001all right it is now 6 49 on Monday June 19th 2023 and we will begin our Dei committee meeting for the Mount Lebanon School District I would like to take a moment to recognize that today is the celebration of Juneteenth which is the emancipation of the last enslaved African-Americans held in bondage within the United States I would also like to acknowledge that June is the month-long recognition of Pride for lgbtqia community and our supportive allies and our community celebrated both Juneteenth and Mount Lebanon Park for the third year in a row on Friday and pride also in Mount Lebanon Park on Saturday and I thank all the hosts of these events who are parents students and school board members in the district and these events are great strides to celebrating diversity and inclusion in our
002community and lastly I would like to recognize Dr Mary Beth Irvin for her contribution to the district especially to the Dei task force and this Dei committee as this is your last meeting and we wish you well on your retirement um with that I'd like to turn this meeting over to you Dr Irwin to discuss our agenda items for the district Dei goals in our year-end update our district action plan for future planning and any questions and comments from residents sure thank you Mrs Johnson so um in the board update I included this handout that I think everybody has a copy of now that was um this was based upon some documents that we had worked on last summer that were action planning the Dei goals and action steps for the 2020 uh 22-23 school
003year and what I ended up doing is the the last column originally was like resources on the original document so I made a copy for this report and took that out and just put in like the status so um I'm just going to run through these and then if you have any questions about anything um stop me and Ms Albrecht this is certainly the one that we just chatted about a second ago so the first one is prioritize and review policies for both content and style so we did a lot of work thanks to the work of the policy committee this year um some of our changes were really simple language adjustments um to be more um I don't want to say more open and more inclusive in the language but we actually did some
004important work on the student code of conduct the what we are now calling the anti-bullying policy thanks to Ms Fletcher's suggestion non-discrimination religious observance and our harassment policies for both students and staff and I think that was really great work um and really probably some of the most important policies that we've looked at um I've written this as Complete because I think um that there there are still some policies left but I don't believe that there are anything in terms of um major content unless the board the Dei committee or others would want to suggest additional policies um at this point um and there are still some that are more style related language related that I think we can continue to update next year but really um in terms of the focus particularly since this
005year's Focus was on identity-based harassment and dealing with that I think we really did kind of hit those major ones but it is a goal again for next year um on the and I'll talk about that in a minute um so and then again uh policy auditor review policy scope um again we looked at these um it was a total of 14 policies um with those ones that I just noted um and then just for the benefit of Ms ulbrich because we have another Dei policy um what was it it was a change to facilities to make it more inclusive and um at our policy meeting last week she suggested that we take a look at the suggested policy ideas that came from our student-led lgbtqia group and so I did that and one of
006the things that I did notice that was not in our original change was this statement said facili under um there was a heading and then it had you know accessibility and a number of other things underneath it and in that under accessibility the language was facilities must be accessible as required by applicable law so I just started thinking about that there may be things that actually are not yet legally required and so to broaden that we added the language and District policies and procedures so for example if there isn't a law or a law would change that said something like transgender students do not have to have access to a bathroom you know we would already have that because we have that inner policies and procedure or in our in our policies and procedures so
007we can go further than the law in terms of accessibility with that language and Mr uh um Tom uh Peterson and Mr volts had approved that change so for the policy that should come in front of you that should be there um so I wonder if they didn't update it and after that yeah it says facilities must be accessible as required by applicable law that's what we received in our packets well and I mean and the other thing um I guess while we're discussing that is uh and I apologize because I was out of town for the policy and board discussion last week but if it sounds like there might be other suggestions um sort of just at the um you know we talk about health and wellness and sustainability and accessibility and then we
008talk about the district's educational philosophy goals and mission statement and I wonder if we can say an equity statement in that Equity statement also does talk about physical disabilities or in you know other other disabilities um that we would be thinking about as we are um as a key consideration in facility development and I think some of the other issues brought forward by the students about privacy and using uh restrooms or lockers that match their gender identity and then being able to choose our more procedural than this policy is really for planning but I think then we could have Equity as a consideration in our planning absolutely so do we want to table that one and then yeah we're going to have to vote to table it let's vote we'll revisit it in August or
009September um yeah I mean we did we did change a lot of the wording um from the the original policy uh to be inclusive um which which was good but those are that's a good catch with the uh applicable law Edition and with the equity statement uh the law policies and procedures is in my coffee so sorry that didn't make it yeah um I thought when I sent that to to Tom and Chris that would get to the board but apparently it did not so I apologize for that I will have that ready and then when I leave next week that will be in draft form and then you can put that yeah you just want to send it to me in draft form so I have it and I'll make sure that we address
010it uh our first policy meeting and Ms ulbrich I was thinking perhaps in number one where we talk about flexibility um [Music] adding an equity statement to that first sentence so that's one of the driving courses yeah no that's that's I have that note in there excellent yeah okay so educational philosophy goals um equity and mission statements okay no problem already so continuing Down Under that accountability and transparency the student Data Systems we did do this um I think I talked to a couple of months ago about when we talked about the dashboard about the um the problematic nature of using those to track um because they're tracked by student not by incident so again if the board would want to consider another kind of data collection option um you know that would be something
011that could be looked at next year but under our current system I think we you know internally can go in and see for example from the administrative standpoint it's not available for public view but we still have a good system for setting up for ourselves to track it so it's particularly like if students are repeating certain behaviors or if kids are repeatedly becoming victims we have the correct data to intervene really meant to be internal data so if there was going to be anything else you know that system is not going to work to do that but again I think it's working in terms of response like that larger piece of responding to community or identity based harassment the system is working much better now and tracking data internally but it's not Republican social so
012um in addition so this identifies success metrics in each area I listed that as ongoing that is actually a much more detailed goal for next year um now that we've started like you know we've now had two years of student outcomes report data where it's disaggregated in the ways that we can um in terms of by identity group so I think you know it will be appropriate with a couple of years of data behind us to start looking at Target metrics and like I said that's an important goal for next year and sharing with the community of the Dei dashboard has been published um you know again if uh we want to you know if there is a building block at the very least so other things can be added moving forward so under a
013professional development evaluate the results of the needs assessment that we gave and create a plan you know that the needs assessment has been done the the uh and reviewed we have we had a plan for this year and we executed that plan and um then again there will be additional PD goals in the you know that were listed for 23.24. um some of those included offering opportunities for self-directed professional development we did that with the race power of an illusion course um we had over 150 staff members take that and in terms of ongoing we have partnered with Hugh Lane and they are in the process of developing a similar kind of cell study for LGBT lgbtq Plus Community as well so that is coming um and will hopefully be something that will be ready
014to go for fall of 23. and then offer and respond offer training in response to and preventing identity-based harassment we did two days with this we did a administrator-only workshop in October um it was like leadership with the ADL and then as you know on May 16th we had an all staff um Dei Workshop that was really focused on identity understanding identity and responding to identity-based harassment so um under safe and inclusive climate um again I address identity-based response and communication strategies I mean this is always ongoing sample Communications database we've started that and you know whereas you know we've had unfortunately a number of issues with swastikas and we've built a good relationship with members of the Jewish Community we've been looking to expand that as we see other um you know other kinds
015of identity-based harassment arise and we've built some other Partnerships around that clearly again with you Lane with lgbtq even with some of our student groups um and um through teach plus we've made some Partners in terms of anything that would be like racial based so um I think that's important that we have other folks that we can bounce things off of Source additional tools together School climate and SEL data as you know we piloted the past survey last year and we did a full adoption this year so we continue to use that data um to sort of do it well check beginning into the year on how students are doing in terms of their attachment to school how they feel their comfort level with being here and the nice thing about that is in the
016past we really only did a secondary survey and it was optional doing your own so whereas this is there's time provided within the school day we're getting really high participation rates on that we have had some families opt out which is a requirement through board policy when you do surveys but um it's the number is very small so more able to use individual data class size data grade level school you know there's a lot there's a lot of different ways you can break that up and look at it so that's been really helpful Dr Urban I just wanted to ask a question on that information do you have reasons why families um chose to opt out um well I think that um in some ways the SEL those letters that acronym has gotten lumped in
017with some other things um and so people are just opposing that um that's my guess I mean I I would say I I can't speak for the secretary but at the elementary if it's more than five I would be surprised so I mean the unfortunate thing is if the students that are not taking it you know we don't get any information on them in particular it doesn't necessarily have like a negative effect on the validity of classroom data or School data but because we also drill down into you know our counselors and our principals and teachers of that classroom use their individual student or can use their individual student due to say say concerned about this kiddo now they did on this you know that that we don't have that unfortunate but yep yeah good
018question um and then in terms of uh the other climate goal was student Affinity groups and social justice opportunities again we are ongoing with this um but we have the light initiative and in planning for the um in-service day I got to meet some folks from there they came and did a workshop for our students so the students that participated in service day got that and they weren't all light kids they were there were some kids that are in that I think our black student union has really grown and gotten really involved um and again we did include students uh in a leadership capacity um in our in-service day and not so much a part of the school but still our kiddos is the community ad hoc group that's formed for lgbtq advocacy I think
019are all great signs of what we're doing and I think that again that's something that needs to be continued to grow and expand I know there's some starting of some of those organizations at the at the middle schools I think Jefferson has one but you know we want to look at replicating that I think that's the next level to go melon has melon unites I think oh nice okay awesome awesome um and then under Equitable access and outcomes um we have the RFP I'm going to talk about that for a minute I apologize but between my schedule and then of course the um the researcher who is out of town this week so she was not able to come um we will make sure that they can get here in August and I'll talk a
020little bit about that when we talk about future planning um but I think that this is a really promising proposal um that the board will um will want to move forward with and it fits in the allocated funds that we um have set aside for that project so um again work with student groups to gain input I did a little bit of that I wish I could have done more and I would suggest that we continue to engage with our student groups moving forward um just getting to know Dr freeze a little bit I think that's something that you will definitely enjoy she seems very student-centered and then to develop the communication plans um still ongoing the website the dashboard the district newsletter I mean we've really been trying to push out in different ways
021um what our efforts are so I feel pretty good about what we were what we managed to accomplish today in terms of those goals any other questions great so then when we look at Future planning um I'm referring to and I'm sorry that I did not make you guys a copy of this but it was a document I gave you last year that talked about goals it didn't have them you know divided up like that but what we had suggested back when we did the Dei plan for 23 24 under accountability and transparency was continuing to review and update policies as needed continued data analysis um to determine impact of efforts and progress towards towards success metrics um we really need to talk about what those success metrics are going to look like under PD
022continue to implement the PD plan um we learned a lot from yeah I can see Mrs Fletcher hearing that um you know and continue to offer professional learning opportunities for for staff that are differentiated because we really do have staff in all different kinds of places and I think that became apparent after um April 16th in service you know we could tell there are people that are still you know feel like they're in the learning phase and want more support in this and other folks that are starting to step up and take leadership opportunities and also continue to offer the self-directed because those really are not allow for a natural differentiation um and safe and inclusive I think we want to continue with the student groups but I think we also want to expand that
023to families that was something that came out of the task force is very important and then also you know we've kind of got these student groups working I know we did a little bit with peer mediation in the past couple of years and the high school started uh some restorative justice efforts I think we need to move restorative justice K-12 um under culturally responsive curriculum and instruction I think this really all falls under the RFP because that's where their primary um goal is their timeline was to start in the fall and have reports ready and especially in terms of there was any budgeting things that would be necessary um new textbooks or whatever new new books that would be in time for you know in time for Budget planning so it seemed like maybe five
024five six months ish so um and then under Equitable access and outcomes we still need to work on communication and building that Resource Bank so those are those are what was suggested for next year um I went over these documents today when we talk about future planning agenda item number two I went over all of this with Dr freeze today um she's very engaged and very thoughtful about this conversation I know this is a high priority um for her which um I think is great and I told her I would be willing to you know chat with her anytime if she had questions as she moves through I'm not going anywhere I want to make sure personally that this work continues um I'm not sure exactly what specifically her plans are for you know what's
025happening next but in terms of this RFP so there is a voting meeting on there you will you will have action items to vote on at the first board meeting in August as we always do because of hiring so I suggested to her since there's already that part of the agenda that we look at having uh the researcher who is aware of the date and has it held on her calendar that they and their team could come in will get the the RFP is just about done I gave her some things to to I gave her some things to change or some suggestions and she was going to make those changes she needed to get it to her editing department at Pitt and then was going to get it back to me in the next
026couple like I said before June 30th and then I will forward that to Dr freeze and we'll get it in the Ward's hand in the summer um so folks will have a chance to review it and then what could be possible if we really want to find the timeline to start near the beginning of the school year which I think is important to catch people at that beginning when you know Energy's High attitudes are positive and have them come in and you know start because they're going to do a lot of like Affinity walks and groups and you know it's a lot of qualitative data collection so you know that is really where you'd want a cat start to capture people um before they start to feel overwhelmed so it would make sense to me
027and then you could either think about it and vote on it at the next one or you could even vote on it at the August you know if the board chooses you know that would be the recommendation I think of this committee but certainly um and then if folks want it if you guys wanted to get together and meet with a researcher in advance I'm sure that that could be arranged I'll make sure that um I make sure that Dr freeze actually knows this person isn't in them for many years so they will uh they have each other's contact information and so however you want to proceed but I would recommend that we try to get that set up as soon as possible so that they can get working and I think when you see
028the proposal you'll understand that would be critical for Success so August meeting is in advance okay yeah yeah it's late for an early meeting you know it's like because it's it's the I think it's the 15th yeah so for an early meeting that's not super early but it is what it is all right that's all I have support right I have no other question to you okay um Mr Stengel did we have anyone on the line for comments no okay well it's now 7 11 and I will end our June 19th Dei community meeting thank you thank you