Description:
In alignment with Board of Education Guardrail 4: Addressing Racist Practices and the District's Statement on Anti Racism, the District has identified a need for support in building an infrastructure of equity across the District with a focus on increasing the number of our most marginalized students who are eligible to attend criteria-based schools.
The two vendors were identified through a RFQ process and both have demonstrated ability to (a) advance learning around dismantling institutional bias, (b) provide pathways for active outreach and recruitment, and (c) support the retention, graduation/promotion of students with diverse backgrounds in criteria-based schools. Additionally, both organizations have demonstrated the ability to provide yearlong support to cohorts of students, teachers, and school leaders while building capacity and providing culturally responsive professional development opportunities, including but not limited to coaching and feedback sessions, and/or affinity groups or caucuses.
There are four Key Areas of Focus in our approach:
-
Create integrated models of high school prep enrichment for students from underserved communities focused on increasing the number of underserved, socioeconomic communities at criteria based schools.
-
Work in collaboration with the Office of Academics to create supplemental programming to assist with the acclimation of attending a criteria-based school.
-
Work in collaboration with District program offices to provide professional development that supports school leaders, teachers, and students in dismantling institutional biases in schools.
-
Provide success and inclusion based tools and practices to develop and amplify District expertise in partnership with District program offices. This focus will provide District personnel with dedicated support aligned with the Board of Education’s guardrail number four. The model will support District-wide services and expertise to support equity-based teaching, learning, and school climate improvement.
The success of this project will be measured by the assessment and progress monitoring tools that are developed as part of this work, in addition to the District's progress toward the indicators outlined in Guardrail 4:
○ Indicator 4.1: Among 8th grade students who are qualified to attend Special Admission High Schools, the percentage who are Black/African American or Hispanic/Latinx will grow from 33.8% in August 2020 to at least 52.0% (making progress towards being proportional to population as a whole) by August 2026.
○ Indicator 4.2: The percentage of suspensions received by Black/African American students will decrease from 72.6% in August 2020 to no more than 48.3% (proportional to population as a whole) by August 2026.