Beaverton School District (BSD) Equity Leadership Team Cohort 14

Building momentum for anti-racist policy change that affects ALL schools in our district

1) My privilege. I am nervous about it getting in the way of me understanding how best to approach this work. 

2) As a white woman, I am always worried about saying the wrong thing and offending people who's lived experiences differ from my own. 

Hoping to learn more about communication about racism and inequity. I am hoping to learn from this group better ways to express frustration with structures and policies so that we can move forward and my passion stays solid but doesn't overwhelm my work and gets tuned out for "always crying wolf." What are the right words and persons involved to make change? Many people see the inequity but it is explained as tradition and not fair to those who do benefit and why are you always pointing out negative stuff?? grrrr We have a collective tolerance for inequity at my school and I suspect at others.

1) I want to help us stop perpetuating our systematic racism and our problems of how we handle behavioral challenges and academic concerns.

2) I would love to create a curriculum/program that can be useful for any Staff member, School-wide-community in order to improve Equity in BSD. Equity can't be a job for certain teachers or staff, it has to be for everyone. By creating this curriculum, will aid to include practical activities & strategies to use in their own classroom no matter their subject matter, or role, and school-wide activities, that can be done for anyone. Many teachers don't know what to do or how to implement it and I would like to begin working on something concrete to provide to begin with working realistically.

3) I really want to grow in my ability to include reluctant learning partners in this work. This change grows within our schools, and there is no time to waste; how to do we hold space for people to come to this work, while also honoring that our students need us NOW? Whether these learning partners are on my grade level team, larger staff, or within this group, I want to be able to facilitate these conversations.

1) CRT and Activities in schools can not be a one-time event to address Equity, it has to be imbedded in the daily student life. I would like to analyze how this is happening in schools and how to make it better and useful. 

2) Support for teachers and classmates in confronting everyday microaggressions and racist remarks made in the classrooms and in the curriculum. Also, I am also interested, as you are, in recruitment and retention of educators of color. 

3) We say we want to hire more people who look like our students, then we turn them away after their interviews (possibly for good reason, or possibly not--I rarely sit at those tables). Then when we cut our budget, we cut our newest teachers, who are so often equity-minded and equity-lived teachers that we worked so hard to hire in the first place. I know. Union stuff. Still.

What other books can I be reading? I just ordered Layla F. Saad's "Me and White Supremacy" and am working my way through "This Book is Anti-Racist" by Tiffany Jewell. I'd love to hear more recommendations!