001all right um i would like to call this um december 1 uh special meeting to order uh as of 105. if everyone would like to send we'll do the pledge of allegiance face the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay could i have a motion to approve the agenda for today i move to approve the agenda for today jane sexy mr kalacki thank you uh roll call mr clackey aye mr chang aye ms john aye jack aye all right the uh agenda has been approved and now we are to public comments the board of education has adopted board policy 9323b to ensure the public's right to be heard in
002any matters pertaining to the school district persons who wish to provide public comment will have three options submit an online form request to speak during the meeting and a phone dial-in request to speak during the meeting via public comment card with respect to the online form the public may submit public comments for the open session on december 1 from 8 30 to 11 30. as of 11 30 a.m we have received no public comments via the online form for today's meeting second request to speak during the meeting via the q a and phone dial-in the meeting will pause for one moment to take requests to speak the raise hand function is used to take requests during the public comment period for online for online attendees please raise the hand icon to add yourself to the
003queue for phone attendees dial star 9. the speaking order will be determined based on the order of requests received individual speakers will be unmuted and called to speak quests speak during the meeting in person via the public comment card please complete the public comment card and submit the completed card to the designated dropbox with the assistant to the superintendent no later than when the agenda section is called by the board president opportunities for the public comment are offered prior to this meeting for matters on the agenda the board reserves a right to add public comment period prior to any individual item on the agenda five minutes will be allotted to each speaker in a minute of 20 minutes to each subject matter however in the event there are more than four speakers on the same
004subject matter the board president retains the right to adjust and limit the time allocated to each speaker to ensure that all wishing to speak will be heard within the 20-minute period communications from the audience concerning matters on the agenda may be heard at this time but not responded to by the board dr choi are we starting the one-minute process now we are thank you we are pausing for one minute to take requests if you'd like to make a request to speak regarding matters on the agenda please press the raise hand icon dial star 9 or submit a public comment card [Music] yeah mrs jack we have no comments no requests all right thank you so we are here today as a board with our administrators and our principals for what i believe is going to
005be a wonderfully informative uh session specifically with respect to a study session regarding diversity equity and inclusion uh it will be facilitated by dr carla ray who is with the carla ray group and if it would be all right dr deletori i would like you to introduce our very important guest and uh leader today thank you so much vice president jack and members of the board of education it is my honor and privilege to introduce you to dr carla ray of the carla ray group dr ray has over 31 years of experience serving public education institutions she was the president of a statewide organization called the california association of joint powers authority she has expertise in a variety of areas but most prominently in risk management and she does the diversity equity and inclusion training
006for many educational institutions up and down uh the state of california so i have um copied her bio and uh each each participant should have a copy of her bio in front of you she has uh served for governor brown um as a member of one of six state commissioners on a four-year term as a fraud assessment commissioner um she has been appointed to many statewide committees and councils and we are very fortunate to have her here with us today to provide us with important information on diversity equity and inclusion so with that i turn it over to you dr ray thank you thank you so much good afternoon everyone so i'm going to tell you all a little trick in case it never happens to you i got here early and i went over
007to the huntington because i just loved that place and um as i was getting ready to leave i pulled out my little key fob and click click and nothing happened i made a mistake i had a key so i just took my key and unlocked the car because you know i have a key and that was the mistake apparently the computers don't recognize one of the keys and oh you knew this already yeah [Laughter] the key didn't wreck wasn't recognized so then i couldn't start the car but then i had an alarm sounding because it thought somebody had broken into my car i'm sitting there so uh with a little help with triple a we're we're all good but luckily i was just around the corner so that's your lesson learned if you learned nothing
008else today you've learned about key fobs but today we are going to get into a rather difficult notice just click this uh just click right to proceed all right and there we go all right um today we're gonna get into what many consider a very difficult uh subject to talk about and i'm not here to stand here the whole time to lecture to you so i'm going to be counting on you to engage with me and dialogue and understanding that we've gotta if there's questions or something that you do want to understand this is the place we got to talk about it and that's one of the challenges that we have in our society we don't want to talk we just want to kind of it's getting uncomfortable let me look the other way so
009we'll be getting into that and what i hope to accomplish today i think maybe i need to get closer to this little guy here i have um above for you kind of what our touch points are and the objective is really to create that space where we can have those discussions and for this to be kind of the a continuing saga on your dei journey it's not something you're gonna one one lesson or one one you know course like this that you're going to walk away knowing all the answers we're still all figuring that out but this is the beginning and so the five touch points that we'll go into is the reintroduction because i know you've had someone in who talked to you about dei before so this isn't anything new this is just
010kind of saying let's reintroduce the topic talk about some of the not only the benefits but some of the challenges discrimination different types the stereotypes that help support and lead us into the challenges that we're facing when we talk about dei and then we'll have a review and wrap up we'll have a couple of stretch breaks so you know if you need to stand and stretch in the interim of that go right ahead and we'll have some activities that we'll be doing too all right so i love this this was actually a quote from an author that i saw and um you know you think about it a box of crayons really they've already figured it all out right they all just fit neatly in there there's no challenges i mean people use all of
011the colors um we need to figure out how to live in the same box and that's really what diversity equity and inclusion is all about how do we get there so when we think about the reintroduction to dei um again you've come with a certain level of understanding that you know it's been around for a long long time uh first of all and i'm going to go through a little timeline next just to kind of show you that this isn't a new topic it's not a new study i mean dei or diversity has been that term has been around for a long long time um even dating back to pre-civil war days and in the 1800s they were talking about diversity even back then we just didn't learn enough from that but it's really about
012how we can move forward and how that how we can uh understand together so the first thing i want to start off with is just and i don't expect you to read this from there but it's just to let you know that there's things that have been happening um in every decade but the biggest part where things really started was in the 60s and that was the civil rights movement so when you think about the civil rights movement that was big a lot of things happened there was writing in the civil war during that era a lot of things were going on there were also some new laws that were passed so eeoc um was enacted as well as the ability for right to sue a lot of things happening and then over the following
013decades there would be just different little nuances things that are that were going on and you know i do have um if it would be easier for the board i do have some copies if you'd like to have that instead would that be easier for you yeah when i do that i usually press it on the end but i realize that this may be more difficult to see it there let's see if this is mature yeah i think i have enough there i'll give it a minute for video to get that because i think some of those states you might enjoy um looking out i think you guys might not [Music] all right so we can see that although a lot happened in the 60s there was less things happening but there were some things
014there's a lot of over the time it's going to talk about diversity we're not just talking about racial there were a lot of things that really helped to supporting women and so a lot of different pay acts that were established during each of those times and i sort of identified um something interesting though was um the term microaggression which is very prevalent today's society that actually came out of the 1970s and so there were these different little things that continued to happen all the way up until 2020 to present and we all know that last year a lot happened and it seems like it's continuing to kind of snowball in that direction so before we go any further let's think about are you what you eat and that's our icebreaker so that we can get
015to know each other a little bit better but because i recognize that you already know each other right everybody in this room you know each other but i bet you don't know about what a person eats and what their favorite food might be so we're going to just take a minute and if i may have you just to kind of work in pairs and interview the other person and find out what food that they like to eat but i want you to think from a diversity perspective so i want you to think of culture it could be in your heritage maybe in your family something that you enjoy making eating um and then we'll report out in just a moment so if we can take a moment to do that and yeah you can just
016join those three and just kind of do a little quick interview [Laughter] let me guess is italian pasta [Music] we'll go first all right i love it so introduce your partner uh well i have dr lynn principal at carver elementary school and i have miss atlanta for a principal of allentown school i'm here with pencil at huntington middle school so their kids feed into me okay [Laughter] mike and i have something in common and uh then we can balance out with uh atlanta's uh dish that she likes but we enjoy using our airfryer okay so chicken and fish all right salmon and sweet potatoes and breast sprouts on this chicken fix right now she's really into his proteins and so we also like to finish the pot okay just a hint for those of you
017that like to give michael a gift maybe recipes i love it she's into her salsas right now not just the dancing but the salsas once they go with the chips that's us awesome thank you very much all right who's the next group that's gonna go anything okay i see back over here jennifer and i were uh partners we uh both have never had haggis and agree that we never will have hackers the type of scottish history in her family um we both like tamales um that our families make and um i'm vegetarian and she also has a child that's vegetarian as well and so some commonality there very much so great thank you who's next we'll go okay um so in talking with the lovely vice president jack she shared that she likes korean food
018okay and so she likes spicy hot korean food not just any korean food but it needs to be spicy and hot and then i was sharing with her that um you know i have seven sister-in-laws and that i really love mexican and italian food and i'm like a carb junkie which is my downfall but i love tamales we talked about tamales and how my mother-in-law you know used to have us all gather in her kitchen and she had us you know like a well-oiled machine making tamales for the holidays and so that's how i learned to make them and there is absolutely nothing better than a tamale right out of the steamer it is so good yes so i would just like to add so my husband is not korean and uh i like to
019eat kimchi every day and that causes you know even when you wake up in the morning right the garlic the pores yeah it's uh there's a yeah so i try to wash you know the sheets as often as i can uh maybe a little tmi but uh it just goes to show you uh because he does not like kimchi um or anything really that spicy so it just goes to show you how much he really must want to stay married to me right as he has to deal with that odor uh on a daily basis anyway oh thank you for sharing that okay who's the next group you're gonna go oh sure um so mr chang and i were both sharing how both of us as we came to live in different places started to
020explore some of the more the foods that were more germane to the location for example mr chang started eating grand food when he moved to the area and i started eating more chinese food when i moved to san marino which was interesting because my entire life growing up korean version of chinese food is in fact not chinese food so it's a they're very different dishes and so the so i started eating chinese food by going out with other friends who would order for me and i started eating things like stinky tofu and chicken feet and i was like okay i'm good i can go back to my korean drink but we also talked about as we've gotten older i've gravitated back to my korean comfort food roots and mr chang has gravitated towards eating more
021healthy non-oily foods and salads looking for you yeah i originally come from taiwan so before i only eat the taiwanese food in the japanese wood so shinzo moved to l.o.a so it gave me the opportunity to experience all kind of ethnic food like i korean food was the the first time after i come to the united states and also uh besides that you know taco also is my friend there's a table top [Laughter] thank you for sharing who's going to go next we're dwindling down so we've got i think we've had we just went to four sorry we didn't follow directions all right um jason is a state guy but he said he'll eat everything carlos is a burger hot dogs okay but he'll also eat every morning mary um enjoys vietnamese food and sushi
022and she's added tacos right now because they're good and then i um also enjoy most everything but i was sharing that our family my mom on thanksgiving since we just had thanksgiving she makes a stuffing that has oysters in it and it's unusual and so people from outside our family they think it's really weird that we eat this but everybody in our family really enjoys it so it's a tradition it's a tradition but they all like oysters but just not in their stuff yeah i've never i have to admit i've never had oysters in a stuffing i love oysters i'll have to try that so all right and who do we have left dr richter and i shared we have a lot of things in common we love all sorts of foods uh and one
023of the the key things that came out of our conversation was we recognized that although we have a lot of different favorite foods we still have to have some type of control and some tolerance because we can't always be eating the same favorite foods all the time so um that was that was one breakthrough i think we had in our very brief conversation thank you for sharing that and and i as i listen i think about you mention the word tolerance and we have to have tolerance in what we're eating because my favorite is chocolate chip cookies and i could just go to town and if you pair that with some breyer's homemade now it's homemade not home home style homemade ryers ice cream oh my goodness i don't need to come back up for
024air or anything [Laughter] and and what i love though is that you you had you found some commonalities now was there it was any of this new to anyone did you already know these foods or is this something that you just learned today about your partner just never yet yeah kind of some new things and really that's what it's all about is finding and i think you said it commonalities commonalities right um although if you're in scotland i would probably avoid the chinese food um not really what i don't think any of us may relate to so just a little tip on that too um but that's really what when you think about diversity we have a diverse group we have diverse bellies right we like a wide variety of things and we like them
025for different reasons and sometimes it dates back to our heritage sometimes it's just because something someone introduced us to and we didn't hear from you because i'm looking at you i don't know what your food is [Music] i think i'm with you i do like i never thought about it that way i like noodles but they do cross over so many different cultures thank you for bringing that to my attention i just didn't think about it that way but that's really what um our time of today about is exploring and and finding those commonalities and recognizing that when we leave this room we're coming into contact with a lot more people and wouldn't be nice to to be able to take a minute it didn't take us long to do that take a minute to
026learn about someone else and to ask questions about their culture about their heritage so why we are talking about this and why we need to break it down is our next get this little guy to go thank you right there so why we need to break it down there's three things and i see my why is just it kind of flipped over um diversity equity and inclusion you can't have one with the yet about the other so you can't say we're going to have a diverse work team but we don't really believe in equity and we certainly don't believe in inclusion and you can't say we're going to be having an inclusive work environment but not be diverse they all go together and equity sometimes is confused with equality and what we're talking about here
027will be very clear it's equity because equality probably already exists right people have equal access but it's the equity is it fair is it really meeting everyone where they are maybe someone needs something in a different language someone needs someone might be have a disability and may need some assistance there so that's where that equity piece comes in diversity is really about the different a given setting um i've put those words in red so they just really kind of you focus on them the in in partiality and fairness and that sense of belonging and that's what inclusion is all about and too often today in our society we're missing one or two of those elements we may have three things we're shooting for but we seem to miss the boat in inclusion if people don't
028have a sense of belonging or sense that they they really need to be here that you want them here it's not going to work right so that's kind of what this is all about inclusion is that acceptance fees equity is the access piece so why are we talking about it today especially when we know that it's been around for a while it's nine minutes and 29 seconds and i think everyone in this room knows what happened last year and the whole nine minutes and 29 seconds and that's when george floyd was murdered and he was murdered at the hands of the police and i use the word murder because that really is what it is we can skirt around and we can say oh he died but he died at the hands of a police
029officer who didn't like him who had some biases who had some prejudices right so that is just the fact and it went through a proceeding and that's what came out of it so that is that's just kind of the raw mcgilly that's just what it is but why are we talking about it is because since that day we've gone through yet another movement kind of like back in the civil rights now there's been other movements between then and now in fact the hashtag metoo movement um that was a movement and we'll talk about that in a little bit but this has kind of stirred up kind of back some of those deep rooted feelings back that we saw in the 60s and so everyone now is really focused on re-examining their own organizations i need
030to get a different asset put some little tape here um everyone is re-examining their own organizations to say do we have a problem now i applaud there's some uh the major companies and what they did was right after this happened they actually went over to their employees and and they felt that because they had a diverse population oh and maybe maybe i'll cheat yeah because this one just keeps sliding down and it could just be my mouth because i'm moving um the uh i'll do this one in the break um they actually went to their employees and they said now we we we hire we have different genders we have different ethnicities and cultures here are we we're okay right okay and they had these employee groups and what they learned was they're not because
031while it looked like a diverse team and it looked like it was an inclusive environment people got along there wasn't any problems what they learned from their employees was that for women there was a lack of promotion upward mobility there were women in in those key positions but not many so they were slow to promote they were quicker to promote their male colleagues and then when you looked at and heard from any person of color particularly african americans there are very few in any of those key managerial roles and so what they learned again is wow we're we're not actually doing what we said we're doing and so from that they've now created some task groups and they're they're actually moving in a different direction to make sure that they do put in equity and
032do a better job of inclusion because they have already nailed down the diverse part so that's kind of what's happening and why we're all talking about this today and since then we're we're seeing um attention given to this topic not just in the united states not just in california and in our nation but across nations because george floyd reached worldwide everyone was watching everyone knew what happened and so it's really given us an opportunity to improve our own practices here in the states okay i think i'll do something instead so does this picture resonate with anyone yeah everybody kind of remembers and whether it was this group or it was another across our country abroad we this is what we were seeing and it really speaks to things that make us uncomfortable how do you
033feel when you see white supremacy how do you feel about no justice no peace what does that make you feel or uh black lives matter now so often i hear people say when they hear that term block lives matter they'll repeat back no no no i believe all lives matter has anyone ever heard that or maybe even said that and thinking you're kind of like on the bandwagon you're you're green you're saying yeah it's it's not just your life carla it's all lies my life matters too i'm a minority that's i've had people say that to me but you're missing the boat so i'm going to caution you if someone says black lives matter leave it be it's not a contest we're not trying to see if one life is worth more than another the
034reason the attention the focus is on black lives and it needs to be is because that's the group the large group who for so long has had these challenges and often times people think that racism doesn't exist because they look around and they see um african-americans and and top positions you know there's the ceo of kaiser is african-american um we had a president who was african-american so you kind of look at those people and say well there couldn't be racism because how could this be but there is and as we get to know each other a little bit more then i'll share some stories with you of my own journey and things that i've experienced and even in my last position where i was ceo of an organization some of the microaggressive comments that were
035made and maybe i'll have you to begin to think about things that you've heard witnessed or maybe even unknowingly have said yourselves and that's the part about being real now there are challenges with diversity and so the challenges are there could be communication barriers because if you're talking about a diverse group of people and even in this room as you were talking about your foods and what you like i heard different um people say this is where i'm from i'm from this i'm from this place so sometimes language can be a barrier there could be unfair prejudices because we have our own opinion on things and so if someone is from a certain country maybe someone else has a perception of what that really means or what those people are like and so that can
036play into trying to have that diverse workforce um lack of gender certainly is is an an area but lack of gender in key roles and then our ethnic diversity so there are quite a few things that really um adds to it and what if you get a group of people unlike the crayon box we get a group of people with various backgrounds and cultures and you put them all together do you think there could be some conflicts oh you betcha and so as an employer those are things that you have to kind of navigate figure out before you you go there i'm going to use another word that's going to make maybe some of the hairs climb and if it does that's okay right we're here to talk about this and that's the word systemic
037racism and systemic racism this particular quote i found was from a teacher so i thought oh i've got to bring this one out but i kept going around with the word holds and so i'd like to get your input on what you think that this teacher meant when they said it holds the world together i'd like to have you to give me some feedback on that but the civil rights leaders have been talking about this and again this is where it goes back decades and decades and decades ago but more recently since last year we're hearing more of that term being brought out that we here in america we have systematic systemic racism and and so we're going to get into really unpacking what those words mean and why and if you agree that's fine
038but if you disagree we want to hear from you and it doesn't mean that you um if you oppose anything that i'm saying today please understand it doesn't mean that you're a racist or that you're a bigot or any of those things it means you have an opinion and we should all be able to have an opinion and it gives us an opportunity to learn more and if we could be more tolerant using that word and understand that it's okay for someone to have a different opinion than i we don't have to agree but understanding where you're coming from understanding what your views and what you value and you understanding mine may help us to work and get along better and in the end we can go our separate ways and we don't have to
039necessarily socialize but when we're here having that understanding will help the the uh the organization go a long way so this was something else that was in the news a lot last year and it continues to be and that's the dismantle systemic racism so when you think about systemic systemic is drawn from the word system and you think of what is a system anyone want to take a stab at what is a system policies and practices behind an organization or an institution yes yeah that's really it's set of rules and so just imagine so that systemic part there's a system there's a set of rules policies maybe practices and they're put in place but when you see the word systemic it it's more rooted than that it's it's in place for reason and the reason
040usually is to pose or press someone or a group of people so in the news this morning i don't know how many of you heard the and i haven't heard the news since then because i wasn't listening to it in the car but roe versus wade is is up for grabs and it's may have already gotten overturned uh so far um but that's one of those things that it was you know people are saying there may be groups of people who though you may not agree with the whole abortion and maybe there should be other options pulling that away from someone where there really may be a need maybe we can be a little bit more tolerant and find that common ground and find somewhere to to meet in the middle but instead we're going
041when we're just flip-flopping and going back or you consider some of the voter suppression laws that are happening in some of the states who is that really aim to hurt people who don't have cars who have to walk or get you know take a bus and then when you get there it better not be hot because you certainly can't drink any water unless you brought it yourself so it's those kinds of things that keep this word alive that it's things that are being done intentionally towards a group of people now when you look up on the slides i've given you some groups that typically um things are put in place to go against or to hurt the list that you see so it could be the asian population blacks we've talked about blacks on hispanic
042and latinx um middle eastern and i bet we'll hear more more about that pacific islanders multiracial we're going to hear a lot more about that as well as the indigenous population so these different groups of people if you have your own perception about them then you're going to be all for or whatever that new set of policies or rules to put in place that can oppress or hurt them but when that happens you're really hurting everyone and if you think about today's environment we are a multi-cultural multi-racial environment you don't know just because someone looks a certain way you don't know what their spouse looks like or their kids or their grandkids and so while you're sitting there with your own ideologies you could also be offending someone because even though they may look like
043you and houses share some of the same viewpoints their family members are made up of all kinds and it's that crayon box that we saw but the common goal there is oppression so we talked about some of the challenges and after hearing the challenges you're thinking okay maybe we should just call it quits now forget this whole diversity thing there's a lot that we have to think about but there are also benefits and it is important because if we all thought the same thing about that if all of us had the saying that group thing we all said the same thing thought the same thing how are you going to really advance the goals of this district you need varied opinions you need varied backgrounds and interests you need people who have gone through different
044things so they can bring that to share this is what i experienced i remember very vividly walking home from school this is when i was in high school and i would walk home from school and my my parents had adopted a boy who was five years older so he was out of school and he would come and walk with me he'd meet me in school and we'd all come together now he didn't look like me and so as we're walking home but he is older so he was a little wiser we often would get stopped now who do you think stopped us as we were walking home from school i remember he's five years older so maybe that was a con concern you know why is this person who's clearly older walking with this kid
045any ideas any guess who might have stopped me law enforcement now what might have helped and most of you may have come to that conclusion if i said quicker where i was i grew up from pacific palisades anybody know where that is [Music] so high school meaning a few years ago not many um you can imagine what pacific palisades may have looked like then and so here you have this black kid walking home from school now the other thing that might have helped you you were really good at coming up with the right answer but another clue that i could have given you is what my adopted brother looked like a different race or ethnicity he was hispanic and which actually played out very well for me because he would help me with my spanish
046homework and he would tutor um some of the kids in the class with spanish um but yes we would be the two of us are walking back home and we would be stopped [Music] he was very quick to respond to the officers when they asked where we were going anybody want to take a guess what he might have said well yeah that may not have worked though think about it you're going home yeah right a black kid in the mexican going going home with pacific palisades i don't think so maybe you need to come down to the station with me and we'll figure it out any other guesses what would a hispanic and a black kid what would he have said to that police officer that may have been more accepting candy shop how about
047with us our moms work up the street we're headed to the house and after going through a few officers with that story about we're going to your mom start working they would just wave and see like oh there's those kids there their mom their moms were up there so if our moms worked up there then that must have meant our moms were maids housekeepers which is nothing wrong with that but see they came to a conclusion because i couldn't have lived there and certainly he couldn't have and that's has continued all of these years but the the difference is you know we we need to change and so what diversity is going to do is to i bring that perspective wherever i go i have a different lens that i look through i may see
048something that you may not see if you're planning something because of my own experiences that's why we need the varied perspectives we need to understand that we can reduce fear together when we ask questions we can then kind of relieve some of those pent-up emotions we have or some of our own thoughts as to you know why you think about a certain person or a certain food or a certain culture or a certain ethnic group ask questions it also will lead to higher engagement because when you have an organization where people are comfortable and they can be authentic then you're going to have them more involved in things that are happening here at the district and then again inclusive and accepting accepting workplace we want an accepting workplace it's also more comprehensive if we can
049understand each other so those are some of the reasons the the benefits of having diversity in order to do that though you have to have cultural competency we already started a little bit of that this morning when we or this afternoon when we first met we were talking about our food you learned something new about someone that maybe you didn't know you had in common and really that's all this is about is just having something in common with someone and figuring out what that is the only way you're going to figure it out is to have dialogue and so in order to have cultural competency we have to ask the questions and it's it's not asking questions an authoritative figure it's so tell me just like you started this question about the food you didn't
050say well tell me what you're eating i want to know what you would so what kind of food do you people eat i don't think anyone said that in here it was really more let me tell you what i eat i love all foods but in particular this is what i like to eat and part of it's from my culture or part of it is because it's not my culture but i tried something new and i actually found that i like it and that's what is it cultural competency is all about it's that ability to perceive our own cultural beliefs values and customs and to shape our decisions for better outcomes the more we talk the more we engage the more we're able to do that now we're going to go into a table discussion
051and so the way we'll do this is maybe since you four have already formed a foursome here we'll have u four back there kind of work together and then we'll just kind of split this group split into groups and i want you to take a few minutes um to describe your thoughts and you can pick any one of these you have to do all three unless you're just overachievers and you get through all three of them but i'd like to have at least for this side of the room i'd like you to start with the first two bullet points in this half the room start with the second and third bullet point and just kind of pair off and just kind of talk amongst yourselves a few ways we can improve cultural competency and discuss
052whether it's important to focus on the progress made or the work that lies ahead that's the side of the room and this side of the room you're going to describe thoughts and whether opposing sides who view systemic racism can share common values and also you're going to identify ways we can improve our cultural competency okay clock starts now and you just have a few minutes so you're not gonna write a thesis on that i'd be like oh look at all those powers okay let's come on and wind down and get back to your your uh ungroup yourself i nominate you to speak all right i'm anxious to hear what you have to say so why don't we start with this side of the room we were answering the first two questions so who wants to
053speak for the this group over here me sure okay um looking at your way we uh it was a nice discussion i've been here only since summer um i've come from different districts okay and um i feel as though we were saying our our students are very tolerant and supportive of one another i'm sure it's there it always is there but you know we haven't come across a lot of issues where students are bullying or saying uh hurtful things based on race or culture in my experience it's more body shaming than it is um differences in that way so yes we absolutely believe that um sharing common values like family and education and success um sort of bridge and that's tends to be the topic of conversation is the positive goals that they all share
054supporting and encouraging each other and then ways we could improve our cultural competency we see it in our clubs who share their diversity as well as just the friends who when they go over to each other's houses and learn about the different foods or the different ways of living we find our students since we are a diverse district get a lot of these experiences both at school and at home awesome thank you for sharing that any comments or questions for them all right well thank you very much we'll go to we'll now flip sides and we'll go to this group of four all right so um our group picks the third uh topic um as far as whether we focus on progress from the past or uh progress that's yet to be achieved okay and
055um there are a couple of different views that there's on on one side it's definitely important to to look back and determine what progress has been made so that we can make sure that there's um commonality and definitions and acceptance of of various you know terms and ideas that have been achieved and and then on the other side there there is an important uh aspect of trying to find where progress can still move forward um there you know for example we we talked briefly about one um one example in our district although it wasn't necessarily a racism issue it was definitely an inclusion an equity issue dealing with a recent request that gender fluid restrooms be provided in our schools for for parts of our uh community and although there may have been certain accommodations
056in the past so looking back we may see well there were some accommodations for for certain students um what can be done in the future to be able to provide that equity and that inclusion for the diversity in our community thank you very much any comments for this group so i'm going to swap back over on this side sure yeah right until then if it's at that point you're not going to understand values yes thank you very much any comments all right and we'll go to the last group over here so we um we actually focused on two and three um so i'll start with two in terms of identifying ways that we can improve our cultural competency toward others with differences from ourselves engaging in conversation asking questions creating opportunities to discover commonalities and
057or differences an example of that is um you know the the majority of the school demographic happens to be chinese and so one of the things that that we have been doing as a leadership team is to really dive into the chinese culture and discover as much about that as we possibly can and we had a um a luncheon for um it was the what was it um refresh my memory the mid-autumn festival thank you and so we um we told uh this story and we showed a video of traditions that take place um related to the mid-autumn festival and it was very successful we got a lot of positive feedback and people engaged in conversation and asked questions about that um so i think you know when we create an opportunity for celebration around
058uh cultural experiences when we educate the people that we are working with um about different cultures um and we collaborate with people um that we wouldn't ordinarily be collaborating with um we learn and we grow as a community and as an organization and then the third um the third discussion point we really looked at that and we thought you know we have to do both we have to look at the progress that we're making because if you can't measure it you can't manage it we need to be able to also identify a plan to be forward thinking and be adaptable to changes as they take place because communities change in terms of their demographic organizations change in terms of their demographic and so we have to adapt to those changes embrace them and then just
059embrace the fact that we need to be lifelong learners and open to cultural diversity and get that message that we all are life long learners it's not just a group of people it's really all of us we should have that desire that thirst that we want to learn more and that's how you create that kind of tolerant cultural uh confident environment so great thank you very much um there are two sides about you know with these questions all of these questions i have there's there are different points of view and there's no right or wrong answer um so it's really about collaborating and talking it through and coming up with what you as a group yeah i can agree to that but understand that there's there's these are all meant to really open up a
060dialogue and i i liked the way that you said although we talked about more things or there's some other things we'll share later because it does get you to to think a few slides back i showed you a quote by a teacher and the question was the word whole holds our nation together what do you think was meant by that i need to go back to that systemic racism is this ever-present force kind of like gravity you can't see it but you can experience its effects and it holds the world together um yes yes very deep thank you did anyone else come up with that what was something different or something different you'd like to share thanks i think at certain degree there it it makes people want to feel like it's a good thing
061because it you want things to be held together you don't want things falling apart and so it almost implies that that's a good thing when in fact what it and so it dissuades people from wanting to talk about something or dismantle it because of the fear that would come from breaking it apart yes um so when you say it holds it normally you want to hold things together but this so this becomes kind of a but do we want to hold that right and so it does what we really don't want to do which it it makes us pull our own comments in and we don't want to get involved we don't want to say anything for fear of what someone might think about it or or what they may say about us and so
062it just kind of continues perfect awake any other thoughts about this [Laughter] you know that's the thing people feel like they've got a group that they can agree with then it holds that group together for such a commonality but in this context of systemic racism it's kind of sad be careful yes i i think it it it's interesting how how it's worded because the how you view that world the word hold really depends on how you view the world um is the world good and and the way you want it to be if it is then you want it held together um and that's a positive holding um uh and stability but if you want change in the world then that holding is a almost as if a repressive restraint um preserving status quo as
063a barrier to change in progress yes that's a barrier and again it comes from your perspective of what you've experienced and so if you've never experienced any problems then it's kind of like well no i think everything's fine i mean look at our environment look where we get to live and and look at all of the things that we have access to and i mean you know the world's great but if you've had experiences that have differed you're going to question this and so that's exactly thank you very much for doing that some very good comments that came out of that but it's again it's about opening the dialogue to talk and not feel that we've got to do anything now at this point if you need to stand up and stretch this is what
064i call a stretch break so if you need a stretch or just kind of move around do so if you need to actually take a break or something you can just come and go as you need to we'll just keep going but i do want to make sure i planted so at least you can kind of stand up and and and stretch wiggle a little what is your story and it could be well i've never been discriminated against and i don't have a story or it could be i witnessed discrimination in my lifetime maybe not at this district maybe a past you know organization um i'm not gonna answer it right now but just be thinking about it as we go through this next segment i want you to really especially if you think you
065haven't um kind of think through your family heritage um and just be prepared a little bit later so this is something that we'll come back to um in some cases people you know they have seen something that's happened um and i want you to kind of think about being prepared to be open and taught so one of the things that i can recall and you may not have noticed but i'm a little tall did anybody notice that or is it is it just me i'm a little tall right and and i don't necessarily wear flats all the time although i have low heels on today um even at with a low hill that's close to three inches so so just imagine if i'm speaking to you and i'm upset i'm angry and you're seated so
066you're looking up even higher because i'm tall but let's compound that with maybe some things that we think about black people especially angry especially women angry black women have you ever heard of anything any comments angry black sure you know like don't mess with me so if i'm upset in mine i'm speaking to you in that tone you may have that recollection oh my goodness there's this angry tall black woman yelling at me i'm fearful and forget to hear what the message now i shouldn't be yelling in the first place but now the person who i'm speaking to isn't even receiving what i'm saying because they're too busy being concerned with their own kind of misconceptions or preconceptions about who i am and what i'm doing and not even hearing what i'm saying i could
067be just saying turn up the radio or turn up the heat you know it's too cold in here but if it's my mannerism so knowing that about myself that my height sometimes can work against me i tend to then position myself so i'm not in that kind of position i'm not looking down on someone that either i'm the one seated and have them to come over or or that there's enough distance where i don't i'm not in their space where i don't feel to be projecting that height as much that in itself and the reason i'm sharing that with you is because i can remember a time when someone was engaged in a very heated conversation it was when during a time when i worked at the school district and i happened to be just
068because i i i like what color black because you know it makes you look skinnier and women especially when we're having our fat days you just wear black and throw a little pop of color on and nobody notices but i was dressed in black and we were having this heated conversation and she was much smaller than i was and she said i'm scared you're making me scared [Music] i that just caught me totally i mean i i'm not a militant i i wasn't that kind we were just engaged in a discussion but she didn't like my viewpoint and so she pulled out and said i'm scared and ran out the office that was her way of shutting me down and it was a form of discrimination that resulted the actions that resulted after that so
069again we all have a story and something to tell and our stories are is what shapes us into what we become so think about what your story might be as we go on now we're going to get into some other forms of discrimination and when i'm saying gender i'm not just speaking male female i understand that now i'm it's covering um gender neutrals covering everything and if we were to spend that you could spend a whole hour on talking about all of the various genders there are now but it's being sensitive to not only race and color but also gender because we can't assume and we shouldn't assume we should ask and so when you think about this statement when a person is denied equal employment opportunities because of that person's gender it could be
070whatever that person identifies with but also because of their race or has personal characteristics associated with the race now my nephew one of the things that he had shared with me was that when he lives in another state he lives in north carolina in north carolina part of the job interview is to bring your family in which can be a plus or minus depending on what your family looks like that's where that characteristics in california that wouldn't fly but in north carolina it's okay and you may or may not get the position even though things went seemingly well up until the point where you bring your family in if your family doesn't fit a certain stereotype that they're expecting also because of that person's skin color or complexion has anyone heard of that being an
071issue the color of your skin and what i'm speaking of here is a little bit deeper than just the color the color within my race so within each culture there are different skin tones and it's not common just with with african americans it's in a lot of different with hispanics with asians if your skin color is of a lighter shade you have more favoritism you have more privilege which sort of rhymes with what we saw earlier about white privilege so it's supposed to be better the lighter you are the better it is and if you have darker skin tones within those cultures uh you may have some challenges you may have things that people think about you and it could block you and so i always throw this in because it's something for us just
072to kind of keep in mind that just because we're saying well no we we have other people we have other cultures or other ethnicities of that person we're not discriminating think about your own perception and then think about well gee now that i think about it all likes him we could very well be doing some discrimination just based on color alone and colorism was actually something that came out of the 1970s and it's it was an author in fact she's the one that's behind the color purple and she coined that term and she was actually speaking of within the african-american population that there's so many different shades of brown from very very light to what they call white passing or passing to very very very chocolate brown and within that race there is also racism
073amongst people that share the same and that's also true with asian cultures and hispanic cultures that depending on your your color of your skin will determine kind of what types of advantages you may or may not have and that i said 1970s 1982 so um that leads us to then talking about what you see the chart that you see in front of you right now um it's my idea of trying to cover everybody so we've got our you know what appears to be a male figure a female figure and then that last figure is just to cover anybody and everyone who does not identify with either being male or female and um and now we're talking about harassment so would you consider harassment as a form of discrimination what can be absolutely if you're harassing
074someone because of these reasons and because of your own perception or bias and listed on the slide for you so you can see um when you're talking about workplace harassment these are all the categories so if you're going to be harassing someone this is this is the list you really want to know because this is the list that gets so many organizations whether it's a public school or it's a a big fortune 500 this is what gets folks in trouble they don't realize it and it could be something very simple so it could be something as simple as sending an email where you're referencing uh something about baby boomers and you're targeting that one particular person that's in the office who happens to be the only baby boomer in the office and so you're making
075almost like a joke it's kind of a joke but it's not funny to that person it may be funny to you if you're 20 something but it's not funny to the person who is the over 40. and so so oftentimes you take that and then you can compound it because not only may they be over 40 they may have some kind of different gender identity or their religious beliefs may be different and now it starts snowballing on all the reasons that they feel you're targeting them and that you're harassing so kind of again as you're thinking about discrimination your story thinking about in the past maybe someplace else that you work where you've either witnessed or maybe you've unknowingly participated and i'm not going to ask you to speak up on that but just it's
076a time just reflect back on your own experiences tolerance is really about that respect and equity and we we as we talked earlier it's something that we do need to have more of and i loved when we were in the group says and you were talking about how you go about creating that [Music] the civility part is really about caring for someone else caring about their identity caring and feeling that they matter and making sure that they feel that um and so often times that's what we're not seeing i've heard in this group when you were talking about the school it sounds like you're trying to really work towards that making students feel because you have a diverse group to make them feel as though they really are cared for and that you um aren't
077degrading what whatever their belief is or what they may be did i pick up on that right and so that's what we want to see more of even in this group you mentioned something about that as you were working towards and what you were doing with that one group and the activities that you've had there's so many ways to find commonalities and if we can find more ways to that we have things in common we could probably tolerate a little bit more because the closer we get then we can actually talk about some of those more difficult topics and we can find out hey you know you know aside from the fact that i know we like the same kind of ethnic food you know i want to learn more about you and then when
078we stumble on something where there's a different belief again it's hey it's cool that you have a different belief but i help me to understand your belief and so those are the kind of that's how we get that discussion going that leads us to tolerance it's the level of ability that someone has to recognize and respect another person's values and their differences because if we're going to be tolerant we have to recognize that they are different and it's okay to be different think back and i'm gonna i'm gonna pick on you right now because you have ink on your arms right so think about and i don't know how long you've had it but was there ever a time when someone may have made a perception about you because of that happens all the time
079happens it's still in today still today now see that would be surprising to me today still happens every day so when we talk about discrimination when we we see someone who looks like they probably don't experience it but yet we're hearing that no it happens even to him and it could be anyone it could be parents it could be someone in the community it could even be a neighbor they could be going into a store where all of a sudden he looks a little scary because he's got you know he's got this on his arms and you know i need to stand back or getting into an elevator so again you know him he's not that scary person but you already you understand him and you've had dialogue to talk it'd be interesting for you
080if you care to share later at some point about what that might have felt like for you would love to hear it's not that's something that individually you may want to say hey i didn't realize that tell me more because that's how we're going to overcome all of this we have to take ownership of our own selves and our feelings when something happens that's where we want to understand intervention and i come from as dr delatoria mentioned in the introduction i come from a risk management background um which this simply means that it's always looking at the worst case scenario trying to figure out okay what's the worst thing that can happen and how can i plan around it now worst case doesn't mean that somebody's going to swept over fall the worst case could
081be what i would be thinking right now particularly as a school district worst case scenario is we have another shutdown so what does educating children look like in 2022 if something were to happen that creates that or because so many have learned from last year and what education looks like walls without schools or schools without walls who's to say that the future of education isn't going to change and maybe a child could go because they figured out the technology piece there's a lot of technological advancements particularly in this last year if you're watching what's happening with meta you've got to be thinking that's going to be shaping our world and so suppose then there could be schools without walls all over the united states and so now you're sharing your ada with students who may
082be going to schools and new york or new jersey and they figured out this whole they're not zoom classes they're figured out another way to experience and to have that immersion that educational immersion so it's so my mindset thinks about worst case or worst case okay got to think about so what can we do how can we prepare for that how can we be nimble and have a couple of different options in mind so for you i said well for this you know i'm thinking let's have a risk intelligent mindset because that's really what risk management is it's thinking intelligently about the risk at hand and so if we're going to be thinking about de-escalating something maybe there's been a discussion over cultural race or diversity i don't like it i think this is a
083bunch of hogwash and someone else is saying well that's the very problem and you need to step in and intervene it really starts with defining your reality the reality is wow this is real i have an opinion but i need to keep myself in check i need to make sure that i'm not putting my opinion on other people because it's really easy to do when we have an opinion we're right and and i've got to make sure you know that i'm right so i'm going to have to jump in and all i'm going to do is is create more of a problem focus on appeal of feelings apologize if you're sincere if you're not sincere leave that one alone because people can see right through it but sometimes if we're trying to maybe we're the
084ones in the conversation and we realized oops i think i went too far i didn't mean it that way just apologize and be sincere about it and and let people know setting perimeter setting limits meaning that you um are going to ask the questions you're going to say listen i really want to get to this and i want to set aside some time for us to to speak to this and see if we can kind of find that common ground but you set your limits you also want to listen and acknowledge so when you're listening to someone listening is not having your phone out because we all know that's not listening that's not active listening but listening with your eyes and let's say that nowadays with mask on you really need to let your eyes
085talk for you because you can't see the expression on your face so when you were talking and some of the things you were saying i was so excited about you can't see that so i'm trying to show it to my eyes so again you're gonna you're gonna listen and acknowledge and practice empathy we could all use a little bit more empathy we're gonna monitor disruptors and that's really a risk intelligent mindset because we're constantly looking at what else can go wrong in the situation someone else can come in and join they could become more heightened and and you want to rush out we want to get this really solved so again you're kind of you want to respect personal space never get up right on someone keep those two to three feet of distance in
086today's environment maybe six feet is more appropriate and be non-judgmental because this isn't about again um we all have our own opinions if we're trying to resolve and find that common ground it's not my time to try to reinforce my opinions even though i may have some balance or exposures really is another risk intelligent mindset thing it's coming out okay i've already defined my reality now i've got to recognize that i don't need to put myself in a situation where there could be harm or danger to anyone else so that means if we need to stop it we need to know how to stop when to stop if it's not going in the right direction it's time you know i think we need to take a break from this but i want to continue because
087if you just say i think we need to take a break and you walk away all you've done is make that person feel unheard so you really want to say i want a reflectance of the things that you said and and we need to continue this dialogue but right now i think we need to take a break and just kind of think about what each person said that's really what refraining and intervention is all about another table discussion and we'll just the size of the room and the sake will just kind of stay in our same groups but i want you to share your thoughts on whether diversity and discrimination exist in your organization and explain why or why not why not and i want everyone to take that question and then on the this
088side of the group my left i want you to also kind of talk about ways you might encourage and promote tolerance and to my right i'd like you to look at any intervention strategies that were not discussed okay let's start right now are equally valid [Music] all right who's going to report out this time right you've already picked a person no no no no no no no no no do not [Laughter] no expense no i'd be all right let's hear from the first group who wants to uh share first all right yeah challenge absolutely yeah who wants to share first this is great dialogue i hate to break it up joseph you get to repeat you'll share okay get it over um discrimination and and these are the areas um there's a class social class
089differentiation yeah some of the examples that we're getting where children talk about cars and people of adults doing a one-on-one shift on on material things i guess more or less um there potentially is a discrimination for the mainland chinese versus u.s born out of district permit kids um there might be something there okay great thank you any comments questions which group wants to go okay uh so for our group um well i i i've been 20 years but the last five year i don't see uh any big issue on the discrimination uh except like you you mentioned that the that that too maybe the mainland china [Music] the the the family and also the intern district transfer yeah because each time in the election so city election or the school election uh some the the
090uh octave is always nice to mention so they are not really concerned about the school district finance uh uh situation uh besides that i think the last 20 years one time there's a discussion and even brought up to the submarine high school auditorium then we the time we have a very serious discussion i think do you remember that one of uh pasadena star news reporter write article about the asian parent yeah the side so finally brother reporter also chinese and finally i think she resigned from the pasadena star news and besides that uh there is an issue during my third turn so a group of generous donors they want to give the high school money to build up the artificial fear for football so some of the chinese parents they are not happy i think
091they probably more focus on the academic but but in in this community you know i i think the lifestyle is different yeah right the i i know the sun transparently they put the saturday they put the kid in a chinese school but the sun they put in in the uh uh summoning a detoxic yeah so the tourist sports but but that time was the opportunity you know they get about 700 thousand to build up the artificial fear so a group of transparent not happy they keep coming to the school meeting to challenge us so the the time they even they they choose a one they define one candidate is they won't blow me out because i also call the artificial fear so that that time i have some attention yes yeah but but after we
092complete the uh artificial uh fear i think all all the people against they still show up in friday [Laughter] their kid also only in the football field home great thank you sometimes it goes back to it is that fear that drives us to make decisions and that's why it's so important to look at things from all lenses and all perspectives before you roll out so you can make sure that you're addressing the needs of every group and you're speaking to groups individually so they understand what's in it for them or or have an opportunity to ask those questions but oftentimes fear causes us to react certain ways when it really wasn't that bad and maybe we really wanted it we just didn't understand it or were fearful of what it may result in maybe it
093would be less focused on academics and as a parent i want my child to really focus on academics and you're talking about something else not realizing that you can actually have both and it's that balance that students need thank you uh we'll go to this group who's your spokesperson mary [Laughter] so we talked about um we kind of defined what what does diversity mean for us um what is that talk about our staff and our students and how inclusive that that is and whether should it match you know should our staff match or mirror what our students population is and then we started talking about uh discrimination and tolerance and we talked about different ways in school in which we can create basically you know our staff they look and they are a certain way
094but we just you know want to promote supportive and intolerant same things from someone else's perspective okay great thank you okay so we took the third discussion point and we talked about uh intervention strategies that were not previously discussed um we have a virtual training platform target solutions so we do have mandatory and optional training um uh opportunities for staff throughout the year we talked about conflict resolution and mediation as being an intervention strategy um cultural sensitivity training um implicit bias training which we provided to all employees district-wide the board of education passing resolutions um wherein they are taking a stand on um zero tolerance for discrimination and anti-hate measures that could be an intervention with respect to students we are working on pbis which is a great strategy and then we have udl training
095for all of our teachers and we hope to bring restorative practices to the school district in the near future which will be an intervention strategy as well yes that sounds great and again in light of yesterday's news uh another school shooting mental health is so so very important not just for our students but for staff and making sure that we we are checking on people and giving them other ways to other outlets if you will um because clearly that's continuing to be a big issue and a lot of mental health we've seen more mental health issues arise as a result of being kind of shut down and shut in for so long and so many people didn't know how to direct those energies and now we're seeing it come out it's manifesting so you know
096that and i was remiss in saying that the high school has worked really hard on um providing mental health services to their students we have a wellness center at san marino high school we also have a wellness center at huntington middle school that has been a big focus of the board of education and our school site administration and we we have had um threat assessment training um with dr belisse and so we are really focusing on those efforts as well that's excellent and and again you continue to do it doing it one time isn't enough you did the implicit bias training that's great you're doing this you did something in the past and again you're continuing to add to your to your toolkit by having different trainings and sessions and work groups and having these
097progressive opportunities so that's great any comments or questions before we go on so if you need to stretch we're not taking a formal break but if you need a stretch then you know it's a good time to stand up and stretch otherwise we're going to go right into talking about inclusion an organization can't be diverse just for the sake of it and say well look who we have here we're a diverse group of people we've got you know we've got all genders covered we've got different cultures at this ethnic groups so we're good it's also recognizing as positions unfold sometimes higher for diversity when i say higher for diversity oftentimes people misinterpret that to say well like for example this group was saying do we need to have a different staff that is more representative
098of the community so it doesn't mean that whoever applies that's of that culture that's you hire them just because no you you go out and you look for someone in those communities but you're always going to hire whoever's the best for the job whoever they may be and whatever they may look like but you may put more effort in the recruitment process of finding people to fill and to meet your diversity goals when it comes to staffing when we fail to do that though we can have problems and if we um are just talking and then no one's seeing any action behind it that's where things sort of fall apart because people understand you're talking it but you're not doing anything it's nice to hear that you're able to demonstrate that you were all are
099actually doing something the board is taking action you're doing things for the schools you're listening to your community and you're recognizing that this is a topic that as awkward as it may be and whoever thought we'd be talking about this in a school district right i mean you have other things to be doing educating students but it it does belong here because you've got people and it's the people that have their own beliefs that bring that to school and so it's it's making sure that everyone understands what their role is and their opinions because they can still have different opinions but work together but it's not appropriate to force your opinion or pull your opinion out on someone else so that is going to now lead us into our next topic which is about biases
100so in this particular one and you'll see these extra question marks because of the when you change computers the format sometimes throws it off so don't mind the the extra question marks we're all biased right in many different ways politically religiously ideology the way our family raised us and that's fine nobody wants to live in a world where everybody thinks exactly the same the key though is to try to figure out where your biases are holding you back from solving problems this is an author and journalist who uh coined that quote um i like it because so oftentimes we think i'm an opinion but i'm not really biased and the reality is we all have biases in here and it's because of our upbringing it's because of what we've experienced what we've been exposed to
101you know there are some people who if you are asian and you go somewhere they've never seen an asian person there's people who still um i remember being in scotland and and um a little boy was staring at me because he had never seen a black person live he's once seen him on tv and that was kind of funny um but people have their own um and so up until then maybe he had an opinion that maybe he may have had fear and so again it gave me an opportunity to smile and say hello to them and let them know that you know we're normal it's okay it gives everyone an opportunity to do that so again it's thinking from a different lens and a different perspective and not just thinking that your way is
102the only way understanding that we will be different and we think different and um and from that good things can happen so today is what i'm hoping uh kind of again building on what you've already done that it continues to take you down that path we've had the implicit bias training we're not going to spend a lot of time but the reality is biases are a big part of our issues today in society we have our own idea of what someone is or what they look like we again our news media is full of things um just was it last night or today we had someone who's making accusations about one of their fellow um i think was that congresswoman perception because of the way someone looks or a culture their heritage or their cultural
103attire that it must mean something they must be a terrorist because of the way they dress or um they're not very smart because of the way they speak we come up with these biases that we form based on where we've been to what we've been exposed to people aren't aware of their biases because it just happens and it happens very naturally and the key for us is to actually now work towards recognizing when the biases happen so unconscious bias is that bias that we're unaware but it's very there it's it's and it comes out if we know what our own biases are we can then work towards managing them and there's so many different types you probably when you took your training covered all the various types of biases there's well over 15. the one
104that typically come kind of raises its ugly head is a cognitive bias when we really are confirmation bias where we really believe what we know is the truth and it could be based on what i read well if i only read a certain type of periodicals if i'm only watching a certain type of television news or a certain type of programming it's going to further cement what they're saying and what i believe to be true so when someone says something different they're wrong you're absolutely wrong and what we have to recognize is there's all these different opinions and there's different resources the best way to get news is to check a variety of sources yourself look at both sides make your own opinions ask questions dig deeper don't take what you see for face value
105and that would help us um opportunities to have discussions especially with those who look different than us or who come from different backgrounds it's a great way to to help unleash those biases if you wanted to know something about people um oftentimes there's a bias towards hair or lack of but typically it's hair where people want to touch someone's hair and the only thing i say to that is we touch our pets [Laughter] that's cool but don't go around touching people's hair right now ask if you're if you're curious like i love those waves can i touch your hair and see what it feels like that's just kind of pretty hair um but for some ethnic groups they get that a lot people want to touch their hair or maybe it's a certain hairstyle and
106so again it's kind of like stepping back and recognizing it is this going to be strange if someone were to do it with me the reason we have these biases is because it's just the way our brain functions but it doesn't mean that you can't you can't stop them but you can manage them and the way to manage them is to recognize what your own are not going to have you to do that in a group or anything but that's something that i would challenge you to really dig down or even you know in your families to kind of talk about what are we biased over you know or listen when you hear a family member or someone say something that you kind of think okay that sort of isn't true like why would you
107say that um there's biases and misconceptions about the way people draw it sometimes you'll hear asians drive a certain they drive their bad driver that's not true that's a perception someone had and maybe it's because they were in an accident with someone and that was the reason they coined for the reality in today's environment most accidents are currently because we're distracted drivers we're doing things that we shouldn't be doing aside from having our eyes on oil so know what your bias is know what your trigger point is and that's how you're going to manage it so that it doesn't become problematic if we don't manage our biases they lead us to attitudes stereotypes and perceptions and these attitudes stereotypes and perceptions can be very damaging with over 15 different biases um it often affects the
108discussions that we have and again i mentioned confirmation bias is probably the big one which we just take what we know to be true as true so if anyone challenges us we stand around on this is the truth i'm telling the truth and when you look at where our society is we're pretty much a divided country we have people who believe this is the way it is and they're wrong and then we have people over here saying no this is the way it is those folks show up we've got to find that way again going back to finding those commonalities finding the shared values because the reality is they're shared values on both sides we have a lot more in common than we have against each other and it's figuring out how we can open
109up the dialogue to build upon what's in common and work on those things that we have our differences on that's going to help us get through this when you um and again this could be something that an experience or something you've you've seen and it could be something from uh the news or social media um can you think uh can you give an example of an attitude stereotype or perception that maybe has resonated with here so you say it doesn't have anything to the district but just something that you're saying that wow this is kind of odd you repeat the question again exactly if you can think of something as an attitude a stereotype or perception that you may be aware of that struck you it could be something that's happened in your community it
110could be something you've seen on the news or on social media but something that you just thought wow that's that's a stereotype or that's not right so i would have to say uh i guess being an asian right one of the things that you always see on tv or the movies is not just the bad driving thing uh but um has to do with the fact that oh my gosh we're all good in math and i remember in college you know being no no i'm not good in math you know i'm like everybody else right there are some people that are good at math there's some not just because i'm asian doesn't mean that i'm good at math because i'm not but um so anyway for me that would be the thing that resonated with
111me when i was growing up so just imagine now you're a student and i'm your teacher and i have that perception about asians and so i'm gonna really have you to be the person that's gonna lead us through this equation because all asians are good than that and you're trying to no that's not true i don't know this no no no you're just shy go ahead and do it anyway so now i'm forcing you i'm embarrassing you you're going to feel that humiliation as you're standing there knowing good and well that you really can't do this equation and everyone's watching you and how is that making you feel and how insensitive am i and what does that conversation look like when you get home to talk to your parents about what teacher did to you
112today that's how quickly we can we can get out of control it's because of our own stereotypes about people the same as the example i gave when my brother and i my adopted brother and i were walking home and for him to say that our moms worked in the area the stereotype is if you're black or brown the only reason you'd be in that neighborhood is because you must be a maid so you know and if he had said you know her mom and my dad work in the area then they're going to assume my mom's the maid and his dad must be what the gardener the gardener it's just an assumption that we would make so we have to be really cognizant of the fact that in our mind and things that we've seen
113and especially on television television has done a great job in really reinforcing stereotypes and perceptions of other people that aren't always correct does anybody remember the the tv show or the sitcom called sanford and sons well imagine then having a young white child come to your house and then saying out loud because children are very honest mommy their house doesn't look like sand fruit and sun at all it's the perceptions the things that we talk about in our families and we all do it we all we and so we're all guilty but what the challenge is is to stop yourself when you're when you're about to say something and say you know what let me let me go i'm back it's not always true and we have to break these stereotypes we have to break
114these perceptions and certainly television is an entertainment tool and we need to understand it's simply entertainment and it's not necessarily the truth now many shows are beginning to try to portray that real the the real authentic what's happening in their beginning i'm seeing more and more of the sitcoms beginning to do real life scenarios where they're trying to do some education at the same time so they may do it and then they're also correcting themselves in it you know there might be a parent that's trying to now teach their child so we'll see more and more of that and i bet that will continue um will continue to happen but we all have that same responsibility stop yourself from thinking something just because of the way someone looks or the way they they you know
115they appear to act or speak or how they're dressed doesn't really mean anything and if there's someone that you're concerned over then you're still going to have that concern but you don't need to demonstrate and if you're that concerned then maybe you don't you don't go in there you wait until that person leaves but to to use that as the reason and then you're explaining and so easily that happens is false and not this district per se but in schools in general i represented a lot of public schools statewide and i see the the problems that come in and so it's some individual person to be someone that's uh that's at the school staff level um where again their bias comes out and they make some an appropriate comment and so that's where that sensitivity
116is definitely needed and this message is definitely needed to go back to all employees and that's what organizations that are on the front are doing like yours you're talking about it you're getting people other than yourselves to understand this is a problem but we're going to tackle it we're going to work through it and and that's the the shining light behind everything so stereotypes shake our perceptions and they do our perception on what someone looks like or what they the food they eat and that's what was kind of fun to start off with talking about food because when you were talking about food you had a lot of things in common and you learn new things about someone that maybe you didn't know so i think food is always a very a good common denominator
117to get people talking and get them excited regardless of your interactions within your neighborhood schools um it's approaching diversity with a new lens um you want to make sure that you're looking at things and you're not so quick to blurt out what you think that the response is there's some researchers on mclaughlin and killing back in 2006. they had these two drawings the drawings are pretty much identical it depicted a child on a swing set but she had fallen off so you could see that the swing was empty and she's on the ground and one legs up and she kind of has you know almost a frown on her face clearly she'd fallen off then there's another child in the same drawing who's standing behind kind of with a smirk on their face not a
118happy smart just kind of like you know just kind of standing there and asked a group of people what happened in this scenario now there were two pictures the pictures were identical the only thing that changed in each of the two pictures is the color of the girls their skin colors were different so in one drawing one had very the light skin one had fallen and one had a very dark skin the one standing behind and the other one slipped the one on the ground had dark skin and the one standing behind had light skin and they asked them tell us what happened in each of these scenarios based on perceptions of people how do you think they responded what might have happened one girl fell the other one got pushed blushing one fell and
119made her got pushed exactly and that is something that we see happening because of perception so if just imagine if that is the school rounds and there wasn't an adult who's actually standing there to see it an adult comes out and you see one child on the ground and one child staying behind we don't want our bias to perceive what we think happened when that may not have happened didn't matter which child which color they were maybe they both fell it could have been she was pushing but not pushed and she just slid out i think some of us can recount those days where we might have slid out of a sling of a swing or two but we want to make sure that we're not so quick to bring our own biases into the
120picture as adults we're constantly using this perception it's fast paced it's happening quicker and quicker each time and so we really want to again it's stopping ask the questions be cognizant of what it is that we're doing while we know that stereotypes shape our perceptions our perceptions then affect our attitudes and that's why we have the attitudes that we have so it's based on what we've already experienced preconceived views about others enable us to make quicker decisions in our app in actions they can also end up to judgment and judgment isn't good when it's when we're judging people one of the things that we want to work towards is to make sure that we're being non-judgmental when we're making decisions that we're not basing it on any past biases but it goes back to if
121you don't have a diverse group of people and you're all thinking alike then when one's person says something that everyone's going to just kind of agree yeah yeah it must be the way it is so again going back to why you want a diverse group you want people with different perspectives different viewpoints so that this doesn't happen um do quicker decision making so when you're quick does that lead to better outcomes or better decisions so just quick thinkers lead to better outcomes haste makes waste okay face makes ways yep our brain actually has two sides we have a left side and right side and sometimes one side is the one that's responsible for all those quick decisions because we think that if we respond to something quickly and this is something we learn in school
122you're the first one to raise your hand so back quick if you're on a gang show at quick you watch jeopardy right you gotta get that buzzer fast you gotta think quick so we think thinking quick is really the way to go when the reality when it comes to decision making we really want to stop ourselves reflect back think about what it is that we're doing we're not on a game show so we're not gonna win that you know ten thousand dollar prize or a hundred thousand dollar prize but think through our actions or inactions and come up with a better outcome by discussing it with other folks there's a little activity that i'll have you to do now as we talk about perceptions and about our multicultural self because as we learn from the
123food we all come from different places and have had different experiences so i'm going to pass this out and just split it in half half through this and you're not and what i'd like for you to do with this is to kind of no one's gonna see this this is just you i might ask you to share out [Music] so what it likes me to do is to kind of put yourself in the middle draw your face you can just write your name and then in each one of those blocks and there's some instructions there for you but i wanted to share with you um i want you to think about a time when you were really about yourself um with the descriptions that you use you're only putting descriptors about you and then um
124in each one of these and it could be something um that you enjoyed recently or some place that you spent but but think about a story you're not going to share it but think about a story by the time when you're especially proud to identify yourself with one of the scriptures that you use so in each of these boxes i'm gonna put a descriptor but you're in the middle and then we'll talk about that and the sharing part will be if you're feeling open to talk about your experience then we'll have you to do that at this at that time and then there's a blank below that and i want you to again looking at what you filled out describe yourself and then the first part is i am a whatever you are whatever you
125want to say about yourself i'm a teacher i'm you know i'm a long life learner but then what is a stereotype that often is associated so what are you not you know i can think of a couple things that they may say you know like the lady that's holding the sign muslim you know but i'm not a terrorist so that's what you've joined the black phone [Music] and i'm not going to ask you to talk about the group you identify other than just going through the exercise in your head this time gives you a chance to reflect on yourself and the reason i share my stories is because so often times people perceive that i've never gone through anything and it's important to know that's part of my identity and that's the only reason i
126am who i am because i have gone through so many things being female is a big part of it but also because of the color of my skin everybody's pretty much side room pens are almost done okay all right does anyone want to kind of share what they came up with again we're not working in groups but just if you feel like you want to share what you might have identified yourself with [Music] that vulnerable part and or your statement that you wrote what you are and what you are not so i guess i'll share um i um have been especially proud to be identified as a grandmother which was surprising to me um very surprising to me because i always thought oh gosh there's some kind of association with you know being old uh
127or older if you're a grandmother right and so um you know when we're young we want to be older but we reach a certain age and then that's where it stops right you don't want to get any older than that um but i absolutely have loved every second of being a grandmother um to my grandson and you know i'm very proud to say that i'm a grandma and so i found that to be surprising and that's that's my personal descriptor i have a professional and then a personal but that's not personal which i found very enlightening yes that is and i bet for some people who may not know the personal side of dr dillatore you might look and come up with well the last thing i can see her with you know some little
128kid and grandkid charlie behind with little sticky fingers pulling on her jacket or climbing in her lap and messing up her hair yeah but but see that's just show we have different sides and so that's thank you for sharing that it's wonderful to hear anyone else want to share their descriptors and or their statement i'll share one um i i found myself being proud to be a gen xer um because you know there's a joke when i'm with my i have four children and two of whom are 19 one who is seven and the last of seven okay and i find that when i'm with parents of my different cohort groups when i'm with my 19 year old twin parents group i'm like the young one and they tease me and they call me a
129millennial you're like oh you're sitting i'm like just because i know how to use twitter among my older parent friends and then when i'm with my youngest child um i'm kind of old-fashioned and i'm like well but i remember a time in carver and it becomes kind of this joke where i've been around a long time and um but i find that i like to be firmly planted with my middle cohort group because i do i like to float between the different perspectives across the generations and i feel that gen x is kind of our force to pre-consider our parents all the time right we're sandwiched between our parents and our children so we're constantly having to think like during covid how is this going to affect my parents health because i have to worry
130about them and then we're thinking about our children and how do we have to think about our children's health and i think as a gen x or just time wise that's kind of where we find ourselves landing and but i like i like being able to think with those multiple perspectives that i have a different perspective being a gen x or allows me to have yeah and you're right there are lots of uh workplace jokes about gen x-rays especially not as much now but once upon a time when the baby boomers were the majority in the workforce um you kind of made jokes about you know the the groups that came behind and then of course the last group said how the jokes were the millennials and and while it may have sounded funny fast
131forward you don't know how it affects someone or how many times they've heard that joke where your joke now is the last time they're gonna take it and then something snaps and so it's even something as simple as those little jokes they're only funny to the person who's saying it and even though everyone else may go ha ha ha and laugh there could be someone hurting inside so it goes back to our tolerance and sensitivity and kind of looking from a different lens and we've heard two great examples of people that we know but may not know that other side to them that there's a whole different side and how they relate and how they handle things thank you have time for one more so anyone else wants to do it okay so um i'm
132retired at the beginning of my career my first position as um assistant superintendent of business uh i was the first asian in southern california to be in that role it's not quite different because that was many moons ago but um so i was very proud of that um i represented a large group of people obviously of all in southern california with not only females but asian right for the entire wow that's pretty amazing and i think what even makes you know when i hear things like that and you hear that someone's the first female or the first of their ethnicity um or or gender that we have to say they're the first and this is 2021 but they're the first so i know this was a while back but but still you think about you
133know it wasn't it goes back to that timeline i think i had a little thing on there where it was like the the 80s when there was like a great movement for women in the workforce but prior to that it's kind of like that wasn't the norm and you didn't walk into a room and see as many women as you see now and there's still that struggle with again in those key leadership roles or or the the pay skills and that's why they have to keep enacting new laws to try to help balance that out but thank you for sharing that and again it's another way of looking at we have to kind of see through a person and not label them because you said you know you started off saying well i'm retired so
134we could just stop there and have a big slap a big retired label you have no more value you're retired you're done but the reality is well look what you pay for all the other people not only females but other asian females that come behind you i mean you you were that trailblazer so thank you for sharing that all right so that's just a great way kind of again it's it helps us to reconnect with ourselves but also you're saying people that you've been in contact with whether it be parents people in the community or students that we do have different sites and part of our role in being tolerant is to try to seek out some of those questions and find out where we can we have that common ground that we share that
135common ground that leads us into and actually course is a great one to end on because it leads us to fostering gender inclusion and so whenever we think about gender inclusion and again i'm speaking of not just those that identify with male female but those that are gender neutral or have other identities that they identify with against that tolerance and sensitivity and understanding that our workforce is changing you may have more people who are not identifying as male or female but may not feel comfortable to share that now think about that if they're not comfortable in sharing that there's a reason they don't feel included they feel that you there may be some repercussions if they were to share what their true identity is or what they identify as but it's also part of saying
136if we're going to be an exclusive environment we have to be sensitive to that how can we make someone who doesn't identify feel more comfortable about who they are and so you see a lot of pronouns now being used on email blocks or business cards or just in name tags in general and that's just a safe way of letting someone know some people are very offended by it i have to be honest i've heard people get very angry why do you have to put that i know you're ashamed what are you what that's so stupid why do i have to do that it's not really meant for you it's meant for someone who may not be comfortable in sharing the identity know that you're someone that i can if i had a problem i know
137i can come to you i know you would understand me it's just a very simple just a little kind of nonverbal to let someone know that you're safe you're not going to make fun of me if i have a problem i need to come to you so it's one of those things that while i would never tell a whole organization this is what you need to all do because if it's not authentic and if you don't believe in it then you're really setting up for someone to go to someone who isn't going to be tolerant at all and i'll backlash but for people who are comfortable it's a great way of saying hey i see you i understand i'm here if you ever want to talk that's one way we can foster gender inclusion of
138all genders um become aware of gendered language and practices create a culture of fairness so again a culture of fairness making sure that we're balancing the playing field and that we make it a commitment we know what our what our biases are so if we have those unconscious biases that center around whether it's in around women women of color or people who don't identify their gender as male or female we need to kind of put those in check again going back to refining your reality and understand if that's your bias and that's something that you need to work on especially if you're in a role that's representing an organization or school district like this you want to make sure that you keep your personal beliefs uh separate i also say you challenge your beliefs there's
139a reason that you have some concerns so that's where you need to kind of dig in deeper to yourself and say why do i feel this fight what is it about this person that why do i have this belief about this group of people or this culture or this this ethnic group for these types of students these students are so loud or are these students they're you know they're just so unruly maybe get to know a little bit more about them and you may find where that comes from now this i mentioned earlier that the term microaggression was uh coined back um and and i believe this was in the 80s and um it was dr chester pierce and dr chester pierce is a psychologist um actually was the 70s from harvard and he was
140seeing these comments being made to people of color to african americans and just started studying how often they they came and just the fact of how subtle they were now in today's environment we use microaggressions toward other races or anyone that we feel uncomfortable with um and so we talked about one uh example where we're talking about the the math being you know it's just a an assumption but it with be russian microaggression would be if i were working with you and um we have a spreadsheet or financial and gosh it needs somebody to finish it out i'm going to say in front of everyone well i know well if nobody else can do it we know who to give it to and then i look over your way so what am i implying nobody
141else um and so microaggressive terms are used widespread and i told you i would share one that was used against uh use with me so imagine a board meeting i saw it very similar to this and imagine i'm standing here presenting as i am to you right now and we're talking about whatever the topic was at the time and i'm getting odds we're tracking with me making eye contact and at the end the board president simply says thank you very much dr ray are there any questions or what what do you think somebody might say coming from the board i had someone from the board to actually pick up their pen and kind of toggle it back and forth look me up and down and then ask openly how did you get to be so
142smart wow and through the pen down now i could have handled it a variety of ways but you handle it because it's really about your professionalism and i said thank you very much i will take that as a compliment are there any other questions of course none because who could come up with a question after that so i was able to finish my presentation and talk about things and leave but that's an example of microaggressive behavior and i was talking about something that i knew was informing the board of some things that an employee benefits group was doing and kind of what was happening and what the plan was um forward-looking discussion but that's how simple it can happen and it happens right under people's noses and no one really picked up on it because
143had someone picked up on it and something should have been said but it wasn't my place to say it because the person who it's aimed at doesn't have the credibility at that point it's the person who isn't that someone should that person or president for example or someone else should have said something and then there should have been some kind of follow-up so microaggressions happen can anyone give me an example of a microaggression that you've seen or witnessed or heard and maybe it's something to saw on television again the definition it's against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic group so ethnic minority and i indicated today it's happening to pretty much every ethnic group can say that they've experienced a microaggression how about getting ready for uh office potluck and
144how many people in here when we were talking about food said that they liked mexican food yeah there's a lot of people like mexican food so a microaggression might be you look in the room for the person who looks the most like they're the only ones that can make salsa so you find that latina latino and you say you know what you make the salsa because i know you know how to make it good and then you go on about your business this is just they don't even cook they don't own one of those little chopper things i mean we're making assumptions that based on because of their heritage that they must know about salsa maybe the only kind of salsa they know is dancing they don't know how to make salsa but we make
145these little comments and they're very subtle so it doesn't even sound like it was offensive everybody just sort of laughs but that is another form of microaggression so think i think if you dig deep you could probably think of some that again i'm hoping that you're reflecting because if there's something that you may have said that this is a chance for you to go oh you know what i guess that wasn't so funny or it didn't sound so good you know one time i was on a tour it was an out of country tour and as i was getting off the bus someone came up to me and said you know you speak really good english [Music] and and so i said well that's good because it's the only language i speak it was all
146based on the way i look it is we make these assumptions that somebody has to fit a certain role and that the part of it being it comes out but we don't mean anything by it you know or uh they were complimentary they're complimenting yeah or you know using the word articulate wow you're you're very articulate or i graduated from college from college um i went through all you know my high school grades and you know middle finish the sentence but they never will it's just you're very articulate but they wouldn't necessarily say that to someone a white male or you know what you know so it's those marginalized groups so catch yourself and if you hear this being aimed at someone this is a chance to either take that person who heard the comment
147that was aimed for them the pull on the side is hey i'm really sorry that you just experienced that and they'll probably check it off and say enough no worries but the fact that you acknowledged makes them feel included and that's all it takes so again kind of think about some of those uh micro aggressive uh comments that um are made or that again putting this top of mind as you go on beyond this you may start to recognize that you're hearing things that okay so the only reason they're saying that is because the person's ethnic group or color they're part of that marginalized group that list we looked at so really it's not cool it's it's it's not funny or telling someone that um um in fact i think on the next drawing on
148the next slide you're the whitest black person i know so does that mean that white and that's where that white supremacy comes from does that mean that if i were white and supreme and i'm supposed to that's supposed to be a compliment it's not so again kind of think through and you know whether it's students or community or parents think about what someone is saying and i've kind of given you a list of the the groups that or the areas racial sexual disability gender environmental uh religious so those are all the places that um there are types of microaggressions that are used to aim at someone and then again i've kind of given you a group of the marginalized groups that are today now understand that group probably will continue to grow and change because
149years ago the group didn't have all of these different identities listed lgbtq is new on this list as well as persons with cognitive impairment that's known as list but when someone is making those those kind of you know we're talking about the four eyes because we're glasses we've got four eyes oh four eyes can do it give it to give it to him or her she'll be able to see she's got an extra pair of eyes and then we just kind of joke about it everybody kind of laughs but it's not funny and you have to think how many times have they heard that same joke it's not funny so again this is where we put our sensitivity hat on dre can you ask the question um so you've said a couple of times now
150that it that when they're when you observe a microaggression aimed against somebody and that as a spectator of that and not the object of it that we have a responsibility or um may have a desire to act upon somehow um ameliorating the situation post activity so whether that be um helping to soothe the other person and their feelings but then what i guess there's two parts to my question and i think you know where i'm going right like what do you do about the person who practiced the microaggression how do you deal with that and then on top of that because we're a school environment there are significant power structures in play so when a student is an object of a microaggressive behavior from a teacher or from an elder student you know those are
151not bullying in the classic terms but i mean how do we i don't know there's so many different ways this can go so i'm not even going to already start it right and that's first it's through training and and it's that sensitivity of having people understand that it's not funny yeah you see it on television yeah we all go ha ha oh i didn't mean it but that's for that sensitivity and a tolerance that we're all kind of working towards so having that continual training and recognizing that you have turnover you have people coming onto your into your teams every year there's somebody new so you can't just do it one time and then wait six years and do it it has to be continual and a lot of that responsibility and it's nice that
152you have site administrators here because a lot of that responsibility for the day-to-day stuff really falls on their shoulders to kind of carry this message back because they're the ones that's going to see it or know it first and they need to know that they can come to someone else at the district office ultimately obviously the board has full control but they need to know that they can come to the district office and say hey i've got this problem i need some help i have this person on my team that's continuously doing this i tried to counsel i tried to talk to them but you've got to bring it forward and then that's where the folks in hr can kind of help out there but it has to be dealt with otherwise it continues and
153it continues until it's either hot so harmful then it leads to other challenges that you may have or you have other students or parents now kind of jumping on board or it leads to mental health issues occurring with that one person because again you don't know someone store it and keep bringing it you don't know someone's story if they haven't told you and that story could be the last straw so whether they commit harm to themselves or harm to someone else it could lead to that and so you do want to once you become cognizant of it you want to do something about it you don't want to let handle now as far as you know again the example i gave you of myself it wouldn't have been appropriate for someone to say something to
154that board member in that setting that would just make things even more awkward and comfortable what should have happened then following someone should have said hey during our open session that was totally uncool we're not going to tolerate that and spoken to them and then they would have pulled me back into to say hey a sort of intensity or or inappropriate what was said you know i apologize we accept my apologies so that's what should have happened it didn't in this case so again recognizing that in the public front it may not be appropriate to say something at that time because that's not the business at hand and we have an agenda following that but it certainly needs to be dealt with but on a school site level it's that training it's that reinforcement and
155making sure that your administrators are on board and they understand because they're representing the district yeah both things need to be addressed that's your answer okay so um so we've covered this and we've talked about how to manage the microaggressive behavior let's go back to talk about uh inclusion because inclusion really is about being your authentic self whatever that self may be um you know there's times that um i can think of a job where i finally felt authentic like by myself because if you were to see me um out of out of work and and even as i got older at work but i was one of those that you know i got to a certain age where i really my feet were the most important thing to me and wearing heels it just
156didn't work anymore you know you cram your toe and those little pointy things and and you know it's okay now and then but you know to do it every day that just was not my thing and so people who worked with me in casual settings would know that i often wear sandals and some people could have had perceptions about that well that's not professional she's wearing sandals she's got a dress on but she's wearing sandals well i wasn't that way i worked for an organization where they said it was a a school organization women needed to have pumps on or you know some close-toed shoes didn't have a good compass little clothes toy shoe and men made it to where anytime they left their office their arms had to be covered and you'd have have
157a long sleeve shirt or have a jackpot if you left your office and that was the environment and so you do what you need to do and then i left that organization i went to work for another organization another educational entity and i remember the first day that i met the superintendent and talking to me in the summer and it was extremely hot it was like 103 degrees but i met the superintendent he came over to my office to welcome me to the team and i will never forget he was wearing a tommy bahama shirt and a pair of shorts and he had some bird socks on he doesn't like how the guys he's got samples on and so from that day forward i would wear my sandals to work i still look professional and
158so forth but i wore sandals to work because he made me feel included and authentic i could be myself so part of inclusion and is to make people feel that they belong there it doesn't have to have anything to do with sandals or shoes i've been sharing that my story but you want to make sure that they're they're comfortable because when they're comfortable they're going to be able to contribute far more than they could otherwise when i sat with my shoe my feet crammed into those shoes every single day for eight hours although i did take them off near my desk or in my office you know you don't think well when you're not comfortable but when i went to work for this other employer where they made me feel very comfortable and we knew
159the rule when you had a board meeting when you had visitors in the district we dressed a little differently but we always knew when that was or if you're going out in just a business how to how to dress but when you're in the office within your jeans but we could be comfortable and my feet were very comfortable my brain was on overload i was just constantly coming up with things because i didn't have anything restricting my abilities so i'm using that to say take advantage of what others have to offer build that cohesiveness around your missions but make sure that they're feeling that they belong there and if you are treating someone differently then they certainly won't feel like they belong and that's what our goal is so our last table discussion and we've
160talked about and again the the y shifted because of the of the software we have a equality equity and reality so let me kind of go through the diagrams so quality is kind of what we're saying we have right now which means it's it's really about equal access right if there's a job posting any of these people can apply for it if there was something going on any of these people can go where equity comes involved is and that's what we're striving towards just imagine these little boxes that they're standing in represents things that they may need to be more successful over here we have equality but over here we're giving them things that they that might make them more successful but i have them listed because we don't know which one of these people
161might need it could be the man he might need a little extra help maybe he has a reading impairment and so he needs something to help them with his work or maybe it's a job that's flying and and she needs it if she's filling out an application she really can do it better if it's in her own language you don't know what their their needs are but the boxes represent the needs so knowledge is over to reality and reality sometimes is the person who really may not need any assistance any help they get more of it as far as the gender sometimes we're still falling behind as women we don't have every opportunity we're not given where there's something always like left back because again statistically women are still a minority in the workforce so
162that still remains an issue and sometimes we're thought of not to to really have good grades because what we should be doing and most women that are in the work field and you probably can speak to this you did other things right you're still a mother you still had dinner to cook and laundry to do and you still have all these things going on at home but you still had your job to do and you balance it and figure it out but sometimes there's perceptions that we won't give it to her because either she'll be out because you know she does have to cook for that big family again making assumptions or she's at the baby-making age we really don't want her in that position because she's likely to get pregnant on us and then
163we're going to end up with a void um so women still don't have the same amount and then our newest group who could fall into any of the lg btq categories um that's the new group that's experiencing some of the not only microaggressions but discrimination discriminatory behavior again enough to represent people of color so kind of use the flag that has people color in it so that could be um black brown asian anyone who they could identify with a gender but just be of a different color so looking at that and maybe kind of again talking in your groups is there anything that we can do as a society that we can help shift this picture so that either this is what it looks like that everyone gets what they need to succeed or nobody
164gets it at all and then probably i don't think that's going backwards i don't think we want to say that because we do recognize that people do have babies so if you want to go back into your groups and it worked out well because now it's three and three and this will be our last activity and we'll be wrapping up dialogue is good how about this group one thing [Music] how yes very good because kids today are going to be these adults going into the workforce tomorrow that you all have a responsibility for and and that's a great way of doing it how about this group um we talked about um having policies having practice um that's more inclusive that's more supportive of people once recognizing their their needs yes and this is more supportive
165um we talked about making accommodations according to people's needs with the recognition that everybody is capable yeah um yes and sometimes that will require some trial and error to make the shift but ultimately um not ultimately but also needing more data to understand where to make the shift according to this message yes but i like what you said about everyone is capable we're starting with that as our assumption everyone's capable and then we'll figure out what they may need and then last but not least so our group um discussed a lot of similar concepts as the other groups um and the way we approached this question was um something that you mentioned earlier equity versus equality and so when we looked at this visual we really looked at the equity part and the reality part
166and we we discussed that everyone all abilities all groups whatever um need to have accommodations to be successful right or to feel a sense of belonging right and the accommodations would be the equity piece because everybody needs it but the degree of accommodations which speaks to the right side of that visual would be the equality yes oh okay that's a good perspective very good thank you so all of that to say if you forget about this little activity as you were all in your groups i was walking around and reading some of the word art that you have up here and you know i think your students have figured it out um life is a possible way to get you solved i mean how that's appropriate or don't judge a book by its cover how
167often should we kind of recount about and and yet we are all guilty of sometimes we do do that so interesting perspectives each of you came up with and again no right or wrong answer it was just really to get you thinking so that you can then apply it to whatever your situation is whether it's at the district office at a school site level um at the board level working with students as we wrap up our time to today um we've got a lot of things fall out of character on this one um this is just a recap so oftentimes people think when they hear diversity that's really about race and it's so much more than race it's all the it's all of the different variety of groups that we talked about it's not just
168race ethnicity or culture it's all of the things about understanding who that person is and again making them feel welcomed inclusion accepting others i'm ensuring that everyone has the same chance so these are things just your takeaways um managing our biases recognizing what our own blind spots are and that's something that individually you have to do because they'll face it nobody wants to go out and you know say oh my blind spot this is what i really think but you need to self-reflect and figure out what yours is and figure out how you can manage it so that it doesn't get in the way of decisions and things that you have to do for the community and for the students and then understanding that harassment behavior is a form of discrimination particularly when it's aimed
169at any of those projected classes that we talked about suggested steps and you know again it's recognizing that diversity without equity and inclusion can exist you can't just talk and say we're doing diversity but then not really mean it by backing it up with those other two areas making sure that you have an equitable environment that you're really looking to say what someone may need um especially someone of a protected class you know someone is in a wheelchair they may need a little bit more to be able to do that job or to do well in that classroom um obviously they're not going to be able to roll themselves out you know if there's sand there so it's again kind of thinking you don't want to say well you stay behind because you don't get
170to go again think through what that individual may need to make it more equitable for them to compete fairly diversity means having a range of people with various racial ethnic socionomical and cultural experiences and backgrounds and lifestyles and interests because who wants everyone to be the same in this group room i see a diverse group of people and as i listen to you i've heard some different some interesting backgrounds and some back stories that share that shows that you're all all unique you have different characteristics and that's helped to shape you into who you are today and why you're talking about the decisions you're making and especially talking about tough topics like this continue along that path and it i would hope that this is just part of the the continuation as you further dig
171into what are your next steps and what are you going to do remember those open-ended questions like how do you feel about if you know that someone someone's heritage has been in the news or their ethnicity or or maybe they have family uh my friends who have family living in india and so everything was happening in india i picked up the phone and just said hey how are you doing is that affecting you or your family and they the first thing that says well i really appreciate you reaching out just you know thank you and make sure so just again kind of seeing things from someone else's perspective although it may not be affecting you think about how someone else could be affected perhaps it's a community member student and they're seeing things that's happening
172to their family that may be in another country well they may not be very focused right now so again it's being in tune to what may be going on for them always recognize your limitations and again going through any kind of a training like this or the ones that you had in the past the ones that you're going to have by themselves doesn't make you now just oh so knowledgeable it means that this is part of the journey and as you continue along this path more and more things you'll be able to add to your tool kit where it becomes natural and you'll know certain things right off the bat because you'll heard it it's been reinforced time and time to then maintain the mindset that we're continual learners and that this is just a
173journey and a part of the process and i hope that in our time today that we have you know given a chance to do some self-reflection uh maybe a little bit of inspiration to kind of go out and do a little bit more to think about things a little differently um to be more sensitive to remember that tolerance is key that we have to sometimes step back and and become more tolerant of someone maybe they're slower at something and we're in a hurry we need to be tolerant it doesn't have to be here at the district office you could be standing in line and getting a coffee from the person and then you're in a rush and the person in front of you is trying to count out their money and you're just like please
174can you go i've got places to go well there may be a reason they're counting a little slow something may have happened in their life that their their mind isn't just processing right now it may have nothing to do with their ethnicity it just may be i'm having a bad day and i'm going through a lot of stuff right now and i just can't figure this out so be a little bit more tolerant a little bit more sensitive remember that we want to try to be culturally competent and to do that we're going to have to talk to people and we're to talk to people that normally maybe we would think we don't have anything in common but as i listen to you i could and the things that you've said i could identify things
175that i have in common with each of you in this room and i haven't had a conversation and if i can be if i can find that common ground then i can talk to you about anything anything at all can get the conversation started and that's what we have to do when we're meeting people first for the first time you're really looking to say there's something about that person i know we have in common what could that be we may have difference of opinions and everything else but what what do i have in common with them and remember if we're going to coexist like a box of crayons again i can't repeat enough times that cultural competency is the key it's it encourages the acknowledgement and the acceptance of others their differences and their appearances
176and with that i'm going to hit the button for the very last time and say thank you very much for your time and your attention and for participating in all of our activities i hope this was meaningful and you found some value and i really enjoyed being here with you all thank you so much dr ray on behalf of the board our administrators our principals assistant principals and all the other participants uh we'd like to express our gratitude to you for an outstanding presentation uh it was educational it was illuminating it was thought provoking as you said today is just part of our continuing journey regarding dei discussions and solutions so we hope to take your advice and continue to be lifelong learners hopefully uh we are on our way to becoming part of all
177of the crayons in the crayon box that you talked about and we are mindful and very cognizant that it is our duty and responsibility to continue to promote tolerance and civility so thank you so much for today it's been an outstanding afternoon thank you very much can i answer one more question sure sure yes you know uh certainly uh we are learned a lot on the bei awareness this subject so i mean in the united states i think all the factors relate to the dei like the gender or the age variable but but lastly you know because of the kobe 19 one one factor we we don't have a the answer how are we to follow i think is the vaccine preference so i don't know how to resolve for this issue you know the
178gather consensus yeah because this is the right issue but some people maybe because of religion issue they said no but some they have their own issue so so i for the last you know the the 11 month since the vaccine that come out in the market i i'm thinking about how to resolve this issue in the public you health that is a challenge and it's going to continue to be for schools and and and off boards you're not the only one that's beginning to have those conversations um at some point is it going to divide your school or is it just a smaller group and and it's really about the opportunity for people to speak and feel heard but ultimately you've got a responsibility to the masses and you follow the cdc guidelines so i
179think as you follow policy you follow the standards that are being set and that's what you have to do but to shun someone for not being heard and to hear their perspective and understanding for people that have religious reasons there is a remedy for them and some place for them to go to seek that they need to do the research to figure that out but there is something that they can do that then would at least give a school district um a way to resolve that or to handle it but it's it it's not just you can't just wave the the card and say well i've got a religious belief that i can't wear a mask or i can't get back vaccinate it it doesn't quite work that way but hearing from people and and
180smaller groups is where you could probably get people to speak more in large settings um then you'll sometimes end up with groupthink and you end up with people just echoing because people remember the fear there's fear of reprisal there's fear that someone's gonna think differently of them or come back and and get them later so in large groups people don't always want to speak up break up into smaller groups or even what i call focus groups and some times you'll get to the root problem and it may not be a serious issue we're led to believe so focus groups are a very good tool a lot of people have used those where they can use smaller groups to kind of gain some insight and to problem-solve together and allows voices to be heard but you
181also gain a better understanding of what the real issues are and then you have something that you can talk about as to coming up with solutions um there's also a lot of um in today's market because of what's happening there are companies now that are coming up with um forward looking tools um unfortunately um as i've talked to a few of them it's like okay if you're going to be marketing these to schools you need to sharpen your pencil a little bit more but they're coming out because of technology they're coming out with ways um that they can handle even the vaccine proofs and things of that nature um that's not um not it doesn't get personal it's everything's done with software now and and so there's some tools out there that could also help
182okay thank you thank you so much dr ray um it is 406 meeting adjourned thank you