BOE Special Meeting 2021-04-27

001good evening columbus community it is board president adair and i am calling our special board work session on this april 27th 2021 to order uh mr treasurer you please call the roll ms bec um board board president of their present 2021 order mr brown just came back in yes hi here we go president dr pierce president mr ragnan here vice president reyes here you have a quorum thank you so much um so for tonight we have one thing on our agenda and that is to continue our discussion with dr blue who is our chief equity officer um and so remembers that is what is on our agenda um so is there a motion to approve our agenda for this evening so moved thank you is there a second a second thank you please call the

002roll president adair yes ms becker lee yes mr brown yes mr cole yes dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes motion carried so much so it is my pleasure then to turn it right over to dr blue thank you so much for being here with us and i'm excited to continue our discussion from last time as am i thank you board president of dare hello everyone and thank you for allowing me to come back for the second half of the really great conversation that we started a couple of months ago in february related to equity i'm going to go ahead and jump in by sharing my screen and then we can get started with our conversation let's see one more moment i seem to have lost the group but that's okay i

003will find you all okay so we are going to go ahead and jump right in with part two of our boardwork session and just to get us started if you remember the uh last meeting we um had a really great conversation based on the book chapter that you all had and so we i just kind of put up the same uh items from the agenda so that you could see but you as you can see we already kind of moved past the the book discussion but we haven't we didn't get a chance to get into the uh that kind of that equity conversation of the group in terms of defining equity together uh talking through our non-negotiables for the equity work and then discussing next steps so that will be our work for today so

004if you remember we talked about uh kind of just what is our definition of equity and um thinking about how do we come to some consensus around that and interestingly today our treasurer stan and i and a couple other colleagues were on a call with some folks from texas talking through some of the work that they have been doing to kind of thought partner a little bit and the first thing that they told us was you have to have a common definition of equity if um the cfo has a different um definition than they chief equity officer who has a different different definition than the board then you know we're we're not going to be successful so so that was our first that was kind of the first piece of advice which is obviously you

005know what we want to do so so we want to see what are some of the the things that we know we want to see and ways we want to define equity and then kind of go from there to to think about what would a larger vision be so part of that is of course thinking about what is the difference in the work that the board does as the governing body versus the work that the um the opera the opera opera operations sort of of the work the management sort of side of it um you know how the work is operationalized which is you know what the district does and so we'll talk about how do those two pieces how are they separate where do they meld and and what does that look like so

006we'll talk about that some more also today so our essential questions are the same one being what does it mean to lead an equity focused vision of governance for um columbus city schools and then the second being what is the definitive definition of equity that the board can anchor itself to so we want to think structures policies and practices from that governance standpoint for our school system and within our school system so the first thing i want to do is kind of show you some highlights from our last meeting and that is to help anyone who um who may be in the audience listing who missed the first session and just to kind of bring us back into one conversation because it has been a couple of months so what i did was i had

007the communications team help me to pull together some clips from the original meeting and so that will kind of give us a place to start and so i'd like you to just as you watch think about is this really the grounding that we say that you know kind of what we talked about in that first meeting are we still in that same place and that'll be our grounding for the work that we as we think about um going forward so i would like for if there's anyone who can um hold on one second so let's see i still didn't find my um i still can't see the gallery for some reason so if someone can just kind of give me a verbal if you can hear when we um turn on the um turn on

008the the video or you can put it on the channel okay thank you so the purpose today is just to get some clarity you know as i mentioned so to kind of get some consensus around what our definition of equity is going to be that will drive the district i've been using a definition that i've uh kind of borrowed from the national equity project and i'll share that later as well but you know if you ask 10 different people what is equity they may say similar words but maybe mean different things and so we want to just today get as much clarity as possible from you all so that as we move forward we can know that we're saying the same thing or we're speaking kind of the same language that you are and and

009mostly also to kind of distinguish how equity will be operationalized from a board standpoint you know in other words what is the governance piece look like in terms of equity versus the operational the operation side the management the day-to-day work that that the district will do and departments and things will do i think that uh a couple of things that come to mind uh one is uh for board members um always to be asking questions publicly of administrators to keep a focus not only on students which is still paramount but on equity and on how does this project help us in the pursuit of equity how does this proposal help us in the pursuit of equity i think the second thing is that when we look at expenditures when we look at financial data that

010we ask that we accept and understand that not every building is going to receive the same thing that we may need to put a whole lot more money into some computers or something at one building and uh the other neighborhoods are are well situated uh more affluent families for example and uh and and that's not always an easy concept and i know we'll have people uh coming back and say you know me too we're you know you can't give it to them without giving to us too and uh and i think we need to be prepared for that that education is so critical in the way that we speak about it because in reality your question was this perception that you know parents are going to come because some somehow they think they're getting less

011now and that's really not true um they're not getting less others are just getting something different so that everyone can actually meet the same point so you know the the the idea of equity is a tool a tool to get to equality to overcome uh you know things that created the inequities in the beginning so we really can't talk about it in ways of people getting more or less it's getting the thing they need in order to get to the line right we're not even talking about getting past the line right now which we do know as dr pierce was saying about just power and privilege some people are past the line we're trying to get everyone to the line achieving equity uh is really a community responsibility you know the schools are just one

012piece of the overall community and and it makes sense for us to be the locusts of the work of the whole community because we have the children it's it can't just be us there's no way because all of our systems are intertwined education is intertwined with the social services with health with all of that and we know how complex the needs of our students are now the thing is we got to change the system or it's not going to work how we change it in the process to change it and you know how long does it take um i think that's part of what our policy role is in governance role i think we've kind of modeled this a little bit in the way that we've approached portrait of a graduate and how that has

013been different and how we're trying to get community buy-in we're not really talking about specific programs we're talking about a vision and that's something that that has to continue to be done at all levels engaging all of the partner systems government across the the country i mean there's no way columbus city schools is going to do all the things in here that are outlined that could potentially change a system i mean like board member brown said we have just have so many regulations that come down from us from the federal and state government but we could start to try to have those conversations leverage our partnerships in our national organizations be a visionary that i know we can be and start to push i mean we have to push and i think that's our role

014as policy uh you know people in the policy space of education has been designed um to predominantly teach black and brown children how to follow direction as we develop this new engine we have to be mindful of the realities in which a system has been created to keep a certain community and people of which i'm a part of oppressed and to keep us regulated in a power and privileged paradigm that serves um the good of another community and group we have to address building community and addressing you know specifically trauma restorative justice all of those things social emotional health uh that has to be a priority i think before they can we can even get our students to be their potential or to achieve their potential i think one of the great things that we've

015done is to be able to do the portrait of a graduate and and move on our strategic plan in terms of outlining our goals and guard rails so what's that that should then lead us to understand what's in our lane and what's not in our lane our role regardless of what education or background each of us has our role is not professional educators and we have to empower and rely and guide our professional educators to get to certain points but we can't decide the board members collectively or individually can't decide what the needs are for any particular child or for any group of children and we have to recognize that and and step back and let the educators do their jobs to be able to get to that point and the more that it does

016get embedded into the culture of who we are and what we believe as an organization as a community as sister governments is everything it will be more difficult to just change on a whim of of who the person is because the system will shift and the culture will shift and begin to hold itself more accountable and so that has to happen it must embed it must be a culture shift in the way that we continue to talk about and embrace this that's when i think about these things i think about human capital i think about fair and equitable investment into public education and not seeing it as a line item but seeing it as an investment in people that will ultimately bring prosperity to a community one of the things that we've got to make

017sure that we are committed to doing and we're talking one through number six in all of this is making sure that we as a board of education are legislating without care and concern for the consequences of the actions we take for the betterment of our students there are consequences associated with making decisions that benefit the greater good i've seen this board and other boards of education for columbus city schools have dialogue on equity for a number of years a lot of the issues that were brought up uh here today have persisted over decades within this district these are not new concerns i understand that we have an appetite to talk about it we say good things we i and i believe that our intentions are good however when the rubber starts meeting the road the

018reason why these equity issues have persisted is because boards of education yield to political pressure we started this discussion about that we we talked around it a little bit but essentially what dr blue was was asking us when the northwest quadrant of columbus starts either knocking on your door or blowing up your email inbox calling you on your cell phone or calling your employer or doing the things that are necessary in order for them as a unit to get what they want for their children will you persist in saying this will this time this will be about equity for every student here and i am willing to sacrifice myself and my well-being or my board seat for the benefit of these young people to get what it is that they need so that they can

019finally start moving forward action steps is having this conversation action steps is bringing the community to the table to do the same action steps is coming forth with a compelling vision that's bold that's audacious and that's goal setting with real metrics not just opportunities for things but what is the intended impact of the opportunity we're going to have summer programs what is its intended impact how many kids where all of that good stuff no more philly philly good showing the video let's let's let's put some metrics to it now having those kind of conversations setting the expectations and then going out and getting it and then going to the community very boldly and and self-assuredly to say we need this investment we need to get this for our kids to create equity in the district

020i don't think that we really have a legitimate choice to make about our willingness to take on this challenging and difficult task i think that it's a responsibility and it's incumbent upon us to do that and to support our administrators and staff who likewise need to do that i see the stillness as a conversation as us having the rich dialogue a dialogue in which as i recall previous conversations about equity focused on that equity from a black white lens a purely racial lens now we have an equity officer that has allowed us to look at the entire continuum of diversity that diversity includes class includes ethnicity includes race includes our gender expression our sexuality expression our ability levels um we are coming at this conversation with a fuller perspective that allows all of our students

021and community members to enter into our schools and spaces and be acknowledged as the total human being and person that they are what is your definition of equity and we're gonna in our next conversation think about how we can meld those we want to have something that we can that's accessible to the general public that we can kind of talk about easily as well as maybe a longer more academic sort of definition however we won't get to that obviously today but we are going to dig into those things and really come up with something that we can that we can all understand as this is the way that we're going to talk about equity in the future okay so i'm going to stop sharing real quick just to see if i can get my gallery

022back so any uh reactions to the video i really enjoy putting together all the you know bits and pieces and it's really powerful stuff so i just want to get if there's anything that resonates based on what you heard and kind of in review and if not we can move on but i definitely i just want to say i just thought i mean you know i think we're ready i think we're ready to do this like like you know i i feel good about what i heard in that conversation everyone was contributing i feel like everyone is in the same direction and we're in the same path and and i think that um you know uh whoever edited that together made us sound super smart and together as a group and um you know i

023think sometimes as we are having these conversations we don't get a chance to reflect um and really kind of hear it it was good for me to again hear my colleagues and kind of listen again to their perspective and where they're coming from and um you know it just it just for me personally reinvigorates me to get ready to have this conversation good okay a couple thumbs up okay good so then and it's good to hear too uh in terms of everyone being on the same page uh because it's gonna be the things that you all are saying that you want to see it's not going to be easy work and so we have to you know start to unpack what does it look like to give every student what they need what is that

024what does that mean you know an operational level so okay so i'm going to attempt to reshare and see if i can still see you all let's see can can you see my um can you still see the screen yes okay and i can't see you anymore so i guess that's what it's going to be today so that's okay um i will call on people dr blue so board members or you can put it in the chat if you have a question i'll expand my screen so i can see all of you but i know some of you are off screen so just uh chat okay that'll work thank you very much so this is just you know some of the uh takeaways that i had just in watching again watching through the entire video

025as well as the highlights but i just wanted to point out some of the things that you all uh talked about uh in the video so you know obviously keeping the focus and when we talked about that before that focus and alignment so keeping the focus on the pursuit of equity um using equity as a tool to get to equality so thinking about equity in terms of inputs and equality in terms of outcomes and we can we'll get into that some more and um president of there you may want to you know if you want to clarify any of that but that's kind of um you know a good way to think about equity as well um getting people to the line you know realizing that we're not that everyone is not starting at the

026same place and for us we're still just trying to get students to the line not just not just thinking about the big picture but also how do we get everyone to that starting place of of kind of being in the same place the community responsibility the fact that it can't just be the board or the district but that we have to engage our partners other institutions you know be that or other systems um you know higher ed you know healthcare like all the things that impact students and families we have to all kind of work together uh to really impact equity in those various ways that students are impacted uh being visionary having a push pushing each other pushing the pushing you know ourselves pushing our partners pushing our legislators so just that whole idea

027of being advocate advocates the fact that education has been designed to teach black and brown students how to follow directions and that was something that i got some other feedback on from other people to say wow i hadn't thought about it that way and um you know there's something to that to kind of starting to unpack the if i could just stick to that for a moment unless things have changed dramatically in the classroom um it's my belief that all students have been taught to follow directions and to follow bells and to do those kinds of things and it's unfortunate and i think that needs to change for all students okay um the mention of the power privilege paradigm and part of that you know kind of unpacking the systemic racism piece and you know

028other aspects uh that have impacted education addressing trauma social emotional health and then the question what are we willing to sacrifice as a board as board members even for the superintendent for us as employees you know what are we willing willing to sacrifice in order to really reach that goal uh the work um the idea that we have that has to be embedded so that it doesn't matter if if the seven of you are still sitting in this these seats in 20 years or we have new other you know new superintendent new chief equity officer whatever that looks like down the line that we still have this same this culture of equity and that focus on equity the extent the expectations and the metrics that uh board member cole said this is the start we

029we have real metrics impact data not just we had x number of students show up at a thing but what is the impact of the work that we're doing in terms of equity and so having that laser focus and just really having that responsibility to to support it with that final question being are we going to be the board that and you kind of heard all the things that board member raglan said in terms of you know what are we really willing to do to really support not just support but be advocates for being the the actors and not just the reactors in terms of the equity work so can i just add one quick thing that last thing is um really inspiring me are we willing to are we going to be the board

030and i think that it's exciting at the thought that we are going to be the board and i am you know i'm really excited about being so intentional and so open about this discussion that we're recognizing a um what james said about how hard it's going to be and we have to really be resolved and be but the flip side of that is we are the board that does this and that's um that's pretty exciting stuff and i i just wanted to share that i'm excited yes and something to be proud of too to say that yes this was the board that did this really great work okay so then i want to move to using our looking at our mission and kind of using that as a primer for our discussion to dive into

031equity so um if our mission is that each student is highly educated prepared for leadership and service and empowered for success as a as a citizen of in a global community what does that mean we have to do so that is each student each student is highly educated each student is prepared for leadership each student is prepared for service each student is empowered for success and whose definition of success is that because that's another question and then the idea of thinking about being global citizens so how do we help each student think about their work much broader way and not just you know the street that they live on the school that they go to but the bigger picture of living as a global citizen so how do we really you know really turn that

032into actionable steps and thinking about equity because each student being the piece so in the homework that you all did for the last meeting one of the things that we asked that i asked was what is your definition of equity so um so we put it into a little wordle so you can kind of see what things stand out and so you can ignore obviously the word equity because everyone put the word equity in their definition but just look and you know kind of add some of the words that came out because you only saw your own definition so you don't know at this point necessarily what others have stated their definition is and so just any feedback you all have as you look at it in a visual way the things that you all

033are are seeing in terms of equity as a board yes dr blue um in my opinion the word black should be mentioned specifically in this majority of this district is black students the disparate outcomes negatively impact black students more than others and so we're really going to be equitable we must address those that have fallen victim to the inequities of this district for far too long and you must address that with specificity and so that is the only thing that i think is missing here everything else i most definitely agree with but if you're not dealing with the issues of black students very specifically then you are falling short in defining an equity vision for a city school district that is predominantly black yeah i agree with james but i think that if that is

034included that there are other groups that have been significantly disadvantaged over time such as those with disabilities such as the latinx community such as lgbtq individuals and i don't know that we can focus on one only without bringing everybody up the speed up to an equity standard my response to you board member brown is yes uh the reason we're after this is having um other subgroups uh to be a part of this discussion but you must address the major wound first and that that type of of discussion is it's the same discussion we're having in the public around black lives matter versus all lives matter it's the exact same discussion to me because black folks are the ones that are seeing the disparate outcomes more than any other group in this district more than any

035other group and they have been for decades now whole economies are built upon the disparate outcomes for black students in districts like columbus and others around the country and if you're not focusing with specificity on that particular group then you're falling short what happens with black people is we get thrown in with every other subgroup in the issues related to our advancement gets watered down because we're dealing with the issues for everybody else and so as we look at this um i believe that black students should be mentioned very specifically uh and that's just that's just my opinion i'm not disagreeing uh with with all that you have that all of you that you have said i'm not saying that those groups don't deserve attention i'm saying we've caught it more than everybody else on

036the negative side and we need to address our issues specifically because the majority of this district are black students thank you boomerang let me jump in just uh can we please use the chat so i can call on you since dr blue can't see um so we're gonna have i think uh vice president reyes unmuted so i i feel that you want to see some but dr pierce did right in the chat so we're gonna go with dr pierce then we'll come back to vice president reyes thank you so much president of there i hope you guys can hear me good as you can see i'm outside um as i was doing the homework and just preparing for today's meeting what i appreciated when we brought up the discussion primer in showing our district mission

037is how much it aligns to the whole child approach and so as i look at the last slide that you put up that showed again our district mission and i look at this slide how are we defining equity i'm circling all those words that show that our kids are supported that our kids are engaged that our kids are challenged that our kids are safe that our kids are healthy so for me what i appreciate about these two slides in our discussion so far is that we're really taking a holistic approach in ensuring that our students are going to be successful in ensuring that we're thinking about equity from a a larger perspective that appreciates all of our communities and so not taking anything away from james but uh board member raglan but it does bring

038into i think the the focus that all students matter the way we're looking at it right now dr pierce vice president reyes thank you so dr blue i um so in in looking at the slide and hearing what government raglan just stated i see the lbgtal community mentioned on here i see the undocumented immigrant uh community uh mentioned on this slide um but what i don't see is the um are special that or children with disability is on there vice president reyes but i also will remind you all that these are the definitions that your colleague you all this is your these are your definitions so i didn't write but copy and paste them right right so i was just following up on this comment just that you know as as they were going um

039discussing as to what was missing right but that's what i see that's not technically from the discussion so when you see this word here ability do you see that in a different way oh there you go um sorry it's i'm trying to see it on my on my screen is poverty on there osteo socio right there would be uh equivalent of poverty socio economics is what i'm assuming that that refers to i assume yeah i think it might have gotten um displaced from its other half okay because socio is not that's that's that's a micro term it's it's tied to something else so yeah you can correct that so um can i just want to make a quick comment um the way i see this is kind of more in line with what dr pierce

040was saying that in reality what this is demonstrating is and kind of supports what james remember raglan was saying as well it's really that we have to look at equity through the lens of intersectionality as well because if you just look at black students which we are a majority of not all black students still need the same thing and so these also put different lenses up so you have you know black a black student or a of any rat a student of a race plus gender plus a sexual orientation plus a status and it's really all of that and when we start to talk about data and accountability and it's really talking about disaggregating that data to looking deeper in those subgroups to like dig in and find the inequity that's what i see in

041this definition it actually i see what the conversations we've been having around like data and things like that that's what i see in these words that are from the word bubble thank you for saying that uh president adair because that's exactly the point i wanted to uh bring up next which is we this is we're looking at just how will we define equity in a kind of a broader sense so that it's not so limited that schools that may have a may have other needs aren't able to still see themselves in our definition of equity and the data that we use to think about are our systems our schools our classrooms equitable those things will they will show out what what the needs are so we will have african american students who um maybe um

042you know still have to be still have needs around their sexual orientation or around the family structure so it's not that we're saying these other things but not race it's just that we also have to think about what other aspects of identity because where those of us who are black are not only black we are also other things but there are also uh other aspects where folks still need to um have equitable outcomes who are also who aren't just black or who have other needs even inside of being african-american so any other comments about this before we dig into the specifics of you all's definitions so here are just some of the actual um kind of copied um definitions of things that you all the statements that you all made so i added the the

043bold myself the things that really stood out from what you all said but i just wanted to kind of go through these a little bit so we talked about resource allocation and that that came up uh quite a bit and so when you think about how you're defining equity and looking at the fact that we have goals and guardrails around you know as was mentioned around whole child around resource equity um around equitable opportunities we have to be able to define it in the way that can still get to all of those things so does anyone want to we we have a couple of these slides that just has just all of you all's um thoughts around the definition but anybody want to react to what you see here or if your definition is is

044here and you want to speak on it in any in any other way so are these these are all things that we agree i'll take the silence as consent can i just ask a quick question yes sorry these are these are all have been lifted from our last conversation they were lifted from the actual homework oh okay all right right right right yes so the only thing that was added was the bold that i added [Music] so access to opportunities resources is mentioned quite a bit education academic success social well social emotional well-being the only one i'd comment on is the second which obviously is the longest and when we say what they need to come throughout their educational journey uh to maximize academic success it doesn't identify what the end point is and i

045hope that we're not talking about k-12 and high school graduation and diploma but we want them to have the tools to continue to be successful in academics and otherwise uh beyond mere high school graduation you're right it doesn't say though so it could be you know it can be seen either way or we could even take out academic and just have maximized success that that's another approach lifelong success uh thank you um first and foremost uh i did i did put a thought into the chat a little earlier that said as a start definition of equity um i think it's important that we understand as this institution we employ nearly 10 000 folks and uh equity should be something across the board that is systemic and not only just for our students but also for

046our staff um i think that's super important to include them in that um i think that there are far too often instant instances where certainly i've gotten feedback from our employees that there is a parity issue in how certain enclaves of employees are treated versus others um so i just want to make sure we're including our staff in that um i like the lifelong concept uh but we do also have a vision that i think even speaks more succinctly to the areas of impact we are trying to make on the life of a student in terms of destination preparedness for destination that being the workforce uh your own business the military or higher education um so i i just i think we speak to that already but i do like the lifelong piece um i

047also want us to think practically i really do um i think one of the things that really frustrates me particularly being a parent and a board member is i know what i put into my kids i know what i did i know what me and my wife have put into our kids and what it took for us and continues to take for us to ensure that they're prepared to be in a classroom and do what they're supposed to do period and the report i just so all of this kind of creating this thought like we're carrying them for the rest of their lives when that that that's i'd say if anything that's you know maybe 45 35 of our job and the rest is theirs and their families but it does not mean that we

048don't go all out for our children in terms of ensuring the accessibilities the resources the investments the operational pieces um that ensure what we're trying to have them become and grow into and be provided i just i just always caution myself to to be practical pragmatic in my approach to how we design our language and what what we're trying to actually do and that is not something you know so next thing you know somebody'll be saying well where are they 20 years from now well we covered them from pre-k to 12 and actually with some partnerships a few years after that where's their role and responsibility and i don't mean to sound insensitive i promise you i'm just being practical um that's all i have at this point okay so i'm gonna go to the

049next slide because it has some other doctor pierce has a comment okay thank you so much president adair um so i think academic success is important because we are a school district that is charged to educate our students and to this point we have not with intentionality stated that we want academic success academic success is very different from lifelong success and so i think it's important that as we we say that students are the center and students are the focus that focus also has to be around academic success i can concur and if i could i'm not suggesting that that it not be a focus on academic success but that i think we are also obligated to provide the tools that our students upon graduation can continue to learn and can continue to be successful

050in life and that's something that we're obligated to provide not only academic achievement in high school but the ability to do all these other things in their lives and in higher education included so we're preparing them to live in the world in the classroom but i would also add that if you teach a student through maximizing their academics that they can be autonomous lifelong learners you've achieved you've maximized their academic success because they don't need you to then teach them how to learn they know how to teach themselves how to learn i was i was actually going to say something similar that in really it's what is the definition of academic success and you know if we're if i mean and i mean that is our sole purpose our sole mission is education is to

051give our students academics um and a lot of other stuff have filtered into school that we are responsible for now but that is our true heart and soul mission and so um you know it but we have to define that i think someone said that earlier what is what's actually what does that actually mean to us and so you know um i'm okay with with having it be that but also mean something a little bit broader but i i mean i agree with what dr pierce said i mean part of the academic success is that we teach our students that there there is a purpose and a point to learning and we teach in the process to learn and back to what board member brown said we get away from education that is just about

052teaching them to follow directions and follow bells right it's a meaningful impactful academic program that going back to the word rigor that's rigorous but that rigor see the rigor though pushes them past the line which is what we want that's our v we want them there um and so this definition i do like because it does talk about getting them to the line and then getting them through the line um but i agree with what dr pierce was just saying around that that idea of academic success and back to our true mission so the uh the interesting thing that i want to put a pin in for the moment but that i would like to come back to has to do with uh the question of does our definition of equity only includes students so

053it brings in what board member call said but then also there was a a comment in the chat around whether or not the um actually i don't know if i'll find it now but whether or not it's enough to just uh model what we want um for adults or or should we be that intentional with all with the adults in order to really bring about a a shift in our organizational culture because if you think about equity can you really have equity for students without the mechanism around it also being equitable so how how would we produce equitable outcomes for students if we don't also have equity within our systems because that's how we treat teachers that's how we train that's how we do all of our work so that there has to be some

054aspect of that too at the organizational level so um so here's here's another one this is the second slide so equity means we provide resources access opportunity to those who need it and not to those who do not um the impact of equity is measured by an improvement to individual success identifying eliminating institutional bias rectifying the system cause disparities and so that gets to some of the racial uh inequities that uh board member raglan talked about also so what what what think it's now um on those two those two pieces and then of course the piece about making sure students have what they need to be successful in the classroom and beyond um we need to unpack that more because there there's a lot inside of that sentence we we need to kind of put

055more parameters or more meat on what that means if i could respond briefly to just the first point there i'm not real comfortable with it saying that we're not going to provide resources access opportunity to those who i guess are not in special need of it but we could say that we provide additional or supplemental or more resources access to those who most need it but that just that phrase not to those who do not it just bothers me can you unpack that a little bit in terms of what what about it gets under your skin it sounds to me as though we're not going to provide any resources any access or opportunities to stop students who don't fall into the category of black or otherwise disadvantaged as we're defining that um and and that's

056obviously not true we're going to provide resources and access and opportunity to all students but the amount of it is going to vary depending on a student's needs that are going to receive nothing i agree i think it's a very subjective negative closing i think it's subjective in that it almost is judgmental to what member brown just stated it it's it's creating even more of an intentional kind of caste system at the end of the day we want to ensure that all of our students and staff have what they need based on our investments based on our policies based on every generative part of what we do and what the district is responsible for daily that they have it to achieve optimum success and for us as an organization that's an aspirational achievement this is

057designed to be aspirational over time dr blue made the accurate statement and saying that this is something that should live beyond this board of education and into future as a precedent that has been established about fairness accessibility and opportunity in the district so i agree it's negative it's subjective um i don't like it either board member raglan has a comment thank you madam president thank you colleagues i am i would say that um we cannot begin this discussion acting as if we're going to achieve equity by giving everybody the same thing that is not how we got to the inequitable culture that we are operating in right now and we are not going to get out of it by doing the same thing um that we have always done and if you begin to tell

058people oh we're gonna we're gonna fix our equity problem and everybody's gonna get the same thing then it allows for us to have the same wiggle room that has gotten us into this predicament over the last several decades um and and this is this is what i would you know this is what i am challenging all of us to understand and accept right if you're six feet tall and you can see over the fence you don't need a block to stand on so the person that needs the block to stand over to see over the fence they're going to get it and you're not and i think we have to understand that within this district um resources have been devoted for a very long time to those that could organize to those that had access

059to those that had privilege and power and resources did not go to those that did not have that same access that did not have that same voice and we have to acknowledge that and there we can't dance around it we can't sugarcoat that we've got to say the way that we've allocated resources to date has led to negative student outcomes for a specific group of students and others if the response to this is to add the word additional somewhere in that phrase then i would say yes but i'm not going to go into this saying everybody's gonna get the same thing and we're going to achieve equity uh as a district with finite resources that's not how it works some schools some areas of town have the ability to give their students what they need

060regardless of what we do financially or governance wise anyway it's the difference between it's the difference between a middle school band booster club getting their bake sale sponsored by panera because a parent is an executive in another school on the other side of town not even having a middle school band so we need to correct that i i hear what you're saying uh mr raglan let me let me offer you the counter alternative and really what i believe is the spirit tone antenna of what we're saying what we're saying is is that equity is understanding that everybody's not going to get the same thing so for example maybe one of our schools on the northwest side or in clintonville has better programs has better resources but maybe the buildings are not optimum well we've got

061brand new buildings and renovations that you know are fairly fairly new at the east at a starling k-8 uh you know any number of schools that have experienced renovations and opportunities so look at this much more broadly not just in terms of classroom offerings extracurriculars but also again the entire span of what it is that we provide and how it is provided i am not saying i michael is not saying that we just gonna make sure everybody gets everything you know equal you know everybody's gonna get the same thing that's not the case we know where there needs to be certain investments in certain things and we know where uh there needs to be other investments for other places for other students even if you break those students down into subgroups i.e disability students with

062disabilities african-american students students who have behavioral or social emotional issues so i i just i want to be clear that i i am in personal belief that we are not saying every kid is going to get the same thing it's an intentional and i'm i'm sick of kind of using that word right now because everybody's using it's almost becoming a punchline but let me just say it straight i think that our intentional investment in making sure that we are looking at and evaluating constantly what students need whether it's facilities what have you like we've been doing for god knows how many years now we can step the game up and actually make it something that's a part of our philosophy that's a part of our policy and that's a part of our practice and culture

063so i i hear what you're saying but i disagree vehemently i'm not saying every kid is gonna get the same thing um so i i agree with the way this conversation is going right now so maybe so i think that we all we all want every student in our district to have that academic success so the outcome that we want is the same for all but because people are not starting at the same place we have to use the idea of equity whether that be resources access opportunity whatever that is we're going to use that tool differently depending on the the child the situation the building the whatever the need is so that we can make that adjustment so that everyone can get to the outcome of academic president i just i think the big

064thing too is that we need to be a little more forward-looking than equity we need to be a little further reaching than that i think that's an opportunity for us to be entrepreneurial and seize the moment take us above and beyond because we thinking past equity y'all have heard me say it before but yeah don't so liberation that's all liberation i hear you i hear you and that's right but we we can't get there and so that's the next step and that's when we have to start to look at and that's what i like about the second definition about the identifying eliminating that bias because we're never going to get to liberation or justice until we do that but first we got to get everyone to the line so it's it is stepped it's stepped

065and we have to we can't do it by ourselves and that goes back to the other conversation but i wanted to bring in that second definition around the idea that you highlighted about that identifying and eliminating institutional and systemic bias and you know we i mean we we we issued a pretty strong statement you guys i mean i don't think we're scared to say uh you know institutional racism uh systemic racism systemic bias uh i don't think we're scared um you know we just have to figure out the the way that we're gonna you know kind of put it together so that we can actually take action steps to address it right absolutely so i want to um so those are the definitions that you all uh lifted in terms of just for yourself what

066is the definition of equity so so we'll we'll kind of you know pull all these things together but i really just wanted to start with how are you conceiving of equity so that when we bring together a definition it's something that everyone can agree on or at least you know get behind or or you know see their own definition inside of but i wanted to kind of move into this next piece and it goes into something that dr pierce mentioned and i found this quote not too long ago and thought you know what this this really brings that rigor piece together when we talk about equity and excellence so the quote reads we must promote both excellence and equity we must view the two as inseparable excellence without equity is not excellence is privilege and

067equity without excellence is not equity it's tokenism so what do you all think about that that's a and it's not a definition of equity per se but it's definitely a way to think about equity in terms of what are we how are we thinking about it as a school district it also applies to a it can apply to adults and students so it kind of goes back it goes back to the thing michael was talking about i'm sorry for remember cole was talking about um about the stake of the student in this or the or the professional right and so that's when we're saying that excellence without equity is not excellence it's privileged so remember privilege i don't get charged up on that word privilege is really just something that's given to you that's not

068earned right unearned something unearned and so you know i to me this is speaking to that idea that students in our case the student also has a big stake in this they have they're going to earn it along with us right our communities are going to do it too they're going to we all got to be in that in that together and then we aren't this is hard work we're not just handing people things right this is very intentional um we aren't uh just you know giving out handouts or anything like that and that's that kind of tokenism idea um and so to me this kind of brings in that idea of both the rigor but also the role of the student and our community in the concept of equity and also think about the

069fact that when we think about excellence it also means um what is the quality of our professionals in terms of really helping our students to get to that place you know in each of our departments how are we um really striving for excellence in all that we do and it really uh it really does um kind of speak to reducing just having pockets of excellence so we have really great folks in this department are really great teachers in this school who are doing these things or that things we need it to be part of our entire system the way that we work and that's why i brought up the point earlier in terms of can you have an equitable classroom or school without also having an equitable system so we have to think about excellence

070equity is a part of that otherwise we're not really reaching um the goal that we set for every student or every you know individual and in terms of tokenism having equity without excellence is not uh it's being tokenism means that we're we're only looking at uh we we may have lower expectations for students or lower expectations for you know one group over another and that doesn't serve our students well regardless of if we're talking about um that within our employees or within um our classrooms so um board member brown do you want to raise your point happy happy to um when i when i read this kind of thing it's it's certainly quotable and the words balance nicely and that's why i suggested it's more sloganism than anything else i don't know what a statement

071like this does what should we do about this and i think we need to focus on the the tangible steps that we can take and um you know it's something that nobody could really disagree with much but i just don't see it as having um much meaning yes we do want excellence and we do want equity uh if i if i may i will say this is not a definition of equity this is a way for you to think about how we approach our work and i absolutely think that it's something that is um you know beyond just a slogan because african-american students to board member raglan's point have been the victims of equity without excellence and they this is absolutely where you find yourself if you're not always thinking about equity in terms of

072excellence not just what can we do for this student and giving them what they need how do we produce scholars and excellence and really bring the status of the district up to the vision that we have for all of our students it's a way to think about how we do our work that really will keep both things top of mind that isn't it's not automatically that way for people all the time and perhaps i just you know i know that academic excellence is part of our fundamental mission and job and that's something that as a district and as individual board members i think we all uh focus on it it's fundamental um equity um in my view means that we're going to adjust how we've been doing things very intentionally in a different way that

073we're not going to be provided this providing the same thing to all but we want every student to achieve excellence and we need to give disproportionate resources and help to some students rather than others which is equity in order to achieve excellence for all i don't know that we can assume that everyone thinks about excellence in that way or that everyone has the same definition i don't know that i would speak on others assumptions about excellence personally and you may be right and i defer to others i just make a comment i think that we have to be really careful and intentional with our own language in this space um because this is gonna be hard this work is hard and uh when we when we say like remember i know you didn't really mean

074it this way but disproportionate resources um that's not really what you meant you you know you meant that they're gonna get it is unequal but it's not disproportionate to the need and so we have to be really careful in our language and the way that we talk about how we're going to go about this because it it does it will feel negative and that's back to board member raglan's point to some members of our of our community because they will they will be getting something different um or they feel is different so i i just want to if we as a group could work on our language um and we all could do that i mean i know i can do it as well um i think that that will that will help us as

075a community uh have better words and language around this idea of equity i agree uh perhaps an equal might have been a better word but i guess for me uh much of this is kind of first draft and uh and you know it gets refined through this process uh where we all help each other get to uh what we really intend to say so um one of you also uh added this as a definition and it was recently used by the white house of a definition of equity and i'll just read it for those who may not um be able to see the screen the term equity means the consistent and systemic fair just and impartial treatment of all individuals including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment as in

076black latino indigenous native american persons asian american pacific islanders and other persons of color members of religious minorities lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer persons persons with disabilities persons who live in rural areas and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality so obviously the white house has to have a very large definition of equity and we talked about some of these things uh already but i just wanted to throw it out there as um just to see what you know just even from our government's perspective what the what the white house has put out as the way that they are going to be um viewing equity in case that uh helps to inform anything that we may think about in terms of our policies or how we think about certain things so i

077can i'll um go on to there to just one last definition or conception which is the one that you know we've been kind of talking through in the past which is equity is reached when we've removed the predictability of success or failure that currently correlates with any social or cultural factor and it does bring in all the aspects that were in the last definition it also you know i think it covers some of the things that we've talked about you all may want something that is more specific but this is also a definition that um kind of leans on the fact that it's not just about if you are a person who fits into this group but it's about removing the predictability of the success or failure of any group which is the work of

078equity it's not just about you know focusing on a protected class per se it's also about how do we ensure that if you are a person who fits into any of these groups you are not automatically assumed to be successful or automatically assumed to not be successful which is what the data the current data shows that those are our current realities so um so that is the thing that i like about this definition there are two comments uh one from board member becker lee and then board member raglan um i like this approach too because it's measurable we'll know we've gotten there when our um students who are members of any of these groups their their success and their membership in the group don't correlate any longer i don't know if it affects or how

079we would address it and or utilize this approach in terms of our entire organization being equitable in terms of adults but the other thought i had is that we could keep the first part of this we have removed the predictability or failure that currently correlates with and rather than any social or cultural factor to address um board member cole and board member raglan's point about you need to be specific and put it in there and then go back and pick up all the definitions of groups that the white house used so we said that currently correlates with any membership in one or more of the following groups and then just pick up that huge list that broad-based list it might be a way to um make sure we're not uh what that were being explicit

080and and also coming up with um because this is how we measure the equity to begin with so and using that as the definition for knowing when we've solved it might be um it seems like there's a certain uh precision to it but i know this isn't a precise area so i probably would want to reserve the right to think about it a little more but i like that thought now let me ask if others can you see where uh do you see that there may be um uh that we i'm sorry let me let me refocus my question do you see adults fitting into this definition or this conception of equity um before you answer dr blue's question we did have board member raglan who wanted to comment and me and then i'm sorry

081thank you and vice president i will yield to dr blue's flow uh on that i i think i think that's a very poignant part of the conversation and i'd like for us to delve into that before i make my statement if that's okay sure so then i'll just go to vice president reyes to see what she had and then we'll go back so i think that maybe i don't answer it you know i just forgot the question um so being on the board a while and i think um president derek just mentioned it the issue of skipping missing a sub group a social a cultural uh an age sub group has always been um difficult when you talk about equity uh we ran into that when we changed our um our answer is discrimination statement

082uh when you're adding a subgroup and then people come back just kind of like that first slide when we're trying to figure out what group was missing um so it's it's um i'm really interested to see how do we capture um i see the importance of why we need to mention the groups because it's important but i also fear every time we change a policy or change what we're saying that we miss a group or we miss somebody um because we are being intentional uh about calling it out you know just like you know we called it out earlier so how do we call it out uh but still be encompassing of um what we're trying to get uh madam president can i respond sure um i i don't i don't believe that we can

083talk around it uh to to answer your question or vice president reyes um i think we we have to say it for what it is and do it and then everybody else is going to have to come along either willingly or kicking and screaming there is no way that we can achieve equity without angering someone else the issue is the disenfranchised people the victims of the inequity have not had a voice see everybody was okay with black folks being disenfranchised that's why we're here today until black folks started standing up for themselves and so hey we we can say well well let's not mention a specific subgroup because we can't fit everybody into that conversation well everybody's not catching the same negativity as we are and we're this this other conceptions of equity uh example

084that we've been given from the national equity project is very poignant to me equity is reached when we have removed the predictability of success or failure hard stop there because in many ways we have whole systems in our country that are built upon the predictability of success or failure of schools whole industries are growing and prospering because they are able to predict the success or failure of young people and really why this task for us is so heavy is because we have to be intentional in attacking that and we can't soft shoe it we have to say the school to prison pipeline is real and we're not standing for it any longer we have to say black people are filling up prisons all over the nation more than any other group here in the united

085states and it starts in school districts urban school districts all over the country and we're not going to stand for it any longer and then we have to just not say it we've got to do it and we've said it forever we just haven't done it we we leave ourselves room to get out of it and i think what we have engaged in in listen we can agree disagree on certain points but i do believe that what we have engaged in is one of the first steps to actually getting it done and i don't care if other governmental entities want to come with us on this this cannot be about talk any longer because a lot of folks are going to talk a good game and if they want to be a part of the

086results if we want to see the outcomes for the groups that have been disenfranchised then they can come along with us on the outcomes but don't stand up somewhere with me on a press conference and then when i see you vote where you are you're voting against everything that we just stood for those days are gone now we see it manifesting on the streets we just saw it all last year this nation burned because those days are over and it does start with us we hold people's most precious resource in our hands every single day our main task is to develop them into quality individuals that pay taxes at the very least they grow up they get a job they get a career they own a business and they pay taxes they don't do anything

087else we will have succeeded if we arm them with a diploma that says that they can do that in the days of talking around it at least for me should be over and i think what this is right here is literally the work to me you remove the predictive the predictability of success or failure hey we will have done a job thank you boy remember raglan i'm sorry uh was there someone else who wanted to make a comment um board member cole put a comment in the chat okay so there was just some um some other suggestions for how we could add to this particular definition uh one was to add language that includes any group for which there's a negative correlation between membership and success and another suggestion was saying that district students and

088staff most impacted by systemic racism implicit bias disenfranchisement etc so the only thing about both of those still have that same idea of focusing on the kind of a deficit way of looking at equity and the whole idea is that predictability of success is just as important because that's how you call out institutional racism because there are students they are predictable predictably successful because they have more resources because they are born you know um because they of whatever their ethnicity is where they live those things that is also important to call out we are trying to eliminate that predictability as well in order to get to the outcome as president adair mentioned in terms of equal outcomes for all of our students so that also goes back to the resource question we talked about a

089little bit ago yes zip code all of those things so we can quit we came oh sorry i did get my video back i was gonna suggest some of the language here i think overly generalizes about people that are in these different groups and and i think we need to be careful to to avoid that yes we can look at at some by group and say this group has been um disadvantaged has been uh disenfranchised but i think we also have to in the process acknowledge that some have done extremely well despite those things and in other groups some have done poorly uh despite those things and not uh always generalized to the groups that's why we have data and that's what we'll keep coming back to the data will tell us who we have

090to focus on and how remember has a comment okay can you hear me now um actually i was about to say um largely uh what dr blue said but i think that um eric's point um while accurate uh is is um [Music] a concern in the sense of there are generalities there are uh persistent troubling um data as dr blue just suggested that um we can't it's too we've been guilty for too long i think of saying well not every um black child uh does badly or not every white child does well hence this isn't a problem so i think we have to be really careful about that language because it is a problem and um we that's why we're here and we all know that i mean we all agree so let's um shift

091a little bit to think about what are the non-negotiables so one of the questions that i asked and actually something that um board member raglan said kind of was a good segue into this but i asked in your original you know quote unquote homework what are some of the things that absolutely have to be included if we're thinking about a definition of equity or a policy or a vision for equity you have to see this thing whatever this aspect is included in order to support moving forward with it so i wanted to review some of those so we can talk about them to see what are our real non-negotiables so these are the things that you all said and if if these are all the things then these are all the things but i also

092want to do a little just a quick um little um voting activity to see where are our priorities around these aspects so so here is the the list um here's the list so these are some of the things that we set our non-negotiables for our equity work so i'll just let you all just kind of read that for a minute and then because we have i think there was one there's seven of them so i tried to um come pack them down but make sure that every voice every voice is non-negotiable was heard so let's just kind of talk through these first three so we know that a doctor or i mean a board member excuse me raglan mentioned being specific about and actually board member brown said to be uh specific about language uh

093that intentionality even though maybe that's not the word board member colt would use but being intentional rather than using racially coded language when we talk about who is it that we're serving who is it that we're um whose inequities are we trying to address were you asking me a question dr blue not at all i'm just asking if anyone has any reactions to our non-negoti to the first three non-negotiables uh for me uh and i believe i was one said the first but um for me i think it's super important to make sure that we embed uh this concept of equity and it's it's evolution ideally into something that removes all barriers that we we very very definitively state opposition in support of that um it's interesting because i i hear what uh what james

094is saying on the use of the term black um uh it if as a as a black man in this country um it it hold it resonates uh very potently with me um but i also realize that for me what helps me overstand that to an extent not not not removing my personal pride of my blackness let's be clear what it means for me though is that there still is a need to exhibit compassion wisdom uh love good direction to our other students the other you know 50 some odd percent or excuse me 40 some odd percent of the district that is not african american or you know african diaspora i think it's super important that we look at all of the barriers that we've addressed and face whether they are racial whether they are

095implicitly biased and those who understand implicit bias understand it is how our own brains based on our personal experiences our wounds our successes have shaped our way of filling in gaps about people even beyond a stereotype so now when you think of implicit bias like that how you are psychologically neurologically wired now you know everybody's in some way shape form or fashion impacted by that paradigm of thinking when you think about economic disparity this is a very real barrier of success for students some in some instances to get to school in some instances to be prepared to be in school and i think the initiatives we've taken to ensure breakfast and lunch and all of that and i think we can take greater steps moving forward there's still much work to be done at the

096end of the day um this encapsulate this this encapsulates not just african american or black students it encapsulates a great majority of our students um i just wanna you know ain't nothing gonna stop me from being black and having to pay taxes in this country until i die and i don't mean to say that facetiously but i'm serious um but at the end of the day in my role i feel responsible for all of our kids i feel it's my responsibility to let all of them know in my role i love them i want to encourage them i demand the best out of you it is a demand so um and i and that's for their families and also for our staff so i this whole using the word black i just that's that's what

097that's what takes me away from it is the fact that i feel like we don't give the other broader group their respect and their their dignity and acknowledgement um i'll close with this uh how we treat the least of us whether we say it or not whether we say it or not the best that we give towards each person period i think reinforces the idea of equity in the district the more that we make this and embed this as a practice as a value as a set of virtues as a demand for action as my brother james is so eloquently stated throughout this and other meetings um i think that's where we we we live up to that tenet of equity that benefits everyone and not just a certain enclave of kids but at the

098end of the day kids gonna have to step it up too kids are gonna have to step down on the violence too kids are gonna have to take some responsibility to to do what we're training them up to do and their families got to be engaged in that as well so that's why in closing it's so important for this to be a value set and a priority of action for us moving forward that doesn't just isolate any one large particular group of students but encapsulates everyone with a sense of compassion with a sense of wisdom with a sense of rigor with a sense of success and wanting the best for those students and staff in mind thank you so this list um thank you bart miracle is these are non-negotiables that each of you may

099have brought up so this is not to say that this is definitely going in this is one person's opinion so that is i just want to be clear as we react to each of these okay so we don't have to necessarily we're not saying that this is going in or not going in these are non-negotiables that were lifted by each of you so aside from that piece about you know calling out the rate that piece we've already talked about that is there anything other any other thing that anyone wants to bring up about these three um i think that uh the embedded concept is really important and i think shying on what we should even setting aside the discussion about whether we're explicit about using the word black or not we have to be prepared

100to use explicit language and talk directly about it um and that's critical and then the last thought i had is i think that um i'm not sure it'll be necessary in the end to describe the difference between equity and quality and state our position and supportive equity as much as it is to make sure what we come up with clearly addresses those distinctions and so that this non-negotiable it conceptually needs to be part of the inherent in the end result even if we don't have a section that says this is equity this is equality these are the differences because the concept is important okay okay uh thank you madam president i i i do want to comment on bullet three um i believe as the educational arm for this city and in many ways the

101greater central ohio area it is incumbent upon us to educate the public on the difference between equity and equality we will do that through our example but i do believe that as educators we need to clearly um make that description publicly known so that each and every member of uh of this city each and every resident in this city in this general area understands what it means there is a huge difference between equity and equality and if we're going to engage in correcting the broader issue we must first educate in being at the forefront of using um our educational tools our communications apparatus uh our our willingness to partner with other uh governmental and non-governmental entities uh in correcting all of the challenges that we're trying to correct with this i think that is one

102of the first places that we should start there should be a public engagement campaign on establishing what the difference is between equity and equality so that there will be no mistaking what it is that we are attempting to do and what it is that we are going to do the whether the public is willfully ignorant on this or not i think that's kind of what what remember becker lee was getting to when she said we we may not need to describe it because yes um we feel like a lot of people should know but a lot of people one don't know a lot of people are willfully ignorant in misinterpreting the difference between equity and equality as well and so the only thing that's going to change that is public education and public pressure and

103i think that that is something we need a public relations campaign uh on describing that difference and that should be a part of what it is that we're doing in bringing this policy to bear thank you for uh allowing me to speak dr blue go ahead boy member brown and then i'll make a comment after that uh thank you i i completely agree with what james just had to say um you know this is something that i too have been asserting for a long time and uh i agree that uh for whatever reason uh the majority of the public just doesn't get it whether that's wealth or not i don't know but it's just one of those things that's unfortunate when you talk fairness you'll get people to say that's not fair and yet they

104may or may not be talking about fair in the equitable sense or in the equal sense and uh so i think it is incumbent upon us to do that with respect to the second bullet as i re read it and re-read it uh while it's up on the screen um you know i agree completely that we have to be courageous and not let criticism or public pressure or pressure from anybody dissuade us from going through this course and we must be very specific and intentional about the words we use um the word black is obviously a good example but it's not the only example and i think we should just broaden this bullet a bit to make sure that it's other words that might otherwise be controversial and there are lots of those and there

105are times where in the process of uh working through this policy development and uh and then later through making the policy come true that we may need to use uh language that is um bothersome to some people and if it's necessary then we shouldn't shy away from it thank you for that and i will say too in terms of the third bullet we are this is not necessarily for the definition but within the policy within the plan we are absolutely going to um distinguish between equity and equality because it's easy to once you're kind of going down the road of the work to be using the word equity but the acting in terms of equality and so we have to do that i think even just for us to stay clear so i think that

106that's a non-negotiable that for me it would already be a part of the work that we're doing because it is going to be important and especially because of the points that we made before about what happens when you know x y or z group you know um comes to complain about feeling like they're not getting what they feel is their fair share we have to be able to talk about equity and not equality so these are the um there's so this is another kind of group of non-negotiables we've all we've already kind of talked about that first bullet in terms of the specificity of our language so we don't have to uh dive into that one necessarily we can put something like that in you know part of the you know preamble definitions you know

107within the policy so that we don't have to get too hung up on are we calling every group are we not calling every group but we'll just kind of give some examples um you know and kind of go from there but that way we don't have to go through and make changes every time we're talking about a different group but just to give us an idea of the diversity within um you know what we're discussing but then the and so then the non-negotiable around allocation of assets based on need rather than equal across fiscal and human resource must be a priority and so that was one of the non-negotiables but that's also now been lifted as one of our guard rails so i think that one is a safe one to say that it's probably

108gonna um you know remain but any other thoughts before i move to are the last non-negotiable slide so we talked um the last piece that we talked about or that you all talked about is uh that we must provide structure and supports to improve practices we aim to hold departments accountable for reducing and eliminating disparities by establishing targets for performance and incorporating equity outcomes as an element of system of system assessment and individual performance evaluation now that is something that a board that is a governance uh non-negotiable so some of the other things that we talked about are not necessarily at that board governance level but this one is definitely a board governance item so um any um thoughts about that one as a non-negotiable and then the the last piece being providing um individual

109asset mapping which i know we've kind of already talked about that in our first meeting um around this piece that um had been brought up before any thoughts about the first bullet or even the second one if if there's a taste for that um yes dr blue i i i'm in agreeance with uh the first bullet and uh you know we've we've spent a lot of time uh over the last several years talking about um departments um you know we're we're talking about purchasing we're talking about hr um in those those are other pressure points for us uh as board members um as we deal with equity district-wide um you know hearing uh from the business community because their business didn't get a contract because we're distributing contracts more equitably um to local uh businesses

110um is something that we've got to prepare for we spent a lot of time talking about um you know the student outcomes today and mr cole mentioned uh equity outcomes for our staff etc but this talks directly about other other departments in um and i in here is where i want to talk specifically about hr um when when dr dixon came on board uh very early in her tenure she mentioned from the board floor um data concerning academic success for african american students and how it correlated to them having access to african-american teachers and we talked about academic success today we talked about the word black and i'm i'm glad that we had those types of discussions but are we prepared to say we're going to go about the business of grooming teacher candidates and

111hiring more teacher candidates to produce the outcomes that we need for the specific group of students that has chronically underperformed in our district if the data shows that black kids do better with black teachers why is there such a pushback against that and i think having this included in what we're doing is speaking specifically about departments holding departments accountable um that that is that is an area where where i hope uh there would be a broadening of your department itself in order for us to properly track that first put the metrics in place and then properly track that as well as for you and your team to advise us on solutions when we see that we are falling short and so this has to be uh included in in everything that we're doing and i

112saw the chat with the data correction uh please please mention that dr blue uh uh please please say that specifically um because i think it is important based on a lot of the conversation that we've had already today please clear that up so uh in the chat i mentioned that the data show that all students regardless of their ethnic background do better having a black teacher so and i can send you know those reports out we actually uh interestingly had a meeting with um ode just last week and talking about how will we build a teacher pipeline how will we look at our staffing differently in order to make sure that we're improving that piece the demographics of our teachers but there are there are several articles that i can send out around that but

113it's definitely it shows that it's it it helps all students no matter what their racial background is so that's that's a really good data point for us you know if there is pushback um so one of the ways that we talk about equity especially in terms of looking at it from what i would call the inside so we have internal equity and external equity and our and our students for me would be what i would call our external equity the thing that we do right our mission equity but in order to accomplish that in order to get all the pieces even aligned for that we do have to look at our internal structures and supports um and you know are those equitable where are the hidden biases and barriers there and so i just i

114agree with that and kind of the way that we operationalize our equity agenda for my clients is that look about internal and external equity and they both need to be present in order for the organization to really succeed in the space of of really achieving um eventually justice and liberation as what a board member uh cole was suggesting so of all of the non-negotiables that we've kind of talked through are there any that someone needs clarity on not necessarily that you want to speak in support or against but just if there's any clarity that is needed for any of those uh your your question prompts me uh and this is minor this is not substantive but i think it's important when i look at a statement like the first bullet um it immediately um appears

115to be something that i'm going to have a harder time reading and getting than say the the second bullet point and the average reader and i'm talking about in the public is going to have a very hard time understanding that now our audience for this may be teachers and professional educators uh but if we're you know to the extent that we're writing something for the public we need to uh on the one hand be accurate and yet we still need to write to a lower reading level so and to clarify these non-negotiables are going to inform what we put together this isn't for a document so this is for us is this important to us as we go um and but we are also absolutely going to look at and that's why that one definition

116from the national equity project just really speaks to me personally for that very reason because when it's time to put it into place and you're talking to a teacher you have to be able to just say it that simply right right oh okay so this is what we mean you know sorry this was just an opportunity for me to speak to that point absolutely i i support that and i appreciate your comment so um what we would do uh except that we only have four minutes left is i wanted to have you all to prioritize these so i'm gonna put a link in the chat it's not for like i would love for you if you could do it today but not for while we're inside of the meeting but um so but i am

117gonna explain it to you that way when you go to do it you there are also instructions but just so that i'm clear as we talk it through so it's a um dot voting exercise and so but obviously a virtual one so more or less kind of just a survey but the idea is that each person will get four votes to say what which one of these seven non-negotiables that we discussed are the most important to prioritize so in our conversation some folks said no this isn't as important yes this is absolutely important but to prioritize it from the seven of you what are the things that will say these are we absolutely need to include this not the words written necessarily but the idea the concept behind it so each of your um so

118in the um the questionnaire you'll see the same seven non-negotiables that we just discussed you'll see those four times and you'll get so that is your four votes and so you can vote for the same idea each time so if yours was we if you are adamant about we must provide individual asset mapping for every child you can mark that for each of the four or you can mark something different but the idea is to show how important these things are to you by putting your dots behind them and so each person will have four of those and um you'll just hit submit and it'll come to me to so that i can know based on what we talked about what what are the four things that we absolutely have to have even if other

119things end up dropping off okay so there's kind of a um so um is there anyone who and i'm gonna just read the read the example that i wrote just to make sure everyone's clear so a single multiple choice vote represents one dot typically if we were in person each person would walk around look at the choices and place a dot on whichever items most resonate so some people would put all their dots in one place somewhat some would kind of um uh distribute them around so at the end whatever the wall of items that we're choosing from would look like a heat map to show yes this is what's important the most important to us just a visual so vote based on um where we put our votes and so that's the idea so

120i'm gonna put the link for that in the chat for you all and then we're gonna move on to our um our final um our final action steps okay so it's now in the chat and it should work for everyone if it doesn't please let me know uh and so for us to kind of tie up a little bit our next steps will be to finalize a district definition of equity uh based on our conversations today based on other things uh something that we can kind of put out to say this is this is our conception of equity and to remember brown's point something that is simple and easy as and then we can kind of move into something that's longer more academic later um the second step utilize the board feedback and input you

121know from today and from our previous conversations to inform the creation and implementation of an equity plan and vision that encompasses the day-to-day so that's the that's that guardrail piece that you all have already kind of laid out a couple for us that's that those priority areas that we've talked about so what does that look like based on any other feedback that you all have already given and then the last piece which is going to be an important piece for you all in terms of just the governance aspect is to is for us to make revisions to any necessary revisions to the equity policy so there's a draft that's already out there it had a first reading and i know there was a pen kind of put in it until i was able to get

122here and and help to provide some input on it so we want to come back to that though so so we'll start working through what is that what does a revision look like something that we can um put put out for board consideration and approval we'll have people review it and we'll discuss it again well you know i'll let policy review committee and president adair kind of you know guide me on what that looks like but i think that that's a good next step for us also is to say this is the document that we're going to be using to um guide our work that and it's already something that you've already had at least some discussion on so any other comments about that those next steps dr blue i do have a quick comment

123so when we talk about the revisions to the equity policy it might be helpful for us to also consider how the academic committee will play into that discussion so it may be helpful for us to really get that committee up and going so they can weigh in on the elements that we include in the equity policy good idea and there may be other i was going to say there might be other committees as well that's a good point dr pearsons we're trying to embed equity in our the way we work and so equity is a piece of every committee yes so we'll figure out a process for that so that we can get um just a new perspective and some different input as we move forward so that um that'll conclude our discussion for today

124two minutes over not bad i appreciate you all time and attention and great discussion today i think we um you know hit on a lot of things and so from here it'll be a matter of just kind of uh digesting what your peers had to say about what equity is and is not and how we can go how we can move forward and then just start putting some of those things into place thank you all thank you dr blue this was really good um i guess i'd love to see this kind of discussion take place in every one of our classrooms throughout the district that's our goal yes i would agree with border brown i think that it'd be very important for us to get some student input on this before we uh even finalize

125the policy there's a way that we can include maybe our student ambassadors in a special meeting or at least get them to have some discussion about the equity policy and what it is that they're seeing this could be a good leadership exercise for them but i would hope that they would be able to inform us on some things that we may not be thinking about so um i agree with port river brown on that thank you dr blue this was this was our standard thank you and that's a very suggestion okay dr blue do you want to stop sharing your screen um yes thank you so much for leading us in this discussion again and obviously we still have a ton more work to do on this uh so we are still you know in

126that creation stage um i want to thank board members for being open for discussing for sharing thoughts and ideas for asking ourselves the hard questions um because we have to do that in order to really do the thing that we all agree that we want to do and that's address uh systemic you know bias and racism within our uh district um so thank you all so much for this great conversation i look forward to continuing to work with you and dr blue and the rest of the team on it so the last thing we need right now is just a motion to adjourn our special meeting to adjourn second dr pearson board member coal with the second please call the roll miss beckerly yes mr brown yes mr cole yes dr pierce yes mr ragland

127yes vice president reyes yes and president adair yes that motion carried thank you all and have a wonderful evening and i will see you soon thank you everyone thank you thank you