the Trust and Structures Needed to Address the Racial Achievement Gap

1. Helping Leadership Teams and Professional Learning Communities Create the Trust and Structures Needed to Address the Racial Achievement Gap

3. Racial, ethnic, and cultural differences among staff, students, and parents affect student achievement and parent involvement at this school.

4. Some staff members do not have the awareness and skills necessary to teach and develop relationships with African American and Latino students.

5. I am personally able to engage all students regardless of race, ethnicity, and culture.

6. The Leadership Team has the trust necessary to discuss racial and ethnic barriers to student achievement and parent involvement.

7. I have the skills, strategies, and confidence to lead my team in conversations about race, ethnicity, and culture.

8. The Leadership Team has the skills, strategies, and confidence to address teachers at the school who struggle to effectively teach African American and Latino students.

10. Long-term Goal • To create a Professional Learning Community that will have the trust, skills, and confidence to address the persistent racial achievement gap that adversely impacts Latino and African American students academically at Parkland Middle School.

11. Study Circles provide a structure to help leadership teams: • Develop the trust, skills, and confidence needed to have an honest dialogue about race. • Challenge each other through on-going conversations and exploration. • Create a shared understanding of the problem.

12. The process is divided into three steps: • Practice analyzing a problem through a racial lens Step 3 Step 2 • Learn how to talk about race with colleagues • Explore different racial experiences and viewpoints Step 1 • Develop trust and begin to understand each others experience.

13. Step 1 • Develop trust and begin to understand each others experience.

14. Here is what Leadership Team members have said after Stage One • Learned peoples’ perceptions, beliefs, what defines who you are, where they are coming from. This activity opened up a window • It was important to work on our relationships and trust before having the hard conversations • Not feeling judged by others feeling more connected and safe • Feel like a wall was knocked down… We need to know each other to trust each other • Its about moving the entire school forward and we can’t do that unless we bond, compromise and learn about each other. • I understand how slowly you have to go with this because you have to be able to trust each other at another level to be able to talk about race Openness to tell our stories and show our vulnerability and empathy

15. Step 2 • Learn how to talk about race with colleagues • Explore different racial experiences and viewpoints Step 1 • Develop trust and begin to understand each others experience.

16. Here is what Leadership Team members have said after Stage Two • Even though some is hard to hear, it’s good to know we are getting somewhere…finally. I feel that we have been able to have an open and honest dialogue about race and how it affects our work • Sense of commitment and openness • Everyone’s stories and coming from different backgrounds and walks of life and how that impacts our life • There is much that I don’t know and would like to know Not done, unfinished business, painful, honest, courageous, tense • I am feeling excited about the trust we showed by speaking about our experiences. • Hopeful. We came together to discuss a difficult issue and we were productive • I feel like being part of the solution! • A shared vocabulary, open hearts and minds, vulnerability

17. Practice analyzing a problem through a racial lens Step 3 Step 2 • Learn how to talk about race with colleagues • Explore different racial experiences and viewpoints Step 1 • Develop trust and begin to understand each others experience.

18. By the end of the 3 steps, Leadership Teams will have: • Begun to develop mutual trust and respect • Heard and discussed different perspectives and experiences • Been given the opportunity to challenge perceptions • Started to create a shared understanding of the problem • Created mutual accountability

19. Outcomes from Leadership Study Circles • The school moved the staffing positions to create an ESOLSupport Teacher to support ESOL students in the classroom. • All staff and team meetings start and end with the question, “How do our decisions impact African American and Latino students?” • The Staff Development Teacher created a professional development plan for the staff on how middle school students develop their racial identity and academic identify. • Perceptual data from stakeholder study circles are included in the school improvement plan. • The Leadership Team is speaking in one voice on the need to address teacher beliefs and practices. • Leadership teams now use SMART-R goals (Ris for Race Conscious)

20. Bringing in different viewpoints…

21. What Principals Say… I feel equipped to look at situations from a lens of race and equity and feel compelled to ask myself the questions, "Am I walking against the moving sidewalk in the decisions that I make as a leader?"  I feel more comfortable having conversations about race with my staff due to the work we have done as a team facilitated by study circles. - Ms. Monifa McKnight, Principal Ridgeview Middle School Providing us with the framework needed to keep the importance of equity at the forefront of our decision-making will offer each of the ILT members a tool to use when having those same discussions or making the same decisions with others in the building. - Ms. Sheila Harrison, Assistant Principal Kingsview Middle School It has helped me to be honest about my feelings about race to the ILT and the influence it has on academic achievement. - Ms. Traci Townsend, Principal Earle B. Wood Middle School

22. For More Information WWW.MONTGOMERYSCHOOLSMD.ORG/DEPARTMENTS/STUDYCIRCLES 301-444-8630