- We're excited to get started.
And I would just wanna thank you for agreeing to join us
for these two sessions we're having in March and May.
And we have our big, wonderful PBIS State Team,
which includes staff from UVM and our coaches and trainers
and our esteemed colleagues from the agency of education
the department of mental health,
and some esteemed invited guests.
We really appreciate that you're committed to this work,
and this professional development today
is part of the commitment
we made this past summer to equity,
and we recognized really early
that this is something that we need to explore for ourselves
and go on our own professional development journey
around equity in PBIS.
So we're really excited to finally have this opportunity,
and we've been doing some other work.
I don't know if anybody has seen the most recent version
of our commitment to equity
which is on the PBIS Vermont website.
So that's changed a little bit,
but I also wanna call your attention
to the web page on the PBIS from our website
that is on equity,
lots of really terrific resources.
Thanks to Rebecca Lallier,
who's done a tremendous amount of research
and calling through what's valuable to us,
and we really wanna give a cheer to Rebecca
for all of this work that she's been doing.
And she's also looking at our training
so that we can make sure we're more explicit
in integrating equity throughout.
So this is one of our activities that we're doing,
and we're excited to have Ruthie Payno-Simmons
here with us today.
And Ruthie, I have
that you are the Equity Implementation Specialist
at Michigan's Multi-Tiered System of Supports TA Center.
But you mentioned another organization,
so I'm gonna let you finish your introduction.
Thank you for coming,
and we welcome you.
- Thank you so much.
And thank you all for allowing me
to share a space with you the day
and shared learning with you the day.
I wanna just say that, even though I'm gonna share
some of the work that I'm engaging in
and learning from that work,
that I know that I'm in a space where
we're gonna collectively draw from one another today.
I wanna de-center myself from this learning
and make sure that our learning is forward-centered.
My full-time job is with the Michigan MTSS TA Center.
We were formally MiBLSi,
Michigan's Integrated Behavior and Learning Initiative,
and we now work on behalf of MDE
as a state TA Center for MTSS.
I also, I wear many hats,
I also work
with the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center
which is housed in Indianapolis at IUPUI.
And in that work,
I do work as a state cadre specialist, TA specialist.
And so all of the roads that I'm working in,
they all seem to support centering equity
in the system at work that we do.
And I also do partner work
with the National PBIS TA Center as well.
So I'm new in that role, and I'm learning a lot,
but also able to collaborate quite a bit
or continue with collaboration in that work.
Before being at the TA Center level,
I worked as a classroom teacher
for many years as a building principal
where I first became aware
of positive behavioral intervention and supports
in multi-tiered systems of support,
and implementing that as an integrated model.
And then also work as a curriculum director
at the district level,
implementing multi-tiered systems of support
across the K-12 system,
and working with others to do that.
So, Cassandra, I am setting really good energy your way,
2014 was when I defended.
And I can't imagine the butterflies
that are doing nice dances around in your tummy.
But like your colleagues have said,
you've got this,
and you're gonna knock it out of the park,
and I can appreciate where you are
with that particular work, but the learning never stops.
So I just wanna encourage you on that.
- Thank you.
- Yeah, thank you.
And so I heard
a lot of really great things that,
and I've been reading a lot of things
about the work that you're doing in Vermont.
So I'm excited to be able
to be a part of some of the experiences.
And I hear you're talking about
the work that you wanna engage.
In fact, I'm gonna start off by reading something
that I believe comes from one of your documents,
and then I'm gonna talk about and situate our day today.
You're gonna be engaging in learning,
and we're gonna be engaging in conversations
around cultivating critical consciousness,
supportive of providing TA
and guidance to local educational agencies.
And I think that that really becomes important.
And I think the statement that I leveraged from your site
was in the midst of COVID-19,
this pandemic that we're living in,
and issues of racial justice also came to the forefront
following the murders of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor,
Ahmaud Arbery and others in the past.
The BEST/VTPBIS State Team
became acutely aware of our responsibilities
to interrupt racism
by disrupting and addressing issues
of inequity, hate and bias in schools.
We believe that black lives matter
and have agreed as a state team that we will.
And then there are things that you are listing
that you are actually engaging in in the midst of your work,
such as the professional development
about racism bias and white fragility
in order to build greater awareness and sensitivity
and opportunities for reflection.
To listen and learn
from educational experiences of black and indigenous
and other people of color.
To embed core components of equity
and culturally responsive practices
in all BEST in VTBPBIS practices and your schools.
And then to ensure that
the systems and practices include voice, choice, ownership
of all students and families and staff.
And then promote professional development
on social/emotional/behavior learning strategies
that are grounded in equity on our different cultures,
and teach anti-bias.
And then collecting, analyzing, problem-solving
and acting on fidelity and student outcome data
in order to decrease disproportionality
across your Vermont schools.
And then to establish an equity action plan.
The reason why I took time to read that,
I know you all know it
'cause you're living in you're leading it,
is because that's a bold stand,
that is a very clear and transparent stand for equity
that not a lot of people have done.
People are trying to figure out how to do that.
And especially when you start
thinking about it at the local educational levels,
the district levels and the building levels,
people are really trying to figure out how to do this work.
And you've taken a stand
and are centering this in your work.
And so in order to do this work,
that piece that becomes really important
is that cultivating critical consciousness,
is that allows us to be able to facilitate learning
in ways that can be transformative.
It allows us to do several things,
one is to engage in continuous self-awareness work
and self-examination work.
And then at the same time,
engage in examinations systems work.
And so we'll be digging into what that looks like,
feels like and sounds like
in terms of when you're thinking about overall systems
but particularly when you're looking at PBIS systems.
And so that's what we're gonna spend time doing today.
And so I'm gonna get into the context.
We have chat being monitored.
So we wanna make sure we're leveraging that.
And I'll talk about that in just a moment.
So this is gonna be very active.
A lot of conversations can be heard today,
and there are certainly prompts
and opportunities to do that.
Please feel free to use the participant features
of Zoom with the hands raise.
I can never find the heart,
that when someone's sharing
and I just really wanna support a thought
'cause I can push that heart or that thumbs up
when I'm on share screen.
Thank you, Sherry, I appreciate that.
I wanna be able to send it that way.
I can never find it when I'm sharing my screen.
So you may see me do this a few times
while you're talking or just kind of like,
just really relating to what you're saying
and celebrating just the thought partnership
that we're gonna engage in.
So leverage those.
Also conversations can be occurring in the chat
as we're having discussions.
And of course we can pause
and make sure that if someone wants to elaborate or share,
that we do that.
There are materials that we're gonna access,
wanna make sure that you have those,
there's a link in the chat I believe.
It's there already.
If you could pull those,
you're gonna see in those resources,
a resource list with several links,
with several additional articles that you can leverage
that this content draws from.
You're gonna see links to videos,
because I know that you're providing
a lot of professional learning and TA support
to local districts and schools.
And so some of these are resources that I use
when I work with districts and with schools
and even with departments of education,
so wanted you to have access to some of those.
And then also there are resources
to the TA PBIS National Center
that I'm gonna share some experiences
from pilot work that I did in my full-time job
here in Michigan, and learning from that.
And so just wanna make sure you have those resources.
There's a key terms list.
And the reason why I do the key terms list,
and I learned this
from the National Equity Assistance Centers actually,
is that we're unpacking a lot of concepts.
And sometimes there are assumptions
that everyone knows what those words are.
I even go back and revisit definitions
even though I'm using the concepts
and I'm well aware of them,
often just to continue to unpack them
in my own experiences.
So those are there.
We may leverage those at a certain point.
I believe you have a copy of the presentation,
PDF of that.
So you can also pull and leverage that.
And then we're gonna have an activity
where we're gonna do some work around
looking at equality and equity.
And so they're gonna be four images on a PDF.
And when we get into groups, you'll use that document.
So I just wanna make sure you are aware of those.
I wanna give everyone a second
to make sure that they have those open.
And if you could leverage the response feature,
just do yes or thumbs up,
that'll let me know when everyone is ready to go.
All right, I'm already seeing thumbs up.
'Cause I can't see everyone,
so I have to really rely on that participant box there.
Thank you, Amy.
Thank you, Anne.
Thank you, Amanda.
Thank you, Jeremy.
Thank you, Laura.
Thank you, Laura Lee
Meg, Rebecca, thank you.
I like that Meghan Company.
Is that Meghan Company?
Thank you, Tracy.
All right, it looks like we're all pretty much ready to go.
Let us know if you need help
with accessing those resources, please.
Thank you, Josh.
- [Meghan] Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
That was when I was talking with family.
Oops, I'll change it.
- I love it, I love it.
This is your work family, right?
We'll consider for that.
Thank you so much for that.
So just acknowledging places where I leverage resources
where I do a lot of learning, a lot of collaboration,
the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center
in Indianapolis.
A lot of the resources you're gonna see there
are resources that they do a lot of work
to make assessable to classroom teachers
and to practitioners
so that they can access the latest research.
But that has been maybe synthesized
to a point where it's not a long read
so that teachers and administrators
with the limited time that they have
can get to that information pretty quickly
and engage in some of their own reflective processes
Of course,
Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports National Center
really appreciate the work that's being done there,
because we know that PBIS is really an effective innovation,
it can be.
But we also know that even when we put it in place,
that we still see some of these disproportionate outcomes.
And so a lot of work is happening
at the PBIS National Center
to understand and to expand PBIS to center equity
and to center cultural responsive and sustaining practices.
And so one of the work groups
that I serve on in the capacity
as a partner at that center is with the equity work group,
and we meet monthly,
and I've been part of that group
for the last four or five years.
And we do a lot of work to try to create tools and resources
to support others that are implementing across the country.
And so I appreciate the work that they're doing out there,
and I'm happy to be a part of that.
Of course, I work for the TA Center here in Michigan,
and a lot of my learning around PBIS
and multi-tiered systems of support comes from implementing
as a practitioner before becoming a TA specialist.
And then of course,
I just continue to leverage the work that I started
before becoming a part of all these different centers
in the work that I do, such as what I'm engaging in today.
So today what we're gonna do
is we're gonna cultivate critical consciousness
to continue supporting your work.
The stance that you take,
it has a critical consciousness frame.
So you are oriented
based on these comments that you've made
about what you aim to do with regards to disrupting
issues around racism and addressing issues of inequity.
It has a critical frame.
It's not a popular thing.
People wanna do equity work,
but they're not always talking about
disrupting and dismantling.
And so what are some of the things
that we can do to support schools
and being able to do that?
What are the things
that we need to continue to cultivate internally
to be able to support that work?
And so we're gonna look at ways to do that today.
We're gonna look at
commitments for engaging in courageous conversation.
We're gonna look at
how can we continue building awareness
around the systemic inequities that we are seeing?
And we wanna shift our gaze.
Like we wanna start shifting our gaze
as we think about systemic inequities.
When I started this work,
I did a lot of conversations around disproportionality,
because the pilot work that I was hired to do,
even though it was called an equity pilot,
the purpose was to address disproportionality.
So what I've found in my first few years
of doing the pilot work in Michigan
was that we were talking a lot about disproportionality,
and we were talking a lot
about looking at disaggregated discipline data.
And there is a lot to talk about
around why that cannot be the only focus
and why that's only a small part of the process.
And so how do we make sure we shift our gaze
and not just look at disproportionality
and look at that disaggregated data
in order to send an equity in our systems.
And then how are we often complicit
in the systems that are created and perpetuated?
I often tell individuals and colleagues,
we inherited these systemic inequities
when we look at our social historical context,
however, we have an opportunity in our generation to,
like you say in the statements
in the work that you're engaging in,
to interrupt and disrupt
the systemic and equities that we inherited.
And that's really hard work,
but it's work that in our time
we can begin to dismantle and pass that baton
on to those who come after us to continue to do that work.
But first we have to begin to think about,
how are we looking at systemic inequities?
How do we reorient ourselves if needed,
and then how do we make sure
that we are aware of how we're complicit
and then how do we shift that?
And then if we have time and hopefully we will,
we'll get into defining
and operationalizing educational equity
I'm gonna be leveraging definition
from one of the national centers.
But certainly, one of the things that can be done
is to begin looking at the crosswalk
between the definition
that the National Center has out there,
and then the definition that you all have defined
and that you're framing to see how they parallel.
What things do you feel like are your strengths?
What things would you wanna give more attention to?
And we wanna think about that
in terms of when we were looking at
our school behavior systems.
And even though we're focusing on school behavior systems,
we know that everything else that we do in schools
impact what we do with behavior.
So we'll touch on some of those things as well.
I just wanna pause to see if there are any thoughts,
any questions or any comments
before we move forward.
And always checking up for that chat.
So if you wouldn't mind,
because we're gonna try to make this as intimate
and as if we're in-person as possible
into a virtual roll call.
And what would really be helpful is if you could go in
and just add your first name
if you're comfortable with that and your role.
I wear many hats,
but the hat that I have on today
is consultant and TA specialist.
So I just added those there.
And please call me Ruth
or Ruthie when we're talking today.
We'll just give everybody a chance
to make those adjustments
if they wanna do that.
The way that you go about doing that
in case you're not aware
is I think you can hover your name
over the dots on your picture at the top,
wherever your pictures are showing up,
you can click on that.
And when you do, you'll see,
I think a drop-down menu
where it allows you to rename yourself.
And then when you click on that rename on the drop-down,
then you can actually go in and rename yourself,
especially on what you prefer to be called by
during the conversations today.
So we're gonna get into our first experience here,
and it's gonna be with Mentimeter.
One of the things that I forgot to ask you to do
was to see if you could have a second device.
So like if you have a cell phone
or you have a second monitor,
you can also leverage your second monitor or iPad.
What we're gonna do
is we're gonna to mentimeter.com, menti.com.
And when you get there, I'm gonna reshare my screen
and I'm gonna project an image
and there's gonna be a code.
And you're gonna locate that code at the top of the screen.
And once you enter that code,
I want you to take some time to respond to the prompt.
What does centering educational equity
in your work mean to you?
What does it mean to you?
And you can respond as many,
place as many thoughts there as you have.
So now let's see if I can pause from talking.
I am still mastering talking and manipulating screens.
So if I pull this off, I'm gonna feel really proud.
Can everyone see that question and the code there?
- [Participant] Yap.
- Perfect.
Let us know if you need any support.
- So the directions are at the top of the slide,
it says go to www.menti.com
and then you'll be prompted to use the code 9288 7574,
which I copied into the chat.
And then once you enter the code,
it will pop up this question,
and you'll have the opportunity to answer it.
- Thank you, Amy.
- [Amy] No problem.
- And thank you for your technical assistance,
it makes it so much easier,
I appreciate you.
I can see some of your thoughts
are starting to show up on the screen here,
keeping the core of conversations around equity
centered in our work.
Creating the conditions
so all can effectively engage in as their authentic self.
Using a people-first approach in everything we do.
Doing my best to consider equity
with all aspects of my work.
Following the lead and knowledge
of AIPAC individuals and communities.
Bringing coaching conversations back and around to equity
to ensure group behaviors
align with equity and how we're defining equity.
These are also powerful.
Continually revisiting our training materials
to ensure that all students are benefiting, absolutely.
Closing success gaps.
Access for all.
Being cognizant and reflective about my implicit bias,
so I can see inequity
and reflect on my role in it.
Also being courageous enough to feel uncomfortable,
as well as respectfully
addressing equity when I see it, absolutely.
Just a lot of very positive comments here,
and so critical to the work that we engage in
when we talk about centering equity.
Often I will say to my colleagues
as we're doing work in Michigan,
in what ways are we making sure that our own methods
for supporting partners out in our districts,
are we reflecting that in how we meet
and how we interact as we're doing that work
to make sure that we're not just saying that
we want to support equity in the districts,
but also are we reflective of that?
Do we model that in our own approach, in our own process?
So absolutely.
So one of the things as you're engaging,
you may have already used an activity similar to this
as you're working with partners.
This would be a helpful activity.
Some of the things that you could see from that
would be how people are understanding equity in their work,
how people are seeing themselves
with regards to doing equity work,
where there may be areas
that can be celebrated and built upon,
also areas where there could be
additional focus areas and attention
given to ways to support back in the buildings.
Other ways that you all see this activity being helpful
as you are sharing some of your amazing ideas here,
what are some other ways that this could be useful
as you're providing support to districts into leaders?
- Go for it, Kim?
- Yeah, I think it's just
if you're engaging in uncomfortable conversations,
this reduces the intimacy just a little bit,
'cause we're not naming who said what
So it might feel a little bit safer
to disclose some of your thoughts about it.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
And I see both sides of that.
If you want to have those real conversations,
those complex conversations,
you wanna maybe like, for me for an example,
unshare my screen
so we can have a more intimate space
to have those conversations, smaller groups,
so we can have those conversations.
But if we're just breaking into
as an entry point conversations,
this could be a way to provide multiple opportunities
for people to begin to share with your thinking is.
Absolutely.
Anyone else?
Another way would also be to
have people share
how they're thinking about educational equity
before providing professional learning,
having them share how they're thinking about it after
or over a period of time
to see how is the language shifting.
I did an analysis over,
part of the pilot work that we did here at Michigan
involved meeting with school leadership teams
for three years, every month.
And over time,
I kept very detailed notes of the conversations.
So I did an analysis of the conversations
from year one over the three-year span.
And what I noticed as I coded the conversations
that there was a shift in how adults were talking
about the way that they were supporting
and centering equity in their work.
So there was a shift
in the perceptions and the dispositions of staff
based on what they were saying,
leadership teams based on what they were saying
over the period of time that they were engaging in the work.
So this could be a way to kind of look at
how are we growing
in the ways that we're thinking about equity
as we engage in that work.
This is a document that I can also download
and share with you.
So I will download it and share it with you
so that you can continue to revisit it and maybe use it
as entry points to continued conversations as well.
So when we get into our small group roles today,
into our breakout rooms,
you wanna just make sure that you assign group roles.
And so these are the group roles
that we'll leverage during our time.
There'll be a facilitator who will guide the discussion
and ensure that everyone is able to participate.
The reporter will take detailed notes
and report out to the whole group
if there are opportunities to share out.
And then the timer will keep track of time
and just prompt the group along the way
so that if you have any tasks
that you're trying to complete in that time,
you'd have to do that.
And then an observer who'll attend to the group dynamics.
And so what I'll try to do at different points
is drop this into chat so that you'll have it,
but also you can leverage these
on your handout for the slides.
- Ruthie, you're still sharing the Mentimeter screen,
not the PowerPoint.
- I appreciate you bringing that to my attention.
Let me go back so I can make sure
that you can see this particular slide.
Thank you for that.
- Would be great also to get a copy of these answers.
- Yes.
- Would be wonderful.
- Yeah, so I'm gonna download them and share them with you.
Absolutely.
Thank you for that.
All right, are you able to?
- Yep.
- Okay, perfect.
So these are the group roles that I was just talking about,
and I could take a moment to get you all back on screen,
'cause one of the things I've learned is that
when I share and unshare, I lose you.
So be patient with me.
And then once I get you all back up,
I will reshare my screen.
I don't know why it does that, it does it quite a bit.
There you all go.
I have to figure out with the third screen,
why does that happen.
All right, I'm resharing right now.
Thank you all for your patience.
All right, so the facilitator, the reporter,
the timer and the observer
are gonna be
the roles that you'll wanna assign.
How many of you are familiar
with the commitments for engaging in equity work?
Just a virtual thumbs up on the participant or a yes.
Awesome, I see Amy, yes, and Abby,
thank you so much, and Kim.
So several of you are.
We leverage these quite a bit here in Michigan
and also in the 13 state region that we support
in the work I do with the National Equity Assistance Center.
We're also beginning to leverage these quite a bit
in the work groups that I'm a part of,
at the PBIS TA Center, the National Center.
And the reason why I think that these are really important,
I know that
they're from Singleton and Linton's work out West,
is because they really
are tools that we can leverage
when we're engaging in complex conversations
around inequities,
around different types of oppression
that we're seeking to disrupt.
And so these can be used every time there is a session,
because it ground everyone,
it bringing everyone into the four walls of that space
or the four walls of that virtual space to say,
in this space,
when we have these complex
and sometimes difficult conversations,
we need to have some ways
that we're gonna have some agreements
for how we're gonna do this work.
Staying engaged is one of those ways to do that.
And what I usually do is unpack each one of these,
but I feel like because several of you
are familiar with these,
is that I'd like to provide you opportunity
to share your thinking about these
in ways that you've,
so when you hear the word stay engaged,
what does that mean.
For those of you who have used these
and want to actually share,
what does it mean to stay engaged
when we're saying that we're gonna commit to
courageous conversations around race and around equity?
And anyone can share.
- I will, to me, it means
to kind of lean into the conversation that's happening.
In my experience,
engaging in this work
sometimes means people having to literally watch me
work through what I'm learning
from my position as a white woman.
So I afford that same thing to other people
and try to lean in and be engaged
and be right there with it,
'cause sometimes it's a heavy emotional lift sometimes.
- Absolutely.
- [Meghan] If you're doing it right.
- You know what, that's interesting,
we had a very complex conversation
in one of our meetings yesterday,
and I think I ended the conversation with,
and I'm seeing it come through the chat,
and hopefully we can share some of those out loud that,
if you're doing equity work and you're totally comfortable,
are you really doing equity work?
Because this is complex work and it's personal
and it's collective,
and so it's a lot of heavy lifting
intellectually cognitively, but also emotionally.
And so staying engaged when it gets hard.
I love your phrase lean into it,
'cause that means that you're not moving away
when he becomes uncomfortable,
but you're making the decision
to stay in that space
and to hopefully be able to work through
and continue working through that space.
Yeah, someone wanna share
what we're seeing in the chat?
- We got a lot of great responses in the chat.
Notice all experiences, thoughts, feelings
and body responses.
Not listening to respond but listening to hear.
Listen, participate, reflect.
Giving your full attention, limit distractions.
Focused attention on this,
not getting distracted by your desktop.
Divorce yourself off judgements.
Stay with it even when it's hard.
Notice my internal reactions.
Sit with the discomfort of this work.
And B R B, oh and chat will be right back.
(indistinct)
- Awesome.
Absolutely, you can even see
how these four commitments are connected,
'cause as we talk about staying engaged,
right away we start talking about
that notion of experiencing discomfort.
We also talk about being able to like,
I mean, in many ways, was it Amy,
I think Amy, hey, who was it?
It it you, Meg?
Meg, you shared that
sometimes it's people seeing you
actually process kinda out loud,
how you're navigating your awareness of your identities
and how they interact in spaces
in any given conversation that might happen.
So part of that is engaging and speaking your truth,
'cause a part of dealing with that
is being able to talk about what you're experiencing,
what you're thinking and what you're feeling.
So staying present in the conversations
when they become difficult is so important.
I can tell you when something gets complex for me
and I want to take a break from it,
I might go do something that feels easier.
So pushing myself to stay in that space when that happens.
What about speak your truth?
- [Meghan] Oh, go, go, Amy.
Sorry, Meg.
I was just thinking this is hard sometimes.
I think sometimes we use the proverbial we,
so we do this or we do that.
I think it's really important
to sort of isolate race in these conversations
and also really focus on a personal
and your own lived experience,
because that is what you bring to the table,
is your lived experience.
And that's what you know, and can speak to.
- Absolutely.
Thank you, Cassandra.
- And to me, these first three,
all kind of are so intertwined,
because being engaged
and listening to someone speak his or her truth,
and then being really honest
with why is this triggering something in me,
and that's the experiencing
of the discomfort and what is it touching,
it's all kind of wrapped up
in just get ready 'cause it's going to be a ride.
- Absolutely, thank you, Meg.
- We have some great responses in the chat box too.
Speak only from your experience,
don't try to speak for others.
Name your part in bias and how I'm complicit.
Name my whiteness and mistakes I have made.
Be honest with yourself and others.
Cassandra.
Speak my truth,
not what I think others is.
Name my hopes and my mistakes.
- Absolutely, these are all critical components
of speaking your truth.
And I love that, popping up,
being honest about what I'm experiencing in that moment
can be really hard,
especially think about
working with the colleagues that you work closely with.
Sometimes you don't want to trouble the waters
or you feel like you don't want to be offensive,
or you're concerned about people's feelings
or maybe even backlash.
But in order to really do this work,
we have to be able to have those real conversations.
And so all of these pieces
that you all are putting in.
I have to often say,
being an African-American female or black female
working in a predominantly white organization
is that I'm speaking,
but I'm speaking on behalf of my experience.
I can't speak for every black female or every black person
because I don't share everyone's lived experience.
I can share my concerns in terms of representing a group,
but I cannot represent that group based on my experiences.
So also making sure that I think the same way about others,
that if I'm saying I can't speak for the black race,
then I also have to make sure
I'm not asking someone to do the same thing
when we're engaging in conversation.
So the same way that we make sure
we're aligning ourselves with how we leverage these,
that we're also practicing that with others.
And so that becomes really helpful.
And let me ask you really quick,
'cause I think I pronounced your name two different ways,
and I wanna get it right.
Cassendra or Cassandra.
- Thanks.
You see here, I put it in there to try make it,
it's Cassandra.
- Thank you, Cassandra, my apologies.
Thank you so much.
- Yeah, no worries, no worries at all.
- No, no, so we'll get this right.
How about experience discomfort, experiencing discomfort?
You all are unpacking these so amazingly well.
And I think that having your teams, your schools
think about ways that they can leverage these
become really important
because there's a lot of fragility
around having these conversations often.
And so if people know that
they have these commitments they can draw from,
they can use these as tools.
What about experiencing discomfort?
- Several things happening in the chat box here.
I have the right to safety, but not comfort.
Reminding myself that when I feel discomfort,
it means that I'm doing the work.
That was very supported by Courtney.
And the ability to say it's okay to be uncomfortable.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for those really amazing ideas.
'Cause a big piece of this
is not completing safe with comfort.
And often when people start feeling uncomfortable,
they will think that
they'll complete that with not being safe.
And so being uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe.
We've talked a lot about,
we're not critiquing people,
but that we are critiquing systems and structures,
we're critiquing and pushing ideas
and serving as critical trends to one another.
And I think when we can situate ourselves to say,
we're gonna be critical thought partners
and critical friends to one another,
that that changes sometimes the environment.
And I see here...
Absolutely, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah, these can be leveraged
to really have those conversations
that can be uncomfortable.
And then we can just remind people
to think about the one
that they would need to focus on the most,
and maybe focus on that one in a given setting,
and then check with themselves
to see how well did I stick to that commitment,
'cause that's the hardest one for me.
And these can change in different contexts as well.
Again, someone has already said,
if you're not experiencing discomfort,
then are we having the right conversations?
That really becomes important as well.
How about expect and accept non-closure?
I like that, Cassandra,
growth and learning comes from discomfort,
that's absolutely right.
That if we're not having those conversations,
are we pushing ourselves to think differently
to expand ourselves to grow?
As I've been watching the unfolding of events
that are happening in our country right now,
I've been really reflecting on my own thinking
and around what's happening,
and just really engaging in conversations with others
around how they're feeling and their thinking is.
And so being able to make sure
that I'm pushing myself to grow across multiple domains.
We're focusing a lot on race in this work
because our national data
tends to show that that's where you see your biggest issues.
But we need to understand that
anytime we're talking about
any of the identities that have been marginalized,
that that discomfort is going to be there.
If we're having conversations around race,
around sex, around class, around national origin,
that we have to make a commitment
to make sure we're bringing our ideas to the opening,
and that we're also getting comfortable
with being uncomfortable
as we're having these conversations.
Some people even say that
if we talk about these things that we create divisiveness,
the divisiveness is already there.
I think the way that you dismantle that,
the way that we address that
is by beginning to engage in those conversations.
How about expect and accept non-closure?
- Amy puts something in the chat box,
I just wanna read from the article
from the MPAC that we pre-read,
accomplishing educational equity
is not an event but a process.
Non-closure, the work is ongoing.
Equity work is not a checkbox or flow chart,
it involves the work people, humans,
which is a non-linear, never ending process.
Just because we don't have an answer about what to do,
doesn't mean we aren't doing anything.
- Absolutely, you all just unpack that commitment.
I don't need to unpack it further.
I just wanna reiterate that
these are really critical pieces
of expecting and accepting non-closure.
And I think because a lot of the work we do
around multi-tiered systems of support and PBIS,
which is also a process,
sometimes we wanna be able to address things
right away when we see them.
We tend to work on very technical nature and perspective.
And that is real important thing
that we have to make sure
that skills are in place for people to do the work.
But we also have to remember that
we're humans doing this work,
like we said in the chat, and that is not linear.
And so how do we make sure that
we understand that
we're not gonna address every issue when we first attempt to
we're not gonna have every conversation that we need to,
we'll continue conversations.
And May, from today,
you all will continue conversations
that you've started long before this session,
beyond this session, and that it's ongoing work,
and that you're never
gonna completely check off equity,
because it's ongoing work.
I've been doing this for a long time,
and I'm still learning areas
that I have to continue to work on
and to be better at the work and as a person.
I like that non-closure is a reminder to stay engaged.
I liked that Abby, absolutely.
Just because we don't have an answer
doesn't mean that we're not doing anything.
Sometimes people feel like,
we've done these three things,
they do that with PBIS,
and it's not working.
And often it's, we have to look at other things
around the practice itself to understand
maybe why it's not appearing to work,
but sometimes it is working,
it just needs time for it to take root, to be systemic.
And so these are all really important ways
that we have to think about this.
So why do you think, even though I know you all,
and it seems like you're well-versed in these commitments,
why would we spend time on these?
Why would you spend time on these
if you're working with other partners?
Why might that be helpful?
- Kim says to get grounded and oriented,
and we have to model it to teach it.
- Yep, absolutely, absolutely.
So if you could just take a moment and leverage the chat,
if you think about these commitments,
which commitment do you feel like you would be working on
and committing to for self-awareness today
during the session?
Which one would you feel like
you would want to work on today?
- Lot of experiencing discomfort, speaking your truth,
accept and expect non-closure.
- Absolutely.
And thank you all for being willing to share.
And thanks for being vulnerable,
because a part of this work does require that,
allowing yourselves to be vulnerable.
I really appreciate Renee Brown's work
around "The Power of Vulnerability."
Sometimes we feel like we can't protect ourselves
or that we can't allow people
to see some of the things that we're really thinking.
But again, that growth is connected to that.
Being able to put yourself out there.
Often in my full-time work,
especially being
one of the few people of color in my center,
often I'm feeling that, I'm thinking,
"I need to make sure I'm sharing what I'm thinking
even if I'm concerned
that it might be taken the wrong way
or it might question whether or not
I wanna be in a space."
And it's never an issue of not wanting to be in a space,
but it's always an issue of,
how do we continue to have these conversations
and make sure that we're moving forward.
Appreciate that.
Yes, Kim, I agree with that.
So these would be helpful for people to stay grounded.
I heard someone say that, I heard through the chat,
to help us to orient ourselves.
And there are different activities
that you can do with these each time
to change it up if you're using.
And let's say
you're working with one partner over a period of time,
each time you could do something different with them.
The first time you can unpack them with them.
And you're unpacking them all,
and having people think about
which one they want to attend to,
another time,
you could actually have them co-facilitate with you
so they can build their own fluency
around the meaning of these.
So there are different ways that these can be used.
So let's talk about
building awareness of systemic inequities
through a critical lens,
so spend some time there,
and think about how often we might be complicit.
This is a slide that I use
in any session that I'm a part of,
because I feel like it's just a grounding session.
In 1973, I was two years old,
I hadn't even entered into the school system yet.
I was certainly reading the little yellow readers
that my sister who was in kindergarten was bringing home.
So she'd bring those math sums.
I was reading all of those
and couldn't wait to get into school
so I can start learning.
But before I even entered school,
African American students
were suspended two times more than your white peers.
We all know this data,
'cause I know if you're doing this work you've seen it.
By 2006, I had gone through the school system
and I had been teaching for several years,
and I was moving into being a principal
and working on my doctorate.
Just getting ready
to enter into a program to work on my doctorate.
And by then,
you can see that African American students
were suspended three times more than their white peers.
You look at today, we're almost four times,
when you look at African American discipline disparities,
you can see that African American students
are nearly 3.8 times more likely to be suspended
than their white peers.
And so over 40 years, this gap has just widened.
And so we have to kind of begin to think about,
how do we refocus our gaze.
And I can tell you from looking at
the ways that you talk about centering equity,
you've already begun reorienting your gaze.
And so a lot of people often
have thoughts about why this data
looks the way that it looks.
And so one of the things that we can do
is have some conversations around that.
And what we wanna do is we wanna just take a minute,
we're gonna go back to Mentimeter.
And so again, I'm gonna share my screen
and I want you to respond to that prompt there.
When you think about the disproportionality
that's occurred over the 40 years,
what causes do you commonly hear other educators attribute
to what you're seeing?
Why are people saying that this disproportionality happens?
And so I'm resharing.
I'm gonna get fluent at this.
- So at the top of your screen,
you should see the presenter has changed slide.
And then you can say, go to slide.
Or if you have to reload,
you can go back to Mentimeter and put the code in again.
- Absolutely.
And you can keep it up when you're done,
because we're gonna come back to it a couple more times.
Thank you, Amy.
If you're reloading,
you'll wanna put that code to enter.
I don't think I closed voting, but it says I closed it,
I hope I didn't.
Are you all able to vote?
I wanna make sure everyone's able to.
- It says it's closed for me.
- Yeah, it feels like once I...
Let's see, okay, it should be open back.
Go ahead and finish up.
I think it just lacked when I hit click on the screen.
You can see the results, they're populating on the screen.
So you can see there, as you're engaging in leading the work
and providing support to schools,
and in your workspaces that these are some of the responses.
These are the things that you see.
Does anyone wanna speak to any of these
as you were seeing the actual results populate
and as you were entering?
- Honestly, I don't even think this is a discussion enough.
I had to like think about it,
it didn't pop right to my mind,
had to think of
when did I hear anybody asking this question.
- Thanks for sharing that.
You can choose multiple ones,
'cause I'm sure you for those who are responding,
that you may have heard more than one.
And I hear Rebecca saying
that this conversation
is one that probably needs to happen more,
but that doesn't happen as much.
- I feel like in Vermont,
the easy way to avoid putting discipline and race together
is to say, "Well, our incise is so small,
because we have so few students of color, that we...
I have heard that be used as the excuse.
Now we can talk about poverty.
And then the next breath that I've heard is
a lot of our white students are students of poverty.
And that sort of is the way not to bring the conversation
to what is it about race?
What is it about students of color?
So that's not here,
but that's what I've been exposed to in Vermont.
- Thank you, Meg.
There are also some important things in the chat box.
Tim said they dismiss inclusive
and tend to blame the children and families
rather than examining the system.
And that dismisses those black and brown children
who live in Vermont.
And Amanda says she's been in meetings
where she hears half the staff say
families are engaged in don't care.
When that happens,
she tries to remind folks that our families
come from different cultures and backgrounds,
and we can't assume they don't care, engaged.
Focus is on what's wrong with the student
rather than what's wrong with the school,
school just form policy.
- And believe it or not,
those are very similar things that we hear in Michigan.
We don't hear the incise
when you're working maybe at a district level,
but when you're working at a building level,
sometimes that may come up
depending on which region we're working in,
but the poverty one is huge,
that one comes up quite a bit.
And the one about families comes up quite a bit.
I'm sure there are others
that you've heard that aren't on here.
This is an activity that I think is really helpful
to do with partners, leadership teams,
and then have leadership teams
do them with all staff.
Because after some of their critical consciousness has been,
this is the part of cultivating that critical consciousness,
because what it's starting to do
is reorient their thinking about discipline outcomes.
And it's starting to kind of challenge some of those
and debunk some of those stereotypes
that are associated with why people are thinking.
I've done this with leadership teams.
And it's amazing how the initial work is,
they're really saying poverty,
they're saying all these different things.
And then after we have done the activity
and we've engaged in some work and learning,
we begin to see some reorientation
of how people are thinking about the work,
and it takes time.
And if you're doing this in-person,
what we tend to do is use sticky notes.
People are at their tables,
and we give them sticky notes, and we have them,
they can list as many reasons as they think.
Well, we ask them to list the two or three main reasons.
And then when they do that across their groups
and they organize them by a theme.
So each person lists two to three reasons
why do you think disproportionality happens.
They may come together with all their sticky notes
and talk through those sticky notes
as they're putting them into themes.
And then these have been the themes
that have come up consistently
as we've done these over time with different partners.
And it's in alignment
with what the literature says
about how people think about disproportionality.
And so it allows for people
to begin to have those conversations.
And it's tough sometimes when you do this,
because the first time you do it with a group,
you're gonna hear
a lot of these deficit constructs coming up.
But that allows us then to think about
what we need to do
to support shifting those deficit constructs?
So, one article we read
around doing this particular activity
was a scornful gaze, a deficit thinking.
Why am I drawing a blank right now?
From Paul Gorski.
He has just a body of work on deficit ideology.
And so by leveraging his work begins to help people
think about how they came to think the way that they do.
And we're gonna talk about that a little bit more too,
but all of the reasons that you're sharing in chat,
those are all things that I've heard as well.
So that activity really helps.
So again, like you talked about
poverty comes up quite a bit.
And poverty does play a role in racial disproportionality.
But when we start thinking about the issues around race,
when you control for poverty, race is still implicated.
It still shows.
And so we also do a lot of articles and reading
around Skibo's work,
because Skibo has collected quite a bit of data
over multiple years over multiple schools systems,
and has shown the outcomes
don't match with what we assume
with these deficit assumptions that we see.
People also tend to focus on family.
The family doesn't care.
I really appreciated the coaching
that was being provided to say,
people come from different lived experiences.
So we can't assume that
parents aren't engaged or they don't care,
because we're expecting for them to participate
in a way that makes sense to us,
that we may not be considering those cultural nuances.
We may not even be considering real lived experiences of,
if I'm working at night, I can't come to the conference.
If I'm working two jobs, I can't come to the conference.
If I had a negative experience with school as a student,
I'm less likely to engage,
especially if my child is not doing well.
You're just kind of reliving maybe in that mind.
But they're also
other reasons why parents may participate in different ways.
And so we have to think about those ways to do that.
I think it's also important to note that
even though external factors
related to structural inequities also overly simplistic.
Like the way that people think about,
like people say poverty is the problem,
but they don't think about the economic policies,
they don't think about the housing policies,
they don't think about legislation that created poverty.
And so if we could reframe people's thinking
even around how they view people
who may be living in poverty
to not see as blaming them for that poverty,
that changes how we interact with people as well.
We're thinking about it.
And then of course, there's that whole idea
when we think about black males in particular,
because in many ways, black male students bodies
have been criminalized in our society.
I was a principal of a K-4 building,
and I remember one of my very strong
and amazing classroom teachers,
first grade classroom teachers coming to me and saying,
"I'm afraid for my life."
And my thought was, "He's six years old.
What are you afraid of?
Why are you afraid for your life?
What has happened to make you feel
like you can't be safe in this space with this child?"
It's five and six years old.
We've seen videos of police officers
coming into the schools 'cause schools have called them
and arresting four and five-year-old little girls,
and I'm a mom.
My kids are all adults and I'm a grandparent now,
but just the thought of something like that happening,
it just breaks my heart.
There has to be a better way to support students.
And so we have to think about that.
The work that Skibo does,
does a really good job of showing that
when you look at behavior discipline,
often, African American students are disciplined more
for behaviors that are highly subjective
and less violent.
And so we have to begin thinking about
what ways are we over disciplining kids
based on the beliefs that we have,
the biases that we carry.
But that is not the case, that black students
and students of color
are not acting out more than your counterparts.
In the pilot work that we engaged in...
Yes, Meg, it breaks my heart too.
It says we do have four year olds
being suspended from preschools
because of discipline issues.
And so we wanna keep them in school,
we wanna to keep them learning.
And so that doesn't necessarily address the issue
when we then began to remove them from school.
And you think about a kid
who has had those experiences in preschool,
by the time they get to high school,
they're so disenfranchised.
Then we're thinking they're a problem,
but we're not looking at that history.
I was on the safety and transportation committee
as a district curriculum administrator.
And these were for kids
that have been suspended or expelled.
And they were coming back
after being out of school for a year.
And we were having these hearings
for their reentry or should they reenter.
And you would look at their discipline history,
and it was like a rough sheet.
You could see kids as early as kindergarten
being sent to the office
for making raspberry sounds or tapping their pencils.
And so how do we address those types of things as well
to make sure that we are not setting kids up
to be unsuccessful in school.
There are a lot of factors
that contribute to inequitable racial discipline outcomes.
And I even started shifting the language
in some of the work we did Michigan,
and I moved from calling it disproportionality
to calling it inequitable racial discipline outcomes
or something that named the inequity.
Because when people see disproportionality,
just like when we talk about
hiding behind maybe poverty or around a small end,
sometimes people then don't face the fact
that there are things
that as adults we can do in systems
to either contribute to inequities or to disrupt them.
So factors that contribute to that,
that I've talked about and done work around others,
and building on the work of others
is cultural mismatch.
We think about cultural mismatch.
We think about those different ways of knowing,
problem-solving, believing, behaving, valuing.
I heard in the chat
that maybe participation was different for different people.
So how do we understand that and how do we incorporate that?
But basically what we've learned
is that cultural mismatch exist in schools
because dominant culture
typically is influencing the functions of schooling,
and often the voices
of those who've been historically marginalized
are not at the table.
So when I look at your pillars
around the work that you are engaging in,
I saw multiple times, including input and family voice
and those perspectives from diverse lived experiences
as a part of that work.
And so we wanna make sure that we're engaging in that.
And what happens
is adults aren't realizing,
that culturally and linguistically diverse students
actually occupy and navigate different cultural spaces.
And sometimes they're constantly changing
even when students are navigating within the school system.
And so the way that a person behaves in one space
may be perfectly functional in that space,
but then it may not necessarily be functional
in the space in school.
And so the school has to do the job
of figuring out why isn't it functional in school?
Is it something we need to change our systems to support?
Or is it something that we teach?
Having certain behaviors and certain spaces.
I can yell all day at a football game when something happens
but maybe I'm not gonna yell
the same way at a football game
when I'm actually in a space that's more intimate
and where we're engaging a different type of experience.
And so does this culture needs change?
The practice need to change,
or we need to do some teaching around that?
So those are things to think about.
I see in a chat where Tracy shared,
I literally was in a classroom
in which two students were diagnosed with ADHD,
one white, one black,
the white one had a yoga ball to sit on
and was allowed to bounce,
and the black one had no accommodations
and got continual reminders
and prompts to sit still.
And I appreciate you sharing that,
because the building that I was a principal in,
we had emotional impairment in our district
all from our county, from our region,
all students who had an emotional impairment
came to our district.
And in my building,
I had all the students that weren't raised K through four.
And when I started as a principal,
we had a room that was called the ER room,
that was dismantled over time
for the implementation of MTSS and PBIS,
where kids were integrated into the classrooms.
And that room became a place to complete work,
a place to deescalate.
It changed the culture of the school over time.
But I remember a parent
wanting to have a bouncy chair for one student.
And my response was, "That's fine,
but we're then gonna make sure every student
who requires a bouncy chair gets a bouncy chair."
So we had to purchase multiple chairs
so that all students
who would require those chairs had access to them.
And we also made it very clear to staff,
that those chairs would move every year.
That is not your chair.
If your classroom
doesn't have students in the following year
that requires that type of support,
that chair is going to go where it needs to go.
And so that type of work becomes important as well.
So I appreciate you sharing that.
Another contribution to-
Yes, yes, thank you.
- The Mentimeter is still up and not the-
- Oh goodness.
Okay, I am not gonna get this today.
- We're very patient here in Vermont.
- I appreciate your patience.
I'm needing a tier two
and eventually a tier three intervention
would just let using PowerPoint today.
So thank you so much for that.
So some of the factors
that are contributing to these outcomes
would be cultural mismatch.
Another one is deficit thinking,
how we think about who our students are
and how they come to us impact how we interact with them,
impacts what we see.
In a study I did,
I remember one of the students saying
he felt like the teacher was,
before he got into fourth grade...
So I asked,
"What did you like best about being in fourth grade?"
And this is a student
who had been an African American student,
had been at tier three since kindergarten,
receiving tier three support since kindergarten.
And so finally the study that I was looking at
was looking at third and fourth grade students
who were accessing tier three supports,
African American and Latino or Latinx.
And so one of the questions to the students was,
"What do you appreciate
about being in fourth grade this year?"
And the student's response was, "My teacher,
'cause I feel like before I came to fourth grade,
everybody was watching me to catch me do something wrong."
So how people perceive that child
determined how they watched him and what they watched for.
And he felt like
the first time in his experience was in fourth grade
when the teacher said to him that,
"I'm watching out for you.
I'm not watching you to see if you're doing something wrong,
I'm watching out for your wellbeing."
And when I interviewed the teacher,
not knowing what the student has said,
the teacher said that the student say,
"Why are you always watching me?
I feel like you're always looking at me.
You never look at anyone else."
And the teacher said to him,
"That's because I'm watching out for your wellbeing.
I'm looking out for you,
I'm not watching you to catch you doing something wrong.
I'm watching out for you to make sure you are successful,
and to make sure you have what you need to be successful."
And that changed that.
So that teacher wasn't looking at that student
in the same way that others had looked at that student.
And so that changed the way that student was.
And when we think about deficit thinking,
really it's when we have this idea
that something is inherently wrong
with students based on their identities.
And because of that,
we interact and relate to them in different ways.
And so we have to really not only look at implicit bias,
we also have to begin to think about,
in what ways have I bought into deficit ideology?
And how is that impacting
how I see people who are different from me,
who look different from me?
How am I interacting with them?
How I'm responding with them.
And so we have to think about that,
because that could have played a role
in the decision to provide
one student with a bouncy chair
and a different student not with the supports at all.
And then penalizing that student
for not having the supports that he needed.
And I can see here, some of the things that are chat,
and I'll pause and see if we wanted to talk
to any of those things that we're seeing in chat.
- It's a profound comment,
how we see children is how they see themselves.
And that was supported.
And I think Meg was supporting PBIS practices
of giving positive feedback
every single time is so important.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
There's so many powerful ways
that we can leverage PBIS
to actually build positive identities
and positive racial identities of students.
I remember one student coming down the hallway,
when he came down the hallway,
you just could see everybody get out of the way
when he's coming down the hallway,
is in third grade when I met him.
And I remember him coming down,
I think he was just so upset
because he'd become the scapegoat,
for anything that went wrong, he was a scapegoat,
because he had been labeled.
And I remember him coming in
and I just simply said,
'cause that was during the time
when Barack Obama was president.
And I remember saying to him,
"You're calling me Mrs. Riddle,"
'cause that was my name at the time,
"You're calling me Mrs. Riddle,
but one day I may have to call you Mr. President."
And he never had anyone
even refer to him as potential of being a leader,
and a positive leader.
And so then from that, every time I saw him, I said,
"Is it okay if I greet you as future Mr. President?"
So you could just see his whole demeanor change
and his wall come down,
because there was something being done
to reinforce positive thinking about him
as African American male.
And so over time,
we were able to dismantle some of the thinking around that,
and that becomes really important.
And I'll talk about some strategies
that we leveraged through PBIS during that same study,
as strategies that fits with this whole idea
of leveraging the ratio
of the positive feedback that students get.
Implicit bias is another one
that contributes to an equitable outcomes.
Before we talk about implicit bias,
so I just wanna quickly talk through
some of the ways that deficit ideology shows up.
When we think about difference in a negative way,
it could sound like something as simple as,
it's our students living in poverty
that's causing the issue.
If we could only change their home lives,
their parents don't care.
They don't care.
If they could only get with the program.
Sometimes it's a play on words.
Really what they're saying,
if they could act like us and be like us.
And so are we asking students
to check their identities at the door?
Are we asking them
to give up their cultural ways of knowing and being
in order to get with the program
or to act the way that we think is appropriate?
We know we have to put standards in place,
we know we have to make sure that their expectations,
but who's deciding that
and who's not at the table when that happens?
And so when we think about people saying,
we need to make sure they have social skills.
And sometimes when people say that,
is it really about them having social skills,
or is it about us wanting someone to behave
the way we think that they should behave,
because that dominant way of behaving
has become the accepted way?
And if we're doing that,
are we engaging
in a type of racial and cultural assimilation,
'cause that's harmful.
So we have to think about that.
We have to think about why people are thinking like that.
And so these things
really contribute to negative cultures within schools.
For implicit bias, implicit bias,
and I know that a lot of training
has taken place around this,
and we're gonna unpack that on a little while.
But those of course
are those attitudes and those stereotypes.
They affect how we see
and respond to people, our understandings of people,
they affect our decisions that we make,
often in a very unconscious way,
we're not aware of it.
But those biases can either be favorable,
they can be unfavorable.
And so we wanna be thoughtful about that.
People who haven't had time
to really unpack implicit racial bias,
that fragility can be there.
So one of the things that we've done,
we've involved engaged in implicit bias training,
is we name it first of all.
If we're doing work around implicit racial bias,
we don't just say racial, I mean implicit bias,
'cause that automatically can give a person out.
If the data is showing
that there is bias related to race, then we name that.
But we also operationalize implicit in the training.
So what we do right away is we ask people
to define implicit, what is meant by implicit.
And as staff members begin to talk about what that is...
Sometimes I'm looking at the chat
and it makes me smile,
some of the comments that are being shared.
So that's what what you're seeing as I'm talking.
But when we do that,
especially going into a space
where I'm not a part of that everyday lived experience
and maybe viewed as an outsider,
when people realize that we unpack implicit,
and it means that we're not aware, it's unconscious,
then we can move past the blame and the finger-pointing.
And this is not about blame,
this is not about finger-pointing,
but it really is about making ourselves aware
that we're often unaware
that we're doing things that are harmful.
So if we can increase that awareness,
we can be more intentional around that.
And then the National TA Center
has done a lot of good work around developing a framework
with identifying vulnerable decision points,
because as you can identify
those moments when you're more likely to add bias
because of being very low in energy
and not responding the way you would
because you may be hungry or tired
or maybe your temperature wasn't right in your room,
maybe you had a conversation that didn't sit well with you,
that then when you are in that space with students,
you're more likely to act off that bias.
And so how do we acknowledge
when we're having vulnerable moments
due to resource depletion and other reasons
that we can then mitigate that with some strategies.
And so some of the strategies
that the TA Center has come up with
have been strategies around neutralizing routines.
And so these are all things that contribute to bias.
I'm gonna unpack this a little bit more as we go,
because talking about implicit bias is not enough,
that's just one part.
And often that's where the train stops,
and that's where some of the issues come up.
Another thing that contributes to racial discipline outcomes
is that heavy gaze on outcome data,
focusing so heavily on the outputs.
You all had this really powerful statements
in your bodies of work
around how you wanna focus on input.
I think it was your plan that I was reading through,
that you wanna focus on educational inputs
so that you can understand
why students are either succeeding or not,
and not necessarily focus only on that outcome.
When people focus heavily on outcome data,
they're missing the opportunity
to look at the conditions in which teachers are teaching
and students are learning,
and to maybe make better meaning of data
that can help us improve those environments
that we're actually asking students
to actually navigate and behave in.
And when that happens, what we tend to do then
if we're just looking at that outcome data
is that then we're focusing on fixing students
and other practices that can be harmful.
So these are some of the areas,
like if we had a full day, if we had several days,
I will unpack each one of these more in detail.
But I wanted to highlight these
as some of the issues that contribute
to some of the discipline outcomes that we see.
These are also linked to our history.
And I think this is another piece
that teachers and leaders need to understand,
is that we have a social historical context.
And these definitions are in your handout that you have,
if you wanna leverage them.
But what we don't realize when we think about implicit bias,
we think about power and privilege,
is that there are these influences
that have conditioned us over time from birth.
And at that most broadest level,
there are civilizational racism
that impacts implicit racial bias.
And when we think about civilizational racism,
that is the level.
And I wonder if you could leverage your definitions,
'cause I am talking a lot,
and it would be nice to lift the voices of others.
Is there anyone who's willing
to read the definition for civilizational racism out loud?
- I can do it.
- Thank you.
- I have two screens going.
So if you see me look over here, that's why.
We're talking about civilizational racism.
This level is the level
of broad civilizational assumptions
that though they construct the nature of our world
and our experience of it are not typically conscious
to most members of a civilization.
- Thank you so much for that.
How about societal?
Someone share that one.
- I can do it, it's Kim.
- [Ruthie] Thank you, Kim.
- Just finding it.
Societal racism, this level
is similar to institutional racism,
but exists on a broader society widescale.
Societal racism exists
when prevailing societal or cultural assumptions,
norms, concepts, habits, expectations, et cetera,
favor one race over one or more other races.
The privileging of one view over others,
that results in social practices that have negative effects.
- Thank you so much, Kim.
How about institutional?
- [Sherry] I can do it.
This is Sherry.
- Thank you, Sherry.
- This level of racism exists
when institutions or organizations
have standard operating procedures
intended or unintended,
that hurt members of one or more races
in relation to members of the dominant race.
It also exists when institutional
or organizational culturals, rules,
habits or symbols of the same biasing effect.
- Thank you so much for sharing that, Sherry.
And so some of the work that we have done,
because media is the next one
that also tends to play each one of these out.
I mean, there's the famous dub commercial
where you have a brown woman with a brown t-shirt on
and she takes her shirt off
until she's a white woman with a white shirt.
What is the messaging that's conveyed in our subconscious
when we watch that commercial without thinking about it?
And how has that conditioning us to think
if we're not aware
that even if it was an innocent, it wasn't meant to do harm,
there's still harm done,
because you're looking at
some of the messaging from that white is purity,
the need to go from being
the person that had the brown skin
to being white in order to be clean or to be pure.
And so what ways do these things play out
that we see happening in society?
There was a commercial where they were doing Oscar Mayer,
and you had a black male,
and he was just pushing the sandwich in his face.
And then you had the next person who was a white person.
And they were just eating the sandwich
the way that most of us probably would eat a sandwich.
And so it's like,
what's the messaging that's conveyed
when media plays out different types ideas and values
and ways that people kind of behave.
And so these become really important.
So we do a lot of training around some of the,
like you read the articles.
So we do a lot of learning
around some of those practices that were in the article.
A lot of learning around redlining,
and how redlining created ghettos and suburbs,
and who was allowed to live in those spaces
and who was excluded from being able to live in those spaces
and how that impacts how people view people
and how property values were tied to race.
So even if a white person didn't care
if a black person moved into their neighborhood,
the moment that they know that if that person move in
hat their entire property value is gonna decrease,
that impacts how a person feels
about a person moving into their neighborhood.
And so how are these practices over time,
how do they condition us to think in certain ways?
The other thing I often talk about too
is that we inherited
these different types of inequities
that we see in these racial structures.
But we're the individual,
and we're influenced by all of these in different ways.
So even when we know
that we're caring people and we want education
'cause we wanna support kids to be their absolute best,
if we're not examining ways in which
we've been influenced by these different layers,
then we could be acting them out without realizing it.
We could be complicit without realizing it.
And so that becomes important.
And so when we look at discipline data,
we can't just say looking at the data outcome,
that outcome data is centering equity.
That's to me an entry point into the work.
For many of us has been an entry point,
'cause we're working with what we have.
We know if we can look at this arrogant data,
we can at least identify that there is an issue,
but that is just a tiny slice of the pie.
And so what we have to do
is we have to also begin to ask ourselves,
what is it about our people,
our practices, and our policies
that are contributing to the inequities that we're seeing?
What is it about our systems
as we put them in place
that's contributing to the inequities that we are seeing?
We have to be thoughtful of that.
We have to ask questions such as,
who's benefiting from the way that things are,
and who's not?
And we have to begin to act on those,
because those are getting at conditions.
They're getting at conditions
in which students learn and teachers teach.
And so here are some examples
of some harmful discipline practices
that came out of my 2014 study
that impacted students of color
in terms of disproportionate outcomes.
Scripting and labeling
refers to how the identities of culturally
and linguistically diverse students
are socially constructed within schools.
It's when ideas and beliefs
and even mental representations of social interactions
become normed, forms of reality
that are practiced within social systems.
And so that scripting really
is when a child has become label,
and that means from that point on, they could do no right.
If the student just mentions their name,
that other student could be the one
who actually needs the intervention or the support,
but because that student has been labeled as having issues,
that student's gonna always be the person that they look at.
Also scapegoating, these were findings from the study
that came out of looking at students
who were receiving tier three supports
and looking at their lived experiences.
There were making majors out of minors.
And this happens when students are frequently written up
for minor behaviors that have been written up as major,
which then creates disenfranchisement over time.
In this study,
the students talk about,
"I spoke out of turn and I was I was written up
and it was a major, and it was made a big deal out of it.
And I was not able to be back in class for...
I had to sit in the hallway for several hours.
I had to sit on the principal's bench for several hours
because I spoke out of turn."
And so how does that perpetuate or exacerbate behaviors
and exclusionary practices when that happens?
Another one is scapegoating.
And scapegoating is connected to scripting and labeling.
That scapegoating is a consequence
of the labeling and deficit thinking.
And so the more students,
their identities are socially constructed in negative ways.
Someone said in the chat earlier,
if we believe that about our students,
that we see our students a certain way,
we call our students a certain thing,
that they then begin to live that out.
What happens is people begin to see a student that way.
And so that's who they become.
That identity work becomes important
because when we see how identity is formed,
we begin to see that is not just how we see ourselves,
but it's also how others see us
and how others interact with us as they see us.
And so I saw students in my experience as a principal
and even as a teacher,
that once they were scripted,
all the student had to do was say their name,
and they were off the hook.
So one way to address scapegoating
is making sure that principals and teachers
are fairly investigating every incident that happens,
so that even if a student has been written up 25 times,
which is 25 times too much,
that the 26 time, they're considered innocent
until there is evidence
that they did something that needs to be addressed.
But when they know they're gonna be seen as guilty
before they even have a chance to tell their story,
that is oppressive,
because it's a form of silencing,
they don't have the voice to be able to speak,
and they become scapegoating.
And it creates a negative culture in the school,
because when students learn
that they can get away with something
by putting it off on someone else,
it creates other inappropriate behaviors in that system.
And students learn ways
to get out of being accountable
for decisions that they make.
Silencing was another piece that came out of this study,
that is a practice.
When a student is not able to tell their side of the story
or they feel like they told their story
but they weren't heard,
that there are assumptions tied to it,
then that exacerbates unwanted behaviors,
because the student feels like
you're not gonna listen to me.
You're not gonna believe me anyway.
So that was another one that came out.
Being falsely accused was another finding.
A lot of students felt like,
because I had gotten in trouble before,
I tried to tell my side of the story,
and I was just accused.
Students that I did a,
and they believe that I did it
because those students were called good students
and I was not considered a good student.
So these are all very harmful practices that are conditions
that students are experiencing within schools.
And then punitive consequences.
I can't tell you how many times in the study,
but also outside of the study,
that a student would be sent to the office
and the staff member was waiting to find out
what I did about it.
And if it didn't seem harsh enough,
then they were upset with me.
And my thought was, first of all,
I spent two days investigating this.
I could like that enough information
to understand what really happened.
The consequences you're looking for
does it match with what I came to understand.
This is what I'm doing,
because the goal is to provide,
a response is going to push that student
in the positive direction
and to help them to be more accountable,
not to remove them from school
or to put them in a school suspension.
And so sometimes that happens,
but you have to try to see what other ways
you could do that as well.
Let me pause and see if there are any thoughts,
any experiences that you wanna share
that you you've seen, or that you've experienced
that you wanna talk through.
- I'm just wondering about one thing, a few slides ago
when the focus was on implicit bias,
and then we spoke the definitions
of different kinds of racism.
Is this all within the category of implicit?
- No, we're moving towards power and privilege is well,
so absolutely not.
But sometimes I want people to see
the history that influences the biases that we have
so that they can understand that,
you can be a good person and still have biases.
You have to address those when you become aware of them.
But then it's not enough to stop that implicit bias,
because if you stop at implicit bias,
we're not thinking about
how our identities also carry privilege and power.
And then we have the power to make decisions
that either contribute to
disrupting some of those practices or to continue.
So like the top 10,
you look at school districts every year,
you see the same kids receiving the top 10 awards.
There's something going on
with power and privilege there
and the lack of access
that are not allowing all different types of students
to access those opportunities.
And so absolutely, it's not just implicit bias.
- Thank you.
And at some point I'm really hoping to have a conversation
about the term white supremacy.
- Yeah, absolutely
- So much more differently than when I grew up,
and I just sort of used by it.
But Cassandra has a question more to this topic.
Many schools keep track of minors
as well as major behaviors.
What are your thoughts about this practice,
and should schools reconsider only keeping track of majors?
- I think about that
and I think the schools that I've worked with,
they keep track of majors only,
and they problem-solve around majors only.
But I know when we were implementing PBIS,
we tracked everything
just to get people fluent with using the system.
And then we eventually evolved to
what are behaviors that can be addressed in the classroom,
or that can be staff managed
versus things that would need to come to the office.
And so in my mind,
I think that I would focus
more on having conversations with staff
and creating fluency around practices of,
there are certain things that can be addressed
and redirected from staff,
they should never show up in the office.
And to me, that would be the focus
of professional learning and building fluency in practice.
But there are some behaviors
that we need to make sure that we're addressing
and that we're monitoring
that the office might need to address.
And those would be the ones
that we would monitor and track.
And again, as a principal, we did them all.
We brought up minors and majors,
but we didn't enter minor.
I'm sorry, I'm stuttering all over the place.
We entered them in the system,
but they were staff addressed.
And so if I were to be in that role now as a principal,
I would focus on only writing up things that are major,
because the goal is to try to get people
to think about ways to engage students
to minimize behavior issues
and to address and redirect the ones that are minor.
If you can quickly redirect it, why do we need to track it?
And I know sometimes,
okay I was gonna say, sometimes people say,
if we're redirecting eight or nine times,
no, that's not how that works.
And we're talking about human beings
that are learning how to behave
and work and live in systems.
So they're going to have those missteps.
And so a part of learning
is providing with that redirection as we go.
So that would be my thinking.
I saw Cassandra put her thumb up,
so I wanna make sure if she wants to add anything.
- No, I think that's really helpful.
Your comment about major out of minors, that notion.
So I'm wondering,
we don't keep track of minors either.
We do it more organically
and have a sense of patterns of behavior,
but it's not necessarily a form.
And I think that's helpful.
- Absolutely.
I think we were just learning
how to put systems in place.
And so we were just trying to get the fluency
and then we'd have conversations around
what's considered a major,
what's considered a minor and what should be addressed.
And often, if you're engaging students
in culturally responsive and relevant learning
and they're engaged,
you're not gonna see the same level of discipline.
And so what kinds of things are you doing in the classroom
to deepen the engagement of students
so that you minimize those behaviors
that you might be saying,
well, how are you learning?
I have a grandson,
and I met with these several teachers,
'cause he's in fifth grade this year,
so he's on a team.
The first question to the teacher was,
"Tell me three things you know about my grandson.
Because if you can't tell me three things about my grandson,
how are you engaging him in learning?
Why would he wanna turn his camera on
and be in the space if he's turning it on
it doesn't connect to anything
that speaks to him or his lived experiences?"
And so while supporting the teacher,
I also wanted the teacher to understand that
you have to know your students
if you wanna be able to engage them.
So we have to shift our gaze.
We have to make sure
we're not only just looking at outcome data,
but that we're looking at systems data.
And that really becomes important
because when we look at systems data,
we start looking at the conditions
in which teachers are teaching the conditions
in which students are learning.
I'm looking at time, I'm realizing it goes really fast.
And so take a quick moment and just skim that
and look at some of the conditions here
from National Data that was compiled
by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center.
Just look at some of that national data.
And I'm gonna go through a couple of slides.
I just want you to just take a look.
I was able to label this slide
as these are some unsafe conditions
that students are reporting,
that they are experiencing.
How might these impact students' behavior and learning?
How might we think about what data to collect
in order to address some of these things?
Is this a normal part or built-in part
of our continuous improvement and problem-solving process?
Take a look at the lack of awareness condition
in which students are learning.
I mean, the lack of access conditions.
- I can remember over the summer,
and I think most of the people in the call
were at the Summer Institute.
And one of the groups that we were in,
we were talking about some of this,
and the idea from one of the participants was,
"Well, I don't do that.
And that doesn't happen at my school."
And whomever was there did a very crafty job
of trying to make that idea like
that's exactly the problem.
Like that's exactly why we're talking about this data.
But it just seems to be so relevant,
the data and context at a school,
as well as the larger
structural kind of data for helping people see.
I don't know what I'm trying to get at,
but it just seems as though it's easy for us to say,
but that's not the way I feel.
I don't know.
- Absolutely, Meg.
I now understand exactly what you're saying,
helping people to see that these experiences do exist,
and helping people to think about,
what data can they leverage
to understand how this might be happening in their schools.
And people who say that I don't do this,
this doesn't happen,
may not be aware that this actually happening.
So how do you leverage the cycle data
and begin to understand to what degree is it happening?
'Cause this is national data,
but Vermont's reflected in this national data,
Michigan's reflected in this national data.
So this data is showing up and we're reflected in it.
It's made up of all of our states.
Then if we wanna understand
what's happening in Michigan,
even if we just start there,
okay, what's happening within this particular county,
or what was happening in this regional
or what's happening in this school district,
you can get down to that.
And so these are things to think about.
Just some more data to show how there's
even lack of access and meaningful participation conditions
that students are learning in.
If you don't have access
to rigorous instruction and feedback,
how are you going to excel and do well.
If you are more likely
to be taught by out-of-field and novice teachers,
I think in Vermont,
it looks a little bit different,
but I would ask schools to even in their schools,
look at that data and drill it down
to see what those indicators are.
But I know that you all looked at some data
at the state level and was able to learn some things
about how your schools, your rural,
or your schools that are in poverty conditions
tend to have teachers who are newer,
and your schools that have your students of color
seem to have teachers who have had more years of teaching.
I saw some of that data
as I was kind of just doing my own homework
to understand more about your context.
And so it's good to have that,
but I would even push that further to say,
if each district has that,
now at your district level,
how does that data show up within your district?
And how do you address what your data shows?
If data shows
you need to focus on ways to support students
who are living in poverty as a priority,
then you should do that.
Whatever your data is showing,
that's where you wanna reflect and spend that time.
But you also wanna make sure
you look into right kinds of data
to make sure you're not missing opportunities.
So I'm gonna go here and talk about,
because that next slide is on representation
in terms of conditions that students are learning in.
And then have us all
just kind of take about five minutes in a breakout room
to talk about,
when you think about this type of data
and you start the conversation already,
when you were sharing what you were thinking,
what data do you need to understand the context
in which students learn and teachers teach?
What data can you leverage within your systems?
And how does this data
impact problem-solving and continuous improvement?
How does regularly collecting and analyzing
the data that you're thinking about support PBIS practices?
So we'll take about five minutes
and get into groups and just have some conversation
around these and we'll come back and share.
- On one of the handouts, these questions?
- They are on your PowerPoint handout.
So yes, we got popped out.
So let's just take a minute and talk through
some of the conversations that you had.
I'm aware that we are at 2:47,
and we'll be able to combine some of today's content
with our next meeting.
So the group that I was in,
you were having some conversations, do you wanna share out?
Any group can share out,
can pick up where you were leaving off
maybe in the conversation.
- Kim, did you wanna share for us?
- I'd be happy to.
I said I'd be the recorder, not the...
Did I say I'd be the reporter or the recorder?
We know, reporter and recorder.
- Thank you.
So for the first question,
we had a question about context,
we talked about performance.
But I name for myself
that I was very cognizant
of how reading that article around performance gap
versus educational debt,
I really wanted to filter the language I chose,
but I didn't do a great job.
Relational data, climate data.
I don't know, Ruthie, if you know that
our schools that our PBIS schools
have really been encouraged
and given the option to do the climate survey this year
versus the school-wide assessment survey.
And then access to people who look like them.
So our kids of color
being exposed to mostly white educators,
white administrators, et cetera.
For the second question about leveraging within our system,
we again talked about climate survey.
We talked about engagement data,
what the physical environment is
and how kids are able to access resources,
not only in their building,
but in their community, in their homes.
And the last one we were just getting started
and then the clock was ticking,
we talked about
using some of the pillars of the recovery plan.
That's being required by the state to inform decisions
and using that data to inform system change
versus student change.
- Thank you so much for sharing.
I've lost my screen, but I think the next person can share
if someone wants to share
what you were talking in your group and I'll find it again.
Are you there?
You are.
Anyone else want to share
things that you talked about in your group?
Any of the groups.
- We weren't as organized
in going from one to stage four,
but we did talk a lot
about school climate data and the YRBSS data,
Youth Risk Behavior Survey data
as a really good chunk of information
because you can do that with adults and the staff,
the students and families,
and got pretty excited
about the opportunities for our students to review that data
and be able to share it back
with their concerns,
and what they wanna celebrate and recommendations.
So it was a real show of engagement
and contribution to school-wide changes.
But we didn't really answer the questions in a linear way.
- And that's okay,
they're meant to get the conversation started,
but there are certainly questions that you can leverage
as you continue to meet and do your work
and have deeper conversations around,
is never gonna have time
in these kinds of settings
to fully think about
all the things that you're already doing.
One thing I think about with these questions definitely
is sometimes people go,
"We already have so many things we're doing.
Is yet another thing."
And one thing would be helpful would be,
what data are people already collecting
that they could look at in ways maybe they hadn't before.
And the beautiful thing about
when you're doing work around
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support PBIS
is that you can leverage those same types of systems
and practices in which to do that.
If you're already doing problem-solving processes,
you think about what is our entry point,
what's gonna be the one thing we're gonna focus on this year
and how can we leverage existing systems
and people that are
already kind of doing some of that work
to engage in those practices.
And I think that becomes really helpful.
So again, looking at the clock, it's about 2:50.
And the one thing I thought about
was I could try really hard
to start talking through these slides,
but I don't think it does it justice.
I think when we come back together,
we'll be able to continue this
and I'll be able to add the depth,
going deeper with identity.
But what we could do for the last 10 minutes that we have
is we could go down and just kind of talk through,
'cause I'm thinking you read both articles.
And one of the things that I wanted to do
is unpack educational equity
and have us begin looking at what does that look like,
feel like and sound like within PBIS.
So we could do that.
Or we could go in and start a discussion
on the article that you read,
Ladson-Billings article that you read.
I have some discussions there, we can end our time there.
But I wanna check in with you to see what do you prefer
with the few minutes that we have,
the last 10 minutes that we have remaining.
- Ruthie, I think what you're referring through
is really going through
and looking at those aspects of equity.
I think that would be great to save for the next time
'cause it might take more time.
That's my thought.
- Absolutely.
- [Rebecca] And to look at articles now.
- Rebecca, could you say the last thing you said again?
- And to talk about the articles now
and save that other piece,
which is gonna be a big piece of new learning,
I think, for next time.
- Absolutely, I would like to take time to unpack that.
We're gonna revisit the article,
and we have some activities
that we'll do around the article.
But what I would really appreciate
is that we just took time
to think about the actual article that you read
was the presidential address.
But what I want us to do was consider
this quote that came from this particular article,
that's in your resources.
And I wanna have someone read that out loud
and then have you think about
some of the questions around the article that you read.
So is there anyone
who's willing to read that quote out loud?
- I'll read it.
"Critical examination
by those who are doing the educating
enables educators to reflect on the educational system
in its broader context
that often includes deficit orientations
towards students and families.
Thus, consider how these deficit mindsets
affect students' access
to educational opportunities year over year.
This level of critical reflection by educators
can lead to solutions
that are not rooted in policy and practice
focused on individual performance,
but in collaboration with parent/caregivers
and community partners.
This collaboration can lead
to the generation of solutions
that focus on creating inclusive, responsive,
and effective learning environments for all students.
By examining and changing
the ways in which school practitioners talk about students
and think about their own efficacy,
we can redress missed opportunities
for students in a number of ways."
- Thank you for sharing that.
So when you think about the article that we read,
"From Achievement Gap to Education Debt,"
Ladson-Billings does a really good job
of helping us to understand why she's labeling it a debt
and shifting us from thinking about it
not thinking about it as fixing kids,
but thinking about how do we need to focus on systems.
I want you to think about some of the questions that,
oh here we are,
I'm on the wrong screen, forgive me.
I want you to think about
some of these questions here.
There were key points that she made
as she talked through that article.
And I want you to think about,
when you were reading that article,
the second question,
how is this article significant
to the work that you're doing as a State Team?
Also the biggest thing I think out of these three questions,
we'll choose one to focus on for today.
Maybe thinking about ways
that our thinking has or is shifting.
When you see those three questions,
is there one in particular that stands out
that you would want to spend the remainder of our time
talking through before we wrap up?
Is there one that stands out to you all more?
- I would say maybe a combination of the second two,
so how has our thinking shifted
and how might that shift our work
as part of the State Team?
- Okay, all right then.
So why don't we just have a full group
just talk in this space.
I mean, we could do two minutes
or three minutes in a small group and come back
and share out and close.
Would small groups be better
or would you prefer to speak in this space?
- I think stay in this group.
- I think so too.
So when you think about
ways that you're thinking maybe shifting
or ways that the articles speak to your work,
anyone can share out what their thinking is.
Thank you, Meg.
Thank you, Kim.
- Go, John.
- I was just gonna say
actually that something that shifted my thinking more
was in the other article, the one from the Equity Digest,
just what is educational equity,
and inclusion of constructed by
seems really, really significant,
and something that I think
is not in the forefront of most people's minds
when they think about educational equity.
- Absolutely, John, absolutely, John.
And I'm pausing just to see
if anyone wants to respond or build on.
- Yeah, I think we need
to really relook at all of our trainings.
I think it would be really helpful
for us to have time as coaches
to talk about the language that we use
and how we bring us up and how we utilize
that constructed by, I mean, all of it,
but constructed by with everyone, with coordinators,
with our trainings when we coach.
- I think we're too school-centric.
I feel like we need to do a better job
of reaching out to the community.
If you think about it,
schools exist in communities
we're neighbors of the people in that community.
We should be of service to them.
I don't know what I'm trying to say,
but we should find out what they need,
what they're looking for, what they think,
and maybe the answers aren't in our little box of answers,
maybe some of the answers
lie there in the neighborhood.
Does that make any sense?
- John, do you feel like that speaks
to when you made that statement around constructed by
that you're getting at that?
- Yeah, for sure.
I don't think very many people in schools,
no matter where you go,
think about constructed by.
The only way to do that is to do what Tracy is saying.
- Absolutely, I appreciate that.
One of the things that we're gonna do
when we come back together
is look at a matrix, and you can leverage this matrix
with the work that you're doing,
and we're gonna unpack those four constructs.
There are constructs of equity,
there is access, meaningful participation, representation
and high outcomes.
And each one of them have their own domain
but you need all of them in place
if you're gonna center equity
in any work that you're doing.
And so part of what you could begin doing,
and I've begun to do that and create somewhat of a rubric
and we're gonna unpack this
is look at to what degree
is access present in PBIS systems.
And then the representation piece.
And the rubric shows how
having multiple and diverse stakeholders
be a part of informing those systems at the table
and different ways to be a part of the decisions
that are made about how the systems,
that's all getting, Tracy, at leveraging the community,
leveraging parents, leveraging student voice.
There are ways to get at that.
And we're gonna unpack what those look like.
And activities that school leadership teams
can do with their staff
is actually look at those constructs,
look at their big ideas of PBIS and began to say,
what does access look like, feel like,
and sound like across the big ideas of PBIS?
What does representation look like, feel like,
and sound like across each of the big ideas of PBIS?
And from there,
they start looking at
to what degree are they doing these types of things,
and where do they need to focus more?
And so we'll unpack that.
But that will start to get at that constructed by piece
because they'll begin to see,
we're not really asking students
what their thoughts are about systems,
we're just asking them to respond to them
and to live by them.
We're not asking parents,
what works best for their kids
when we think about discipline or behavior systems,
we're just letting them know
when they don't necessarily respond well to them.
And so we'll get into some ways
that schools can begin to center those four constructs
in their PBIS system.
- Well, it's a lot, I wish we had so much more time.
Just getting scratch in the surface here,
and it's great.
Thank you so much for everybody participating today.
- Thank you all so much.
So when we come back,
and I'll check in with you Sherry and team,
but when we,
'cause you'll hear back from everyone here today,
but we will unpack educational equity.
We'll spend some time unpacking
what it means to be critically aware
now that we've looked at a lot of that data
and then we'll focus on identity work.
So I feel like I had to unpack several things.
And now when we come back,
we can actually apply some of that
into the activities that we have.
- That's great.
Thanks so much, everybody.
Get off your screen for a little bit if you can.
- [Meghan] Thanks so much, it's really good.