Culturally Responsive Teaching
and
Racial Equity
What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a research-based approach that makes meaningful connections between what students learn in school and their cultures, languages, and life experiences. These connections help students access rigorous curriculum, develop higher-level academic skills, and see the relevance between what they learn at school and their lives.
What is Racial Equity?
Racial equity is both an outcome and a process.
As an outcome, we achieve racial equity when race no longer determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes; when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live. As a process, we apply racial equity when those most impacted by structural racial inequity are meaningfully involved in the creation and implementation of the institutional policies and practices that impact their lives.
When we achieve racial equity:
People are owners, planners, and decision-makers in the systems that govern their lives.
We acknowledge and account for past and current inequities, and provide all people, particularly those most impacted by racial inequities, the infrastructure needed to thrive.
Everyone benefits from a more just, equitable system.
Dialogue
Culture and Climate
Academic Engagement
Progress Monitoring
2020-2021 Racial Equity Levers:
I. Dialogue- We will commit to participating in and creating opportunities for dialogue around issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, race, and anti-racism in order to expand our ability to see and respond to the conditions we are not conditioned to see.
II.Culture and Climate-We understand that educational outcome disparities are the result of structural inequities and will reject the notion that people are marginalized due to their own “deficiencies” by evaluating the inclusivity and implementation of schoolwide culture and climate tools and systems (ex. “Discipline” Systems).
III. Academic Engagement-We will work with and in service to our students by creating meaningful and rigorous learning activities that propel academic engagement and improve student outcomes, proactively analyzing bias and inequities in classroom materials, methodologies, interactions, and results.
IV.Progress Monitoring-We will recognize and address the root causes of educational outcome and experience disparities, rather than addressing only the symptoms of these, by progress monitoring and responding to aligned quantitative and qualitative data.
Access the Cigarroa Racial Equity Site by clicking on the tab