This book walks through the steps organizations can take when starting equity work in their school and includes accompanying activities for each of the different steps.
Introduction to Starting Your School's Equity Journey
Get oriented to this book to learn how it can help you on your organization's equity journey.
Background of the Starting Your School's Equity Journey Book
Chapter 1: Why Does Equity Work Matter? What is Equity? What is Equity Work?
“Solving the problem of racism is America’s unfinished agenda, and it must be regarded by educators as a moral imperative.” -Asa Hilliard
Understanding the why and what of equity
A list of terms and definitions to help you and your team find a common language around equity work
A reading to ground individuals’ understanding of equity accompanied by reflection questions
The way in which we talk about equity matters. This guide will help frame conversations and build a common language around equity.
Chapter 2: Creating your Equity Design Team and Setting Working Agreements
Doing equity work requires having a committed group of people with a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. This chapter will help you think about how to be intentional in leading the equity work at your school.
How to create your equity design team
Equity work is not easy or comfortable. This activity explores what it means to lean into discomfort.
This artifact describes the norms that NCS uses to ground our collective work, conversation, and collaboration.
A list of characteristics that perpetuate White Supremacy Culture
Chapter 3: Methods and Approaches for Guiding Equity-focused Inquiry Work
You have your team. Now what's the approach you will take together?
Your approach matters. How can you choose an approach that best matches your goals?
Chapter 4: Understanding Context
In order to engage in equity work, you and your team should understand the historical, social, political, and economic context within which you operate
Ensuring that your work is grounded in the context around you
Individuals engage with curated material to learn about the context behind a particular area/field
Tips for creating an ArtifactX that is specific to your context (state, county, district, school) or a particular subject area
Chapter 5: Leading from the Inside Out - My Equity Self Reflection
Before having others do reflections around equity, those leading the equity work must do some reflections themselves first.
Meaningful individual reflection is a necessary part in doing equity work
Take a moment to think about your origin story as an educator
A host of resources to learn about whiteness and the history of racism and structural racism in the US
An activity that connects identities, beliefs, and values to how we shape our decisions and behaviors.
Chapter 6: Deepening Your Understanding of Your Students' Experiences
Understanding what students' experiences are is crucial in order to know what about their experience you would like to change
Strategies that help you understand the experiences of the students you work with
The Student Shadow protocol offers a structured approach for educators to gain insight into the everyday experiences of the students they serve.
The school visit toolkit provides an immersive and reflective experience that interrogates how equity plays out in school environments committed to equity.
The Equity Focus Group protocol helps facilitate open-ended conversations between diverse stakeholders exploring equity within the context of their school.
An activity that encourages sharing through engaged listening.
Chapter 7: Organizational Equity Reflection
As an organization, you will have to figure out where you stand currently on the equity continuum, and reflect on how you are currently serving the students within your school
Once you have individually reflected on positionality and equity, the next step is to reflect on equity as a group
The equity self study uses self-reflection and perspective sharing to define equity and the context around it.
The first step in understanding equity is to notice where equity is present and where it is not. Take a moment to reflect on your school environment.
This tool outlines how quantitative data can be used to diagnose an equity challenge.
A tool to help support continuous reflection on equity
A tool that assess diversity, equity, and inclusion for organizations
Chapter 8: Prioritizing an Equity Challenge and Committing to an Equity Imperative
Based on your reflection in the previous chapters, you will create a stated commitment to addressing equity as an organization.
Based on you the your context, individual and organizational reflection, and experiences deepening student understanding, create an equity imperative
Creating a description of the purpose of your organization’s equity work and why it is critical.
Chapter 9: Equity-Centered Data Use
This chapter will show you how to use data in service of equity
How data can be used in service of equity
This concept paper describes an approach to data that helped support a citywide movement that raise educational attainment rates in Chicago over the course of a decade.
An article about how the chief research officer of the Seattle Indian Health Board is using data to better serve indigenous communities
