001[Music] got to make sure that just in case okay all right we are on good afternoon everyone and welcome to the September 5th Equity committee meeting September's already flying by all right um I'm gonna turn it over to Dr Chapman take it away okay thank you Mrs McKittrick we do have minutes from our January 5th meeting if you want to peruse those thank you Sydney for minutes and if there are no Corrections or anything we might have missed I am going to ask Dr Robinson to share with us his thoughts around the work of equity as we've discussed over the past several weeks thank you Dr Chapman and good afternoon to everyone kind of wish that I would have in the previous meeting been able to share some of those things that came up we
002are in the process of excitedly excitingly working on our blueprint for excellence which is our strategic plan and within that strategic plan you will see how Equity will take an active role in each of the four cornerstones that we will have around in within the Strategic plan so we have academic achievement we have operational excellence we have the peace on culture and climate which is around um safety and and sense of belonging and um our other Cornerstone drawing of blank here family family Partnerships and Community engagement so you will see as we're working on this the team will be working next Tuesday on the completion of each of the cornerstones with the street with the strategies that go under each one of those we're also going to be doing a survey to our families to
003our partners to our internal and external stakeholders our principals our teachers and everyone who works in the school district will be able to complete the survey to provide us with information feedback thoughts comments that we can use around each of those four cornerstones and to help us in building the scorecard for the Strategic plan that will eventually end up on our website where you can see the progress that the district is making we're gonna we're gonna create our kpis which are key performance indicators that we can actually see progress that's being made we don't currently have a strategic plan um so from that we are going to create the academic Focus uh plan that's going to be extracted from the from the from that strategic plan and with that um um you're gonna see the
004strategies that we want so for example in the previous meeting they were talking about literacy and the lack of students being able to really um comprehend what is going on in some of our classrooms when they especially when they're taking the state Ohio state test they're not able to perform and literacy has to also be like Equity it has to be the Bedrock of everything that we do it can't be the all but it has to be the all in the sense that we must focus on Equitable opportunities and experiences and exposure for our Scholars K Pre-K 12. um it doesn't matter which school they're in which pathway in high school they might be a part of it has to be something that everybody is working on and it has to be deliberate our district
005is in a in a phase if you will around turn around work right now um we we are two stars that's a d and we've been there for a while but we didn't get there overnight and we're not going to get there over we're not going to change overnight but it but we're going to have to do some things that are going to help move us along more expeditiously around we talking you will see in in the blueprint for excellence you'll see um where we're talking about professional development it can't be the same professional development for every teacher each time it has to be something that's applicable to what they need in order to move the instruction in their building we started today with our um data reviews that we're doing with our schools and
006we had two awesome awesome data reviews this morning um where two of our principals really um gave great insight into their schools they talked about our strategies that they're using they also talked about ways in which we as central office can be more of a support to them and what they need it was not about us telling them what we want them to do which is a change we are adopting unofficially but we are using the data wise School improvement process which is a nothing new it's it's not brand new this has been data wise it's been out for several years but we are using that as our school Improvement as our improvement process but schools don't improve until the district improves meaning that we have to change how we do what we do at
007this at this level because what we do here is impacting what schools are doing are not doing so um Tuesday the the team is going to be meeting which we have shifted from being senior cabinet to being a think tank and that's where we will problem solve we will invite our principles from time to time to come and be a part of those meetings around various topics so that they can help us think through some of the things that we're saying we think you should be doing or a part of but we want the principles to actually in our school leaders our Deans to actually have a pardon that our teachers to have a part in that and so from time to time depending upon those topics our teachers will be engaged in the Strategic
008plan in any way that they would like to be they can either come we'll the team will be creating a calendar of dates over the next three weeks that we will be inviting the public to come in um they can either do it by survey or they can actually come and be engaged in these meetings around the four cornerstones giving their thoughts ideas suggestions recommendations whatever they may feel uh and we're going to take all that information and we're going to chart all of it and then we're going to go back to Think Tank to look at what the public is saying what our constituents are telling us that they feel how they feel and what they feel around what we're actually wanting to do with the Strategic plan it's not going to be a
009document that we want it very short because we want it to be something that schools are going to use that the district is going to use and it's going to be fluid so it may change as we go through the process but we have to we have to use our data to determine which kpis we're going to actually put in the plan and and then once we determine that this is what we're going to do now we have to do the work of doing it to um um to your point of uh Miss Jackson um that you were saying in the last meeting but to your point we we did these data reviews we're doing them now right so we get this data we're charting every school and what each school is saying when it
010comes in when when we go back to think tank now that that all of that information helps to determine what type of level and what type and level of work we now need to do with our schools that is going to require everyone that touches a school meaning no matter what department they're coming from they all have to be um a part of the process we're all going into schools and really examine what instruction looks like so when you look at data wise around step four and five is where we're looking at and examining the instructional practices that are happening in classrooms but there are things that we need to do before we get to that process to that level right but that means that we have to engage our principles our teachers they have
011to be a part of this process and data wise as a form of data wise principle the hardest part is releasing the control and allowing them to be a part of that process of the decision making of saying you know you said we need to be doing x y z it's not working for me and I'm gonna tell you why it's not working for my kids we need to be able to hear that here at this level and then help problem solve what is needed in order to move the instructional needle um we can't you set it very eloquently we can't continue to keep doing the same thing and we're expecting to get different results just a process insanity and when we fail to to Really delve into the data and that's what we want
012principles to do because the question I'm asking how many of these students do you need in your building so that you can move your building from here to here how many do how many do you know how many there that you need and in each of the four core content areas do you know who those students are I know you need to move 14 who who makes up the 14 or the 20 and but that is a different level of work for some of our principals and I don't have any um hesitations or reservation and whether or not they can do it I do believe I mean we had two rock stars today that I was extremely impressed with I won't call their names but I was extremely impressed with what they did this morning
013um they knew their schools they knew the data they could tell you who these kids are they knew the strategies that were being implemented but there were things that we now need to do differently here to help support them there are things that they're asking for that they need in order to be successful in their building that maybe everybody isn't doing so we have to look at how we differentiate the support so from the the meeting next Tuesday where think tank is going to get together we are looking at the creation of our coherence framework which is going to be that Northern Star for us to help guide the work that we're doing right but in the center of that framework is the instructional core we need to be looking at the types and levels
014of tasks that teachers are assigning to to our Scholars we need to be looking at the types and levels of questions that they're being asked when we look at Webb's depth of knowledge but that comes with a level of professional development that we need to provide to school leaders and to teachers as well as to people who work in central office because they too need to understand when we go into classrooms and the question is asked you know what did you think about the lesson I thought it was good what's so good about it specifically which strategies did you denote that the teacher was using that really was helping to engage students and at what level and then how are we training our kids to be able to question the teacher in a respectful way
015but from a Content perspective they should be able to ask questions high level questions of the teacher and of each other but that's a skill that we have to show and train our teachers and our school leaders on so that that happens with the kids literacy I know that we're doing um I'm drawing a blank now what is the name uh letter letters which I'm excited that our district even before I got here um chose letters which is one of the best um strategies that we could have chosen to help promote literacy but we're doing a lot at the foundational level which we should but the other part is we need to now engage those that that are already you know in high school who are struggling because what we don't want to do is
016produce you know graduates who still struggle with being able to adequately read There are going to be things that they're going to need when they leave high school that if they cannot read being a meaning that they can't comprehend if they're not able to handle High complex tasks you know that's going to be a problem so it's not just whether or not they go to college because we aren't training them just to go to college we're training them to be College and Career ready and that means whatever they may want to do Post uh High School graduation and um as we look at the work that we're doing yes we're moving at a much faster Pace to complete our strategic plan there are no rules that really say how long it really takes but generally
017it will take a year but we're getting we're doing ours in half of half of a year but we're going to come back at the end of the year reassess revisit our our strategic plan and looking even looking at our kpis to determine are these kpis that we were you know able to really realistically meet um because if not then we can always change that but we do want to challenge our our schools to do more to reach for the stars you know you may land on the moon but reach for the stars and at the end of the day this is our a lot of our principals and teachers have been engaged in a lot of this work already what we're doing is putting some some systems and structures and place to help bring
018all of the great things that I walk in the door and found being done we're now putting it in a plan that we will at the end of the day agree upon that we will use to help guide our work from here on out and you know the the work of equity is is complex and it really challenges all of us to think differently about how we do what we do every school doesn't need the same thing right there are some commonalities and some some systemic things that we want to do to make sure that all of our schools are doing certain things you know the same but then we have to also look at their things that some schools need that another school does not and that's a whole different level of work because
019with that conversation also could be included in budget and if and and if we are talking about the the possibility of looking at student-based budgeting Equity plays a huge role in how monies are distributed and what it's used for based on the needs of that particular School thank you Dr Robinson and and what I did like about the data review with the one school I was able to attend today was it wasn't just about the numbers there was that aspect of humanizing the data that we talk about a lot in our work and so I think that that gives us real opportunity to understand the needs of our students Beyond academic alone but all the other things that support academics like resource distribution and whether we're thinking equitably about the res resources that schools need
020there was some discussion about which curriculum best supported intervention for readers around phonetic awareness and phonics and whether those kinds of changes could be made so I think that presents a real opportunity when we can have those discussions Beyond academics where we're really humanizing the information so thank you for that I do have your vision in in my mind of a graphic where the instructional course at the center but it is surrounded by equity and I did write that down in one of our meetings so I got my little scribble I found I found the paper that I had written it down on all right when we came together in June I shared with the committee that our core team would be presenting at a National Conference reimagining education summer Institute at Columbia University and
021so even though we have this huge district-wide 33 member cross-function no advisory committee we have a core team and they are here with me today and we wanted to just share some takeaways from that conference which took place in July at Columbia we got rave reviews but more important there were some key takeaways for us that will guide our work this year and you have that hand out there and I think that they will become a part of the strategies we will see unfold in the blueprint for excellence that Dr Robertson is talking about related to the Strategic plan so one of them is administrator and leader engagement and culturally responsive leadership practices and so one of the things we've started to do this year in our work and will continue next year is to
022really help our principals and administrators unpack their evaluation system which looks at Equity standards and understanding what that means and I'm going to let Dr Glover talk about that and I don't know if Dr Robinson if you've met Dr Glover yet because she's not here with us often I have not good evening um nice to meet you um so when we look at the Opex 2.0 standards the difference between opes 2 point or 1.0 2.0 um I mean I think the larger one really speaks to the standard round culture responsive teaching and equity and when you think going back to the conversation you're having you're thinking about how the alignment of the district goes so you think about the school improvement process that speaks to opes or your building plan then it speaks to what's
023happening in the classroom and so those Equity standards really is the anchor if you will to how leaders will impact change in their buildings so when we went to resi and we presented we focused specifically on OPEC what we found is that you won't have a lot of schools across the country who have standards that are specific to culture responsive teaching and equity in terms of leadership there are some larger districts that are doing our work but um we noticed that that wasn't very likely in our session and within those standards it even talks about how you're defying when harm is happening and so some of our conversations around even what our training looks like is what is actually happening in a school right how do we use the scenarios or how do we use
024the calls that we receive as a result of what's Happening as a way to now pivot into learning opportunities and so we've even talked about how our even training format and delivery might need to change so that is more I want to use the correct word in this space so it's it's it's more like the instructional strategy that you said we need to understand that's happening in the classroom if we are expecting Educators to do certain things that we should be modeling with that we're asking them to do and so we're even thinking about like how does our delivery look more um I guess aligned to a liberatory framework so we're thinking Beyond even you know thriving going from thriving surviving to thriving from a Liberation mindset and I'll pivot away but um we just
025wanted to make sure that we were thinking a little more intentionally around the difference between the supports of a leader especially if you haven't had experiences in working in equity right and so now here you are welcome to your building expect it to do this work and you may not even have those experiences and I think it's we need to be really mindful of that and understand what that can mean from different points and people having different Journeys and so um I think that was kind of where we took our conversation with that thank you Dr Glover and to Dr Robinson's Point professional development is one of those other focused areas right and so we know we have to have some deep learning because there could be a lack of experience or understanding about what
026Equity truly means and not just on a personal level but what it means for your building for your community for your staff for your families for the resources that you are in charge of and so we're we're thinking about what a system of professional development would look like through an equity lens and so that's one of our charges for this coming year I have dream Whitfield the amazing dream of Whitfield here because dreamers work in amplifying scholar voices a core core tenet of equity work and so we consider drema even though not yet located within our division we consider dream about our sister colleague and core team member so I'll let Dreama talk about scholar boys um good evening everyone so one of the things that we're going to do with scholar voice this school
027year is we're going to make sure that all of our students no matter what school you go to have a seat at the table in terms of being a scholar board member I reached out to all the principals today they know that all of that their students that each School needs to have a student so we're going to be adding two more students to our scholar board they'll be coming along and so I'll give you more information about that later one of the things that we did learn at Rezi is in terms of scholar voice we are like leading the nation in the work that we are doing and we want to continue to build on our scholar voice Dr Robinson will have his own advisory team of students who will meet with him periodically
028during the school year they will receive similar training as our scholar board students so we're going to try and develop as many leaders as possible also one of the things that we're going to do is we are going to have our own own Dei student scholarship team or scholarship team and what they're going to do is they're going to receive specialized training from Dr Glover we're going to partner and then what they're going to do is they're going to go out and they're going to be able to present to their peers and there may be some things that are happening in the community that they want to present about or a pbl a problem that they want to solve in our school district or in our community so they're going to get that specialized training
029so that they will be able to do that and that will mirror the work that we're doing with the mayor's leadership team our students 75 percent of the students I think they're 35 students on the team 75 percent of those students will come from Akron public schools they are going to identify a challenge in our city they're going to try and solve that challenge they're going to be presenting to city council and other people other leaders in our district so we want to mirror that work that we're doing in the city inside of our schools in our district as well mm-hmm and so just moving right along thank you dream um and we have one one of the um things we did early on in this work of equity in the district was to create
030the Dei learning specialist role and you all were a part of that and so when Dr Glover exited and now serves in a different capacity for us as an administrative specialist Wilma stepped into that role and her function she's going to talk some more about this whole idea of the constant curation of resources and research and staying on top of best practices and knowledge of what is happening at the State Legislative level so along with that you guys oh I'm sorry along with that you guys have a handout [Music] and it this is talking about our ergs and so I'm going to briefly cover that and our ergs are our employee resource groups and this year we now have a total of I think four three and um and as you can see in the
031middle of their their key performance um in one year they are to have at least one social event and Community Service events one year and then Senior staff sponsors and supporters and so we recently had our um APS APS Pride uh March downtown Akron I think it was last weekend has a huge turnout for that and a lot of our employees were there they had the table going and they were you know passing out things for Akron public schools representing Akron public schools and supporting Akron public schools and um it just it was just an amazing event and as you can see some of the photos are there from that event also what I wanted to share with you with those expanded uh access to our resources for all staff groups they are totally led
032by all our employees they're not any they're not any outside people and what they do is they help to recruit other employees into our employee resource groups into our district um they organize resources and tools for the use with our Scholars and our staff people families and community and they addressed some of our issues to respond to the areas identified as opportunities for growth by staff right now our resource groups are that is let me see Akron Educators for social justice of course our APS pride and then our new and existing employees uh Unite so those groups are leading um a lot of the employee things that we have here in the district and I'm excited about joining them this was my first year being a part of that so I'm excited about all of
033the groups that we have and along with that I work with our 33-member diversity equity and inclusion advisory committee we're actually just now getting our dates I got those dates solidified I can give you those dates I didn't make a handout for that but if you want to know what our meeting dates are there once every other month five hours from 8 30 to 1 30 and they're held here on the second floor in room 211 and 212. the first date will be October 11th the second date is December 13th third date is February 21st the fourth date is April 18th and then the final fifth day is June 5th so you guys are welcome to join us if you're interested five hours yes well and one of the the reason why they act as
034both our monitoring mechanism but then also everybody's at a different place in their understanding and their journey and so we have to also Infuse the time with some learning they're a PLC yes [Music] there's there is food yes but the time is really spent on the the work of the plan and it and I think it will be more critical now that we'll have a strategic plan that guides our district what comes out of the committee then will align and support those cornerstones and so we want to be sure that we're representing everyone across the district but then also being strategic in our implementation yeah I think that's great is it possible to get like maybe an email of your meeting dates and time sure absolutely thank you and out of those 33 I think
035we have almost every um area elementary secondary middle um I think every Department in this building I think all maybe one we're still working on trying to get one record somebody recommended from that department I forget which department it was we talked about that earlier operations yeah so we pretty much have everybody represented in the meetings out of the 33 and I think that's really good because we struggled last year because of some of our dates kind of bumped head with other things that were going on in the district and so this year we made certain that there wasn't anything on the calendar that could kind of interfere with the meeting so that we can get continue to meet any questions on that thank you so I just wanted to share that already to date
036we have interacted with some 400 and I have a number here 492 staff persons across six schools and uh custodian maintenance and Child Nutrition divisions and when we talk about ensuring that all staff groups have access to resources one of the glaring inequities um and I and I I do feel free to say that one of the glaring inequities that came out was the um opportunities afforded to non-instructional staff and so paying attention to um the opportunities afforded our maintenance custodial carpentry skilled trades laborers and they're ongoing and continuous learning Child Nutrition staff who may desire to be a part of an after-school initiative is something that I know we talked about last Tuesday in our Think Tank meeting how we create those opportunities for folks to share their skills and talents with Scholars that
037they may want to serve and so we want to be sure that we're not just paying attention to instruction only but recognizing that there are many other staff groups and and we consider them educators of of some sort right and so we want to be able to support them in their access to resources that further their own learning and develop map and then finally I'm just going to say um how we evaluate Equity work in our district is really important I'm excited that data wise as a process and a problem of practice process is coming forward with Dr Robinson because we want to be data rich but we want to be data smart and it's important to have the kpis but it's important that they make sense for the work that we're doing and you
038know we've talked for some time now about data dashboards and having access to data people and I've had that conversation with uh Dr Robinson as well so I'm excited that that kind of information is coming forward [Applause] I wanted you to see this nice colorful handout here we have as a result of last year's work made some changes to what we deliver in terms of equity dialogues in the district and part of that change is around how we're defining what Dei means and you can see here on that second page and you'll see that perspectives experiences culture and Community um are what our employees tell us diversity should mean in APS so this didn't come from us this came from those that we are in conversation with on a regular basis and so we use
039this then as guide to think about our hiring practices how we support our staff how we engage with our community our culture our sense of belonging the Cornerstone that Dr Robinson spoke about this is what our staff have said Equity means in our district and so when we talk about how we Empower our Scholars our staff our families the rigor that Dr Robinson is referencing in our instructional core resource distribution all of these the opportunities we afford folks and access these are the things we should be thinking about across the district so says our staff not Carla but our staff and then inclusion this is what folks have said and you've heard me say before last year that we had three bullets seen heard and valued as we continue to engage folks in conversation we've
040added respect respected and engaged and so we wanted you to see that and then our pride and joy rests in the way that we pay attention to the many identities that people hold in our district and how we unpack what it means to hold values around those identities how we explain and understand the power dynamics Associated within them the experiences that people have and the assumptions that we hold and so um just wanted to give you just a little teaser we have facilitated two hours worth of conversation on those four slides believe it or not because when you're unpacking how individuals show up in the room right you get to a deeper level of understanding and awareness so just wanted to make you aware that lots of work going on exciting it for the connection
041to the upcoming blueprint for excellence and the Strategic plan and just looking forward to the new year questions comments team I have a quick question and how many people are doing this work well here we are we we do we we do have we have great reach I'm always making a comment on the mic off the mic it's just great work every time I sit in this committee you guys report out it's just so inspiring and it's just like yes let's get to it and you guys have been getting to it so when I say let's get to it it's like okay what part do we what do we need to do how can we come alongside you because this is great work I've seen up close and personal the wonderful things you're doing dreaming
042with the young people and then student boys and them being empowered and just every time you all speak out about you know the initiatives and what really Equity is about and how we're really trying to lean into it in a very authentic way not just because it's a cute little Dei diverse we not just saying words but it's very clear that you guys are doing the work and I'm just so happy about that and I'm happy to learn and grow in it as well because I I recognize my limited knowledge in the understanding and so I want to thank you um Chapman for everything you put together and that you're exposing me to personally and allowing me to be on this journey as well of growth because this this is really great work that you
043all are doing and like I said it's inspiring and it's valued it's very much needed it's very much needed so I just want to thank you all because four people doing all this work I just and when we talk about from the instructional policy committee meaning moving our kids academically that can't happen if they're coming into buildings where people don't understand who they are and the experiences they're bringing and creating a culture where those kids feel respected and heard and seen and all so it starts with that because we can't get our kids where they need to be without that so thank you always for the work that you're doing thank you awesome I think it's really great how um you mentioned about the other support staff because it's all touch points you know it's
044like at church when they say you know excuse this you've got raggedy ushers that's mean and rude you don't want to come back you don't understand me and so even though the Usher is not the preacher they're not the mother but that was my first point of contact and so it makes me feel away the whole time that I'm in this building right and so it's the same with the cafeteria workers the um the maintenance the custodian everyone is a touch point to these young people's lives and so the more empowered they are the more training they receive to grow themselves or even to be able to interact with our Learners and feeling comfortable with those interactions then they can even inform those who don't have those interactions with our Learners of what the issues
045are and so I think that's good too that's one of those blind spots that because they're included right yes and it's the inclusion everybody feels then that spreads with their interactions with the kids so yeah the possibility nothing in isolation right you're mine more than other groups they feel liberated I really believe that um there's an there's an ex expectation of more from our support staff and you can clearly hear and feel that they're having some experiences that I think we really need to pay attention to yeah and you know I've said to um Wilma several times that the conversation with our maintenance custodial skilled trades staff was I couldn't stop thinking about it I couldn't stop talking about it out of several of those sessions came folks who said you know I want to
046be on the training team you know how can I be a part of facilitating these kinds of conversations and I think that that's where culture starts to shift and change yeah on that day they felt that they were being seen valued and heard because they had never had a professional development at that level before and they were so thankful that as a matter of fact before we got out of there they asked us well when is the next one you know so it made us really feel good about presenting to them and giving them that opportunity that little red circle there just the opportunity on that day to have a conversation with us about some of their concerns and things that they would like to see differently as it relates to what they do and
047not necessarily anything that takes place in the classroom but around that classroom yeah and we also had under the instruction of Dr Chapman we had a professional video made where our Scholars are telling their stories and sharing their voices and we use that as a part of Dei training and with permission permission from Dr Robinson I will share that video with you all we did it with one school already and it was pretty transformative once they heard the scholars stories and what they go through and what their lives are like and what they need from teachers so it's pretty insightful things thank you all for coming and honestly thank you so much for all the work that you continue to do thank you and that'll wrap it up for us so thank you everyone thank
048you