Michael with Duane Bourdeaux at the Equity Leadership Team Meeting
The school district held it third Equity Team Leadership meeting on Thursday –June 26, 20014.
Here is the agenda for the meeting and the handout
The stated purpose of the Equity Leadership Team:
“As a member of the Equity Team, you will participate in a monthly professional learning community focusing on and being accountable for personal, professional and institutional engagement in equity work. We will meet to deepen our learning of educational inequities and how to eliminate them by having the courageous conversations that address them, and participating in reflective, equity driven exercises. We will use action research methodologies and equity audits to identify successful practices within our system and impact all students by building an equitable, quality education”.
A significant portion of the meeting centered on the need for the district to create a new position titled Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity and Diversity.
On June 3, 2014, I presented the following letter to school board:
CREATE: Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity and Diversity
The other part of the meeting centered on Equity Audits and what are they. Although our student achievement plan, Utah Consolidate Plan, Budget etc… state we have been doing Equity Audits for the last four years, we have nothing to show for it. At this point, it appears that they were conducted in 2011.
I proposed that we start conducting the Audits so that our actions can begin to match our rhetoric.
Here is an overview of areas that Equity Audits can be conducted:
An equity audit is a data collection activity that spans all areas/facets of a school or district environment. Three main categories are listed below:
Teacher/Instructional Quality Equity – The purpose is to determine how teacher quality is distributed within a school or district. Disaggregate the following indicators by courses taught, level of courses taught, academic levels of students taught, etc. Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.
- Teacher Education Level
- Teacher Experience
- Teacher Mobility
- Teacher Certification
Programmatic Equity – The purpose is to look at quality of programs and access/exclusion for certain students/groups of students. Prior to collecting data on the areas below, determine the total school enrollment and disaggregate by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Then, find out the number of students served in each area below and disaggregate by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (provide both number and percentages). Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.
- Special Education
- Gifted and Talented
- Bilingual Education
- Student Discipline Actions /Programs
Achievement Equity – The purpose is to look at student achievement across multiple achievement indicators. Disaggregate the following achievement data by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (provide both number and percentages). Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.
- Dropout Rates
- High School Graduation Tracks
- SAT/ACT/AP/IB Results
District-Level Equity – The purpose is to determine whether differences exist across individual schools within a district according to ethnic composition and/or economic conditions. Participants interested in conducting a district-wide equity audit should collect information on any/all of the categories above in each school and compare the data.
LINKS TO PAST MEETINGS:
2nd Equity Leadership Team Meeting for 2014! (6/5/14)
http://michaelclara.com/2nd-equity-leadership-team-meeting-for-2014/
(1st Equity Leadership Team Meeting) Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity?
http://michaelclara.com/associate-superintendent-of-educational-equity/