to share resources in the future and also kind of get to know like the wider Asian American Pacific Islanders community in North Shore so last year was just the beginning and with a mix of not only former but also new members we are so excited to be able to shape an even better conference this year and by bringing in energizing new speakers and also new workshops that will

091lead to action in our communities we were just so excited when we heard that first meeting we were like oh my gosh this is going to be great but one thing that we really are excited about for this year is the fact that we're moving from two Workshop sessions to four workshops because we want to make sure that students are able to learn about an even broader array of issues happening in our communities and well and one thing that we actually heard last year with feedback was how many students expressed how they want to learn about so many different issues and so many different things and thought this would be a great way for us to implement that change and make sure that students are getting to hear from just a variety of speakers and

092just about a variety of issues and also in addition the collective will actually be helping to create a workshop which we're very excited about and just the opportunity to curate a workshop that not only educates ourselves but also our fellow peers I mean it just emphasizes how the collective really aims to include student voice in all of our work and also one thing that we are focused on creating is that workshops that will lead to action as we understand that these discussions are so incredibly important but we want to make sure that we're teaching these students how to put their passion into real like chains that we can see and so we want to make sure that these workshops are overall leading to action in our communities and are leading these students become better leaders

093in their own communities so this conference was just overall a really great opportunity to showcase all the amazing things that our Collective aims to do not only connecting students uplifting social justice in our community and most importantly bringing joy as we first joined the collective our amazing advisors really made sure that we always felt safe included and joyful and and when we're asked the question how has this Collective and Conference brought us joy kind of comes really easily yeah so I mean the short answer to that is yes but um I think joy and belonging are kind of I mean they're kind of innate we like a human thing right like um we strive to be social we strive to bring others happiness and I think that the collective and Conference absolutely do this because

094they bring students together that um you know you've probably never talked to them before probably never talked to most of them before but they you know they have a similar passion for justice and equity and I think that high school can be just a very you know a time of instability and and kind of an anxiety-filled environment but having a safe space like the collective or even the conference um is absolutely vital to me as a student um bringing people together is something that can be really difficult to do and I found this out over trying to you know organize events and I'm sure maybe all of you have probably tried to you know plan something on someone goes sorry I can't make and you're like okay let's cancel the whole thing and that's just

095it's really frustrating but um you know they've done a really amazing thing where they've managed to bring together like a bunch of high schoolers you know kind of notoriously a little I would say um something's a little unreliable but we've been able to come together and create just so many really amazing things and I think just seeing the results of that is something that does bring a lot of joy no I completely agree with Tessa as like we've created a space where all these students are able to know that when they come here of concerns and ideas that they're not only heard but it's a safe space and I feel like automatically that's kind of rare sadly and I'm really hoping that in this year as we like continue to get new members that this

096Collective really begins to like influence other communities and we start to see this in other schools and other districts and other workplaces just across the state and I mean we're just so excited to see how much joy we can kind of spread and just show how Justice is honestly so not only real but also accessible no matter the age no matter where you're from and no matter where you are and so again we just kind of wanted to say thank you so much for allowing us to speak and thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak about something we're so passionate about as well um we're gonna pass it to Scarlett now yeah totally um I'm just gonna reintroduce myself um I'm Scarlett I am not from North Shore School District I go to

097kamiak in Mukilteo School District um and I'm interning with Ava and Randa um so what I do as an intern is I'm basically shadowing them within this equity and um diversity Department in education um and I've only been here a couple months but um I'm really really excited to be part of the student Justice Collective my school definitely is not on the level of North Shore like just being here for the past hour um it's made me realize how much work this district has put into their students and into their staff and it's really inspiring as someone as an outsider of North Shore to see where my community could be in a year or so however long it takes and I'm also just really grateful for this opportunity to intern with Ava and Rena I've

098always wanted to leave a mark on our planet like I want to leave it better than when I found it um and I've discovered that social justice is a very engaging way for me to do that so I plan on pursuing a career somewhere in social justice and even though that I'm not a student here I feel like my experiences can kind of transverse District border lines and that the skills that I learned here can also I can also apply those to my community so a lot of my involvement within social justice as a large vague concept is through like verbal action in class discussions or in individual assignments we have a senior ethnic studies class at kamiak which I'm a part of um I actually noticed a lot of parallels like we just did

099this like last week we wrote um like our thoughts and ideas from the past couple months of being in the class and how we can um improve for each other how our teacher can improve he's also a white man which you brought up before um and I don't think we have a as much of a similar experience um he acknowledges quite frequently his whiteness and his privilege um so I think we have a collective understanding that he as an individual Works to really really understand all the different perspectives of the students that he teaches um so I have opportunities almost daily to discuss and break down aspects of social justice in that class um but a lot of that work is through words and it's less through organization and actionable work um and so being

100here and also just through the coming years of college and everything um I want to learn how to facilitate this passion of mine for social justice to create as an independent individual um action and accountability that I can do myself for my community um and Ava and Rena have really given me the space to work on that just because you guys um you always emphasize the importance of our students being the facilitators of this kind of work um and you guys just helping us get to the point where we can do that ourselves so um I want to thank you guys for that um I've also discussed with you guys how he work that you guys are doing now didn't necessarily exist a few years ago um and so I don't necessarily know what the

101future holds for me career-wise but um I know it's going to be something through social justice and it's going to be something more amazing than this work um in the years to come so presently this internship is a way for me to engage my passions in a real physical sense which um lots of people my age don't have the opportunity to do I don't we don't really have a student Justice Collective like this at um so um every um I believe every staff member and student deserves to have a safe educational environment um I personally have had experiences with teachers or with staff members that have made my peers and I feel unsafe or I'm valued in our educational environment but I've learned that my voice through those experience my voice is an extremely powerful

102tool to advocate for my own learning and my own safety within that community and I've also realized how many different Avenues I think one of you mentioned this how many different Avenues there are through social justice like it just applies to absolutely everything um and so I can take this passion probably anywhere that I desire um and before this internship I'd never really considered an interest in social justice through educational Justice um but I've realized how much how relevant it is to me as a student um especially with this passion but just as a person who is affected by um the work that happens here or doesn't happen here um I also want to acknowledge that I'm a white person I'm a white student and I have just a lot of inherent privilege with that

103um so I don't necessarily have the holistic knowledge that students of color have about the disadvantages that those marginalized communities face and sometimes as a white person it can be intimidating to enter a space where you don't necessarily have the extensive experiences or knowledge that many people of color have at least for their own perspective um but I'm in the unique position to have the resources and the social movements of the time right now in this socio-political climate um to to be able to develop my understanding of all those different perspectives um and extend my privileges to amplify the voices of those marginalized communities um people always say that young people have the ideas and the creativity and the energy to make these big changes happen and so I'm really grateful to be in this

104position as a young person and have this be a jumping off point to start my actionable work um and I feel like if more students with this similar passion could well like you said you have so many more people that applied this year for the collective and I think the more people that have these opportunities the more readily equipped will be as a society to dismantle oppressive systems and promote racial Justice and educational Justice investing all your time with me maybe I can just add Scarlett thank you for applying your passion and talents to our North Shore district and helping us with this work absolutely it's fabulous that you found an opportunity and are willing to travel to make it so and I would say that uh you know we look forward to your future

105and with the work that you're helping us do we continue part of our North Shore family so thank you just wanted to offer a couple quick stats too so we have we had a lot of seniors last year on the collective we have five returning members who these are two of them usually in Tessa and they will serve as Leaders to help onboard the 33 new members that we have joining us this year our first kickoff meeting is tomorrow at Bothell High School and then about in turn Scarlett is not our first intern that we've had we've had about seven over the last few years so we've pulled interns from UW Bothell courses and UW Bothell students North Shore School District alumni so we have one student who just graduated in the spring and he

106was part of one of his high school bsus and is already wanting to return to North Shore for an internship with us and then we have Scarlett so starting with non-northshore school district students and really trying to build lines of solidarity and collaboration even beyond the North Shore School District so just wanted to share that quickly moving on um briefly we wanted to talk a little bit about data collection that informs our work and like we've shared collecting Street data and just briefly in the book on page 55 Street data is defined as fine-grained qualitative data in which we gain a better understanding of student and family and staff perspectives and experiences to then utilize that to inform our work forward so we're really trying to place an emphasis on Street data this year for

107the sake of time I will turn it over to pinyu and Sam to share about some of the work they're doing so yeah as I stated before we're both a part of our student Equity committee there was a group kind of like fostered by our assistant principal and she kind of wanted to give us a space to have our student voices heard and then also be able to filter out the other voices within our community to be able to have some action being able to done so one of our first projects that we decided to do was create a climate map of our school so how safe students felt on campus so we had a survey with different parts of Campus on a scale of one to five health safety will feel one being most

108unsafe and five being the most safe we had a total of 656 students respond to this survey and just some we had lots of feedback so we have some just quick numbers of most unsafe we had six people feel most unsafe in classrooms 11 people most unsafe in hallways 38 people felt they were most safe nowhere on campus and 77 people felt they were at least safe in the bathroom so those are just some numbers of how students are coming to school and fearing these areas because they feel the really safe so it's kind of just like approaching that question of we don't want as Tesla was saying earlier we don't want their feedback to be shouting into a void of we asked for help and then there's not being help given to us because

109we've shared our experiences we've shared what we've been through but yet it seems like not anything's changing so we want to be able to have that kind of addressed and changed so opinion will share what we decide to fix with our first problem the bathrooms yeah okay thank you so much for having us speak here we're really honored to be here so just to talk more about how we address these problems so from our survey obviously we got the response was that our bathrooms were the biggest issues and as a student I personally noticed that as well so our plan started out with our first like bathroom um reporting tools if there were any safety incidents we created this tool where they could scan a QR code and then it would immediately send a report

110to our campus supervisor about which bathroom it was and you could go over and check make sure everything is okay and then our goal was to be able to improve safety in the bathrooms so after having this tool out for a while um we found that this tool did increase safety at our school which was through like an internal assessment we didn't do another survey on this but our campus supervisor did inform us that he received more reports and students were actually using these tools and also like as students we did notice that the bathrooms did there were fewer incidents and it became a safer place at least just from personal experience so this really inspired our next steps to see what we could do in our work as the equity committee so firstly the

111second piece of data that we found in our survey that was really notable was that we left a space that was just open for students to say anything that they wanted it wasn't anything about ranking any of the places on campus there was a space where they could say if they've experienced any sort of discrimination if there's if they've ever felt unsafe anywhere specifically that was just on our form and we found that in our survey there were a lot of minority students and particularly also lgbtq students who said that they had felt they had experienced some of these incidents that made them feel unsafe on campus like for example there was an anonymous report where there was a substitute who refused to use a student's pronouns and just adamantly refused and the student didn't

112know who to talk to on campus because they can talk to the substitute but it was just student substance just didn't know who to talk to on campus even though they had they had experienced these incidents so because of this we created or we brainstorm a solution to try to create this like racism and discrimination reporting tool and last year we started connecting with the racial and educational Justice team to see what we could do about this if we could create a separate tool for that this if there is an existing tool that we can just carry out and spread to more schools and then in the end the result that we got was that the best option for us was that there is actually a safe School safe schools tool on the website that

113has like several different categories and one of them was like harass or harassment intimidation and bullying I think that's what it's called that even though like we did prefer two habits of like a separate tool like in the end we decided that this tool was suitable to give the students the opportunity to report incidents and our goal was for this year is to carry this out through our school to let students know that firstly when you report an incident using this tool it doesn't have to be an incredibly violent incident you don't need to have an emergency in that case you probably called the police or something but um it can be just like incidents that made them feel uncomfortable and we also wanted to make it more open about how Administration has to process

114reports because um previously when I was a student I never knew that administration had like a certain procedure they had to follow whenever they received a report I thought it was just if I reported something then they could look at it or they could just ignore it so we really wanted to make this more open for more students to better understand how Administration works with this so they'd feel more safe that their responses and their thoughts whatever they report are being heard and since we started working on this a while ago our first steps right now are to connect with the leader teacher leadership team within our school at inglemore or the racial and educational Justice team at our school just one of the teacher leadership teams so we can gain some support within the

115staff because they're relatively few staff meetings and we don't want to launch this like suddenly among all the staff members saying okay you guys have to do this right now so we'd like to get some support since this was a student web project we'd like to connect that with staff as well and we also wanted to connect in between so not just with the teachers but also with like counselors and administration so everyone is on board with understanding how to properly address and treat these student experiences like with Administration they know all the protocols and they're probably the extra that but within the counselors if a student reports something and they have other feelings that they would like to discuss with the counselors then they know how to properly address that as well and to

116understand that there might be an increase in these um students reporting these incidents and also students who want to talk about this since that is our goal to make this um a more of an ex more of something that students can talk about and then our steps after that is to email the entire staff since we do have relativity wall staff meetings and and then give the QR codes for all teachers to put up the um QR codes for this tool in their classrooms so students can access this since another problem that we had with the bathroom reporting tool was that students could take them off because we're not allowed to put anything permanent on campus so students could just like rip those off and then we had to put them back up so if

117they're in the classrooms then that's more likely that students will not be able to do that and it'll be some place that's accessible and there's also a website that's like on the ingomar website on the North Shore website that we have for the tools so students can access that online as well so we want also want to make sure that that's known and then after that we will be we plan to start read this news through student platforms through social media and we also have like um one of the news sites called good morning no more and it's just like um one of the uh it's like a video that plays like every week to spread the news to more students and in order to check in with our progress we plan to do some

118of these in the in between um the beginning and between when we start doing this and also in the end of the year in between we'd like to do some more like internal assessments within our um Team to see if there have been an increasing reports so we can check in with Administration on that see if these like their students who are using this tool more and just so we don't bombard students with too many surveys but at the end of the year we'd like to also conduct another survey that's similar really similar to the climate map that we did last year so we could see if there is an increase in students who feel like they are a safe and accepted on campus and then finally last thing is that um we've been working

119with the racial and educational justice department for their support and while we're currently launching this as sort of like a pilot program at inglemore to test out if this works if this is a helpful thing for students to have and once we have a few check-ins and maybe hopefully if those are successful we want to continue working with the rej team to launch this at other schools to see if we can connect with some of the representatives at like other high schools and then Implement that as well so yeah thank you so much for listening to us speak today just I think that what Sam and pinau have highlighted is I'm being able to identify specific problems leads to informed Solutions and practices um just one more minute and I'm wrapping it up I just

120wanted to speak really briefly about the doctoral inquiry work that I'm doing and I want to add to the research development on ethnic studies and to provide more research so through qualitative practice I'm going to be comparing teacher pedagogy with student experience and outcomes I've been able to start doing that already with the index cards that I have but I'm going to keep doing that and then also incorporating family voice into that as well so that I think that that can inform even beyond the ethnic studies courses to how teacher pedagogy can be spoken into how we can build the competencies of our teachers in regards to culturally responsive and justice-driven practice across North Shore and then how that leads to student outcomes like student belonging identity affirming spaces and safe spaces for students in

121classrooms with all of that I would like to say thank you on behalf of all of us I'd like to say thank you to the students who are partners and Leadership developers in this work to superintendent Tully for his guidance and Leadership and to the school board for the leadership work and support that you offer us because without all of you we wouldn't be able to do this work so thank you comments questions I know we're past times and I have this happy face we've got time for some comments or questions so feel free anybody if anybody has anything they'd like to add you know I well just um I'll start off with gratitude for the work that it's obvious everyone at this table and behind us and um in the buildings as well you

122know when we think thinking of how you started Dr Bigelow thinking it reflected on where we started you know when this started as a policy conversation and then you know went through the department and administrative and now it's down to the student level it's wonderful to think about that what that means in terms of the fear that we initially had that would be a silo but it'd be a policy that would end up in a drawer somewhere right and but the work obviously is not that so so thank you very much you know um I have many wonderings you know but first a couple administrative things if there's copies of the street Data Book like that word that was gotten first officers anyway the board could also get copies it would be really handy it

123seems you know when you're talking about humanizing data collection for example I mean something for years actually came up um director Swain and I were chatting with representative davinderer about you know um you know some we something that we've on and off asked are state legislators for help with is the fact that the smarter balance has such a disproportionate impact on how we run our schools we've been looking for humanizing data collections on a systematic basis for years so we would very much like to be part of that so um that would be really helpful as well as the links to the Articles if you don't mind reporting them to superintendent Telly so we could have those at our disposal as well um you know another really quick wondering um because again we could be

124here all night you know this this also it's it um I'm reflecting back also when we started the equity policy work we did as a district and an equity climate and culture audit of the district and superintendent Tony and I talked briefly about that you know there was education Northwest came in and helped do surveys of students and family and staff and um so this you know as if as we're at the point to refresh the equity policy you know this focus on data down to again the bathroom level even but thinking about that also was I'm wandering on on what that should look like now in in 2022 in terms of of the data collection to support the refresh but um just again gratitude thank you thank you for investing so much time and

125energy to making North Shores a rich Vibrant Community and I'd like to just say thank you as well for all the hard work that's been going into this for years prior to myself being on the board and and to see additional staff and those students you know interjecting and participating and that's where we will really see we're really know for all doing the right things right it's what the feedback we get from the students in the classrooms and in their schools it's you know that's that's that's the data even if it's just a personal experience that's the most probably the most important piece of data right is it what we're trying to do from the top down on our structures is a really having an impact in a positive way so it's so good to

126see so many students involved and leaders like yourself you know trying to get other students engaged and that's where change really happens really on the street level there so thank you for all your work and passion yeah um again just want to go around the table and think Dr Bigelow's from your boss you see superintendent Tony Eva Marina and all of our students to continue to push do this work in a time where it might be easier to go quiet um we some appreciate you and we know that you we've tried to protect you from some of the negativity but we know that you're on the front lines and so thank you for continuing to do this work you because that might have been easier to go in different direction but it obviously it's worth

127it I will Echo if we can get a copy I watched us all right down the streets um I did I did have a question wondering um as I've listed um to the students and you've talked about other students and and the work that you're doing um I have not or heard much about hispanic Latino Latino at next students and I'm wondering if they are there is a disproportionality and representation on the collective which by the way makes me think of Star Trek every time you use that word but um um or on the ingamore social justice group and if so what are the barriers for those students and being able to participate in this work I I you too can speak to it but I I did see diverse representation on our student Justice

128Collective across the board and that includes race gender identity abilities and I think that there's more of that this year as well okay great and then I'll add a couple things too I um just want to bring out some of the things that Tessa brought up too about the sense of what human nature wanting to feel like you belong and I think that this work is frankly at the core of it that's that's why we do it is we want our students to feel like this is their school this is their Community they belong here we want our families to feel like they belong here and um so we do this work and and the work of educating children for a society is kind of a reflection of its values and I think you really

129judges Society evaluate treats other people especially young people to people that are not as fortunate in the society so I think seeing the work that we're doing here in North Shore is very exciting I think Executive Director Bigelow said how you know we're a little bit ahead of the curve or maybe a lot of that head of the curve and I'm happy to hear that the other thing that being ahead offers you as a head start but it's the rate that you do this work that keeps you ahead of the curve it keeps pushing and the amount of things that I've seen happen in a short amount of time is is really phenomenal so I know it's hard work and maybe it never ends but I just want to be call that out how appreciative

130we are as a community that this is happening in our neighborhoods and in our schools and I just hope that we continue to push because you know I think director Thomas as you said you know this this positivity is building there's more interest in students joining these collectives and I think as we do good work like this get the racial studies program in the schools we're going to see this really take off and maybe the last comment we heard from students about yeah and we all have good students we've all said it like I don't know why I'm learning this this is relative how will this ever matter and the students here today have talked about how this is mattering and what they're doing now and how they can make a difference as students in

131their community and the excitement they have to go out into the world and make the world better I mean that is exactly the best thing we can hope for from our system so thank you and so if there are not any additional comments I'd like to thank everyone for participating in the meeting we'll call this meeting adjourned at 10 till 7. the school board meeting starting at seven o'clock thank you thank you so much thank you