001right we'll call the meeting to order um welcome everyone to this uh Monday March 4th 20 24 this Equity committee meeting for acan public schools uh thank everyone for being here today thank you uh media for being here today uh and thank you our guest for being here today um we're going to go ahead and open up with the approval of the meeting minutes are there any questions from the meeting minutes from February the [Music] 5th going once going twice okay we'll move move on we'll turn it over to uh Dr Chapman at this time Dr Chapman okay thank you Mr Alexander today as you will see on your Equity committee update sheet for your next board meeting we only have one item to discuss and that is the work of our Dei advisory committee
002which met on February 21st February 21st um and I want to remind uh at least those of you who aren't familiar I know uh Dr Molar has heard this before but our district Dei work plan operates in conjunction with our Dei advisory committee and the committee is made up of 39 employees representing um every division in the district minus maybe we lost I think a transportation representative and one custodian and a Child Nutrition I think our Child Nutrition person has a difficult time uh attending due to the schedules in buildings for breakfast and lunch 39 and so this is a cross functional District team of Educators um administrators learning Specialists instructional coaches human Capital Management secretar secretaries Deans so we wanted it to be as representative of our district as possible and the role of
003our District's advisory committee is to help us with roll out of our work as well as to make recommendations to implementation and what we have always said is the red threading of Dei throughout our district so um Wilma facilitated uh the meeting in February and the focus of that meeting and I'm going to flip now to your hand out the focus of that meeting was related to committee recommendations around our culturally responsive portrait of Educators staff and leaders which you saw at the last Equity committee meeting and just want to remind you that again everything we do is tied to our blueprint for excellence so our culturally responsive work and our Champs classroom management work is connected to that Cornerstone one culture of safety and belonging and increasing the percentage of acan Public School staff
004who are experiencing a positive and affirming culture and it should say staff and Scholars right and then our Cornerstone to connection around academic achievement is around culturally responsive inquiry based approaches to teaching and learning that Fosters scholar agency and critical thinking so during the February 21st meeting it came up did it is that me yeah that's you that's not me okay so at the February 21st meeting we ask our staff our Dei learning uh Dei advisory committee how can the portrait be used by members of the committee and throughout the district and so their work began in teams to really dissect what it would mean in practice to realize these skills and to operate with the mindsets that you see and so they have come up with some recommendations around that central question and so
005the first recommendation is around when talking with Scholars we need to make connections to the portrait of a graduate and a scholar and so this particular portrait needs to be used in conjunction with the other portraits that our district has been talking about for quite some time they also said that we need to embed the portrait mindsets within social emotional learning lessons so that they don't operate in isolation or separate from each other and this would be similar to how counselors currently use the graduate and Scholar portrait they also said principles could host small group sessions to allow for more personal Reflections on how this can be integrated in classrooms and schools so they're talking across the district hitting various positions and work and divisions add additional recommendations include using the portrait as an opener
006and a reference document and staff meetings and professional Learning Community meetings building and District professional development offerings they said connect the portrait to our local professional development committee which tracks the learning and PD happening for our Educators and staff across the district we want to know know who has learned who has integrated who has embedded the portrait in their Learning Journey um we want to use the portrait as a tool for reflecting on practice and rolling out during the whole school year so some of the examples around that includeed perhaps the beginning of the school year the portrait would be utilized by our teaching and learning division as we are coaching teachers as we are onboarding new staff as we are out in classroom supporting Educators and then moving into the middle of the year
007and throughout the year where different divisions would access use of the portrait in their work they said that this portrait should be used to help plan and guide building initiatives so great level meetings would be an example of that and they said we have to schedule time to focus on different aspects throughout the district because folks don't have a very clear understanding of how to operationalize the skills and the mindset and they said let's create some annual goals some professional goals attached to our Ohio teacher evaluation or our Ohio school counselor evaluation processes so that they are tied to the strands within those um evaluation tools uh we talked about using the portrait as a tool to increase rigor within instruction uh we have a vector training system it's an online system people use it
008to um get short quick training segments on specific topics and we want to create a vector training module for 100% of APs staff to access to introduce the portrait um and then someone said we should share this with students so that they can see Educators working toward goals like they do in their own portrait of a graduate and portrait of a scholar so freshman seminar and other opportunities where we have Scholars come together to lend voice to how their educators are actually portraying and embedding utilizing the skills and the mindsets with them in their education journey and so any any questions on that was a lot but it was good work of the Dei advisory committee to really think about what this looks like in practice Dr Chapman uh on the second page of the
009recommendations where it says use the portrait as as an opener uh and reference to documents for pla meetings uh I'm sorry the second bullet I'm sorry connecting the portrait to the local professional development committee and they were you're talking about tracking the learning how did they want to use that and and I'm just kind of get a little M did you want to give some feedback since you were in that meeting sorry which one are you looking on on the uh bullet point on the second page of the recommendations connecting the portrait to the local professional the second bullet yeah connecting second Bullet connec to the to the EP yeah the EP is mostly for educators and um so for them to get their licenses um basically they meet and they go over things that
010they should have already in their repertoire and so they're building on that and so basically they're asking if this particular model right here if they can integrate that into that process process as well and yes it can be done and that will help them to learn how to track the learning of the students learning of Educators because remember this is a portrait of a educator staff and leader yeah their growth Journey their Learning Journey around becoming more culturally responsive um Dr chman um so regarding the vector training the trainings that you want to create our Dei specific so um I go back and forth around this it is Dei specific in that we only want to introduce the portrait on the vector not create full Dei modules because diversity equity and inclusion training has to
011go in conjunction with some critical thinking critical conversations dialogue and you can't do that with a person sitting at a computer but we can introduce the portrait in the vector training so that everyone has a chance to put their eyes on it you know to understand what the elements are and then we proceed with face-to-face sessions like what we're doing now so will it be a requirement for some of the Educators to take the training our Vector system has a scheduled series of what people should catch up on so our Vector system has some requirements like Child Protection um first report laws uh how to um how to handle injury uh dealing with Mental Health customer service is in there I don't know today how we could incorporate it as a requirement we have to
012think more intentionally about it what we have required in the past around Dei is 100% of our new hires going through a 6-hour option six hours of training on Dei where that was a requirement we have not gotten to requirements for other staff at this point in time okay cuz I do love for incoming Educators to take the DI but some of our senior staff needs to be enlightened on what Dei is and what it means to our school together because diversity Equity inclusion is within our whole um district and if we're educating just the new ones which is great but we have some of the senior staff and maybe someone that has been on here for 2 years how do we get the message out to them so that they can understand what it
013is do we do a conference do we do a a large event yeah so in the previous meetings I'd shared all of our building level sessions that we've been conducting over the past two and a half years so at this point in time I think we're at 31 buildings having completed the Dei part one right it's hard with two people sometimes three sometimes four to get 42 buildings all at once but we're hitting each building systematically throughout the district so we're level setting across all buildings so we're hitting the other staff that way but I'll say again awareness is one level of understanding application is another and being critically reflective on your work it's like the highest level where people are saying this is what I'm not doing well and now I need to be
014able to ask for help in that particular area and then our district has to be ready to say here's the help that we have to offer you right and that has to take place systematically throughout our district and our coaching cycles and that's why I mentioned our evalu a tools because that's where you get your accountability in the way that we bring our new hires on as you mentioned because the expectation is already set then so training is one part of this work and we have to get at what systems are we putting in place to ensure that people are being culturally responsive training is one one part of it then there's what coaching support and evaluation exists and then the third part is what systems practices procedures need to be in place so that
015it is embedded integrated incorporated into the way we do business does that make sense yeah I have a question kind to follow up on that I love how you had the example the share with students so they can see Educators working towards the goals the whole lead by example and it made me reflect on this weekend we had our second Board of Professional developments and it has been mentioned at both of the um times that we've met this year um the notion of us having a self- evaluation of ourselves as board members and I was wondering if you thought it might might be uh possible to if we had these goals and if we could model these goals within ourselves um on down yeah I mean I we have been asking for quite some time
016for time with the board to understand what our training looks like the equity committee I think has a leg up because you get information on our training topics right you get to hear about the work that we're doing it's hard to articulate that in a board meeting report to help with other people's learning and understanding especially when it's not as clear um for all of you we're in it and live it every day and so I forget sometime that people don't have you know the experience or depth of knowledge that I do and I expect for everybody to just understand what this is and what it looks like and how it could be used but there there's a lot of learning that is associated with Equity work and and it's evidencebased it's research based right
017um and then it's ongoing learning I tell people all the time five years ago we weren't talking about pronouns now we are so so it's ever evolving and you're never quite there but you kind of got to be in this Loop of continuous learning and growth and understanding and being adaptable too I am sure this will change as we begin to socialize it if you remember me saying that the will the dimensions of diversity will was version four or five after a whole year and a half's work to to socialize it to introduce it to have conversations about it to get what people are thinking and you can't do that on vector vector is kind of a sit and get you have to be in front of people to help people make connections to their
018work and that only happens through dialogue it it only it doesn't happen any other way yeah Dr Chapman any questions you guys have do you have any more Dr Mo I'm sorry okay I just had a question too you mentioned uh getting in front of the board and something that I don't want us to have you know additional meetings unless we really need to but do you think that would be something that we should maybe schedule some time or carve out some time that uh you guys should come in front of the board for I don't know how long would take hour maybe two hours to I mean I think as you're thinking about your professional development and professional learning calendar and I don't know what that looks like for for you that maybe there
019is some time for us to share how we are defining diversity equity and inclusion in our district might be helpful it's so about hour two hours maybe are you talking longer six hours but okay a whole day no I we will we are able to tailor information to fit the time we do it we do it a lot can I just I just want to if it's needed for our board and we need to have something like this so the board can understand it then I think we should you know have you guys come and and talk to us so we get a better understanding I understand a lot of it because some of it I've seen and some of been but it's this is a little more deep and more in depth than what
020what I know and so I think it maybe that's something we do we'll look at it and we'll bring it to the attention of our um president maybe we can do something like that yeah okay we love that if Dr Glover if you're watching the live stream she is is probably dancing right now because she has been asking for that for a few years now I have I'm sorry oh I'm sorry go ahead just one more question to piggy back off what Renee was saying um to share with the students so they can see the Educators like their progress I think that's an awesome opportunity for growth and when you talk about being adaptable um I think that's something we can adapt into our new like kind of not curriculum but just our everyday life
021because students you know they see their progress you know teachers see their progress but if we can share the two maybe that might spark a light on some of our students to say you know oh our teachers are doing this or even they can make it a competition oh we got to get to this level if our teachers going to get to that level just to kind of create a different mentality growth for our students to be excited about to just something different yeah I think that's the way it was discussed in the meeting wasn't it that's the direction that was going with that thought and our students doing any Dei anything so uh we are right now working with Dre of Whitfield to create scholar trainers in uh diversity and dimensions of diversity around
022the whe so they're going to be trained to deliver a dimensions of diversity will session for peers and Larry Johnson has some thoughts about a student Le professional development conference and it's just an idea right now no solid plans but we're getting our young people ready ready to represent our division should that happen we'll be ready with Scholars who can take the lead and facilitating a conversation around dimensions of diversity and I get most excited about that I'm really excited about that so yeah that's something we should be excited about okay so I'm going to turn it oh another question I I I wanted to follow up on what Mr Alexander said um if we do present this or we get the opportunity to receive this as a board I I just want to reiterate
023I I love the idea of them seeing us work towards our goals and so if we had you know alignment of these as goals for us that would be I love this work I love this I love that idea please let me know when to sign up yeah um Mrs Alexander knows that my favorite two words or combination word is crosswalk crosswalk I I think this should be integrated with everything right and so right now she's working on an integration crosswalk to social emotional learning yeah and Champs classroom management uh we are also working on an integration with our mtss model and culturally responsive practices culturally responsive practices is also intimately connected to inquiry based learning so there's another integration um you have had Adam modder come before this committee before and talk about our
024social studies curriculum alignment and creating that critical reflective awareness of young people intimately connected again so yeah we're we're systematically moving through the district and now that we have the blueprint we're able to say oh here's the Cornerstone connection to the blueprint so we're not out of alignment yeah so as Carla said earlier um they had an opportunity to look at um the portrait of a culturally responsive Educators staff and leaders the second part that they had to look at was the Champs part and and there you see on your sheets there's two books that we utilize during the Champs process and so they looked at the connections between our portrait and the Champs framework and so you I shared with you guys before that framework that we looked at and so in connection to
025that they reviewed that as well and these are some of the the recommendations that they came up with and the first one is communicate clear expectations for the comp competencies and so that's what they liked about Champs how clear it is how easy it is to understand and how easy it is to integrate it into a classro so that all minds are clear everybody understand what is expected each day they walk through the classroom doors there's no wondering about there's there's complete understanding of it and then they also asked that we could add or extend Champ's reflection questions to make teachers think of inclusiveness in their classroom management for for example reflecting on inclusive routines making sure that whatever routines that they have set up in the classroom they're actually surveying their students to find
026out is this working for us or is it not working for us is there something that we need to change if you guys is this too difficult you know so allowing the students to have more of a say as to what's taking place in that classroom but there's total communication all the time when it comes to that and then emphasizing that Champs behaviors are for all students to be inclusive in its use l l the disabled disadvantaged disenfranchised Etc so it is all inclusive for all students no matter what level they're at no matter if they're on an IEP if they're not on an IP it's an understanding that and a language that all teachers can adapt to for students to understand what's going on in that classroom in the next set of recommendations explain
027Champs and culturally responsive education as promising practices and strategies that create positive change in classroom environments for students to thrive and grow which develops and nurtures the four skill areas of the portrait so on that four corner that you see there on the portrait Champs is adaptable to all these Corners social skills Real World skills um teaching Learning and Development skills as well as personal skills so those Corners are all integrated into the Champs process because it's not a 1 two 3 4 step it's a process that teachers can adapt and use in any way that they feel they need to based on the data that they receive and look at for all their students so it dictates what they do Under the Champs process and then connects Champs work to social skills along with
028those Real World skills again that's out of those four corners in that um culturally responsive educator show how Champs and culturally responsive practices support the overarching component of quality learning meaning that using this Champs process it's a low chance for kids to not be successful in that classroom so if they're following the process and they're communicating with their students and they're surveying their students and looking at the data to dictate what they do then the likelihood for students to fail is very slim to none and then add the Champs training to the PBIS seal and broader the mtss toolkits to streamline the program so there's room for all of those other processes to fit right into what we do Under the Champs process very easily and then to use Champs to establish routines that celebrate
029all cultures and identities there's room for all of that to take place and to celebrate weekly utilize champs as a tool for student involvement invoice within the classroom environment basically it's like you're asking your class to become a democratic process in there that not only do the teacher have a role but the students have a role as well and so um they're they know when they can speak how long they can speak they know what they're working on daily they know what tools they have access to the resources they can utilize so everything is is spelled out for students there's no guessing you know with the Champs process um Wilma how many teachers currently would you say have had Champs training I know we provided an update of 48 in January that was just for
030this year but over the years since we've been doing this at least 1,200 or more more so it wasn't just that 48 that's just were the ones we were able to hit on earlier in the school year but over the years since I've been doing Champs I've I've trained at least 1,00 plus teachers in this process when did you start this program I actually started it back in 2015 and so from that point on every new teacher that comes in is trained right away under the Champs process so similar to our onboarding with the Dei that we were doing for the past seven years so the the challenge now before the Dei advisory committee is we have these two separate models a Champs classroom management and a portrait of a culturally responsive educator staff and
031leader how do we merge them together so it's not just Champs training now it's culturally responsive Champs training uh because I the isolation that sometimes begins to happen when we have folks creating models and Frameworks and they're working over here but not together with what is over here as the blueprint is talking about being coherent in our work this is what it means how do we take all these pieces and parts that we're doing and make them work together and and that's really it's a challenge it sounds good when I say it but it's it's it's a challenge because people have this ownership of their you know thing and it's hard to sometimes break through that barrier of ownership to get at no we're all moving in the same direction with the same goals for
032our Scholars to be successful and all of these things work towards that so that that is all for us today any more questions I want you guys if you have questions to ask no Dr monar you guys did a very good job I am going to com comment on one thing too when I when I looked at this one Champs it says disciplinary in the secondary classroom I remember when I was going through education to be a teacher and doing my student teaching one of the things they really looked at as really big was classroom management and how were you managing your class so when those individuals came from the University to uh uh evaluate us it was it was sad to a certain extent that some teachers could not move forward but there were
033others who were able to because they were looking at classroom management and saying if you can manage your class and you can integrate a lot of these different things in there then you can your classroom your kids can be successful so every time I hear something about a Champs but I look at the Dei I think it will be good for everybody and I it would be wise I should say for everyone to get involved to uh learn more about this because they it doesn't do anything but make them better as a professional and it helps our students which is the most important thing and the better trained that we are the better we can do for our students so I you know everyone knows I'm kid oriented so everything I I talk about and
034see it's got to be geared down towards the kids so I think that's that's good no more questions I think I I talk too much now I'm feeling bad what I say Dr Robinson you have any questions the question that I think that I would have with this as I'm listening to this is all of this sort of falls under the umbrella of the mtss model so what I would want to see how can we Infuse all of this under one model so that it doesn't appear like this is just something extra that we're doing but this should because this is actually flowing in in collaboration with what we need around um the academic the the discipline the um social emotional so I that was a note that I made um and what what would
035this look like so I think this would be a great time as the model is being uh established it would be a great opportunity to for for us to infuse this and actually I'm saying Infuse but actually it's it's it's it's a thread that we that's woven through all of all of what we're doing whether it's academics whether it's um the discipline whether it's the um social emotional seal work um and it and for it to be consistent across the district and every school and it just becomes a natural part of our culture in um acan Public Schools so I would I would agree uh Dr Robinson because I think if we can move to one model that is based on research and evidence of what is good practice across all of the mtss because
036it's academic social attendance behavior and not be wedded to the names of programs specific vendor you know models and just take what is best from all of that and create the mtss yeah that's that would be the ideal yeah that those are my own questions that's a good question I mean it's good to have all this interwoven in because it becomes so much easier and it's all part of what what but you know it becomes normal what you're doing and so I think that's something that's that's good I'm hoping everyone uh will get on board and uh give it a chance and and work with it and make sure it comes down to our kids so I think mtss provides us the opportunity to bring all of these things under the umbrella but again you
037know we can't be wetted to specific programs specific you know yeah well that's that's something that I um would like for you all to work with um Dr lash and Miss Culver because it doesn't it wouldn't make sense for us to roll roll out mtss and and this is not connected to it cuz this this is kind of woven through it so um I do I do I would want you guys to to me to look at how this overlays um to address all those concerns and I think the work that Wilma has started with Allison Strickland and Nicole Hassen on how it connects toal yes right so we don't have seal Champs culturally responsive everything works together what what does that one thing look like yeah you know and and I think we grow
038that into all the other pieces too and that's what mtss does yeah so I think that's something that I would ask for you all to work with a Miss cover and Dr lash so that as this is cuz this is the perfect timing now to bring all those pieces and begin cuz teachers you know principles as you're asking them to implement this they kind of need to see what it looks like systematically across the board rather than them trying to figure out what do I use a little bit of this and a little bit of that but if it's defined for them in the model then it makes it easier and then they don't have to wonder um and they're more amp to using it because they have clear guidance on it so one model
039yeah okay any other questions or comments or okay well was a short meeting but it was thorough it was really good so we like it and I want to thank my my colleagues my vice chair for being here and Dr monar for being here so uh and thank all of you I thank everyone who who was been watching uh us uh today all right so we'll uh at this point if we have nothing else we will adjourn meeting adjourn everyone have a good evening e