Professional Development Agendas

*RWG = Regional Working Group (our PD days)

SPRING 2019

Decide to address race and bias with staff
- Attendance & retention data not improving
- Low rigor and expectations for student success

2. Share school data with staff: what do you notice & what do you wonder?

Student & staff racial demographics
Student achievement, retention & attendance

3. Compile data questions from staff

4. Form equity team

SUMMER 2019

1. Optional summer read

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy) by Chris Emdin

FALL 2019

(3 hours)

Optional World Cafe meeting for summer read participants
Share staff's data wonderings from Spring 2019
- How do our student/staff racial differences impact our programs and our students' experiences?
Guest speaker introduces culturally responsive pedagogy and bias
Begin optional fall/spring book club with monthly book club meetings

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond

WINTER 2020

(4 hours)

MANDATORY PRE-WORK:
- Watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
  - Reflect: when in your life has/does a single story affect(ed) you?
- Read Reasons for Hope by Julian Weissglass.
  - Reflect: how may talking about race at JMCS impact the work you do?

TOPICS:
1. Share our "why" and develop personal "why" for equity work
2. Set & practice conversation norms & agreements (from Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn Singleton)
3. Identify a common definition of race
4. Examine sentence starters: what to say & what not to say
5. Write & share racial autobiographies
6. Introduce systemic racism

SPRING - PART ONE

(4 hours)

MANDATORY PRE-WORK:
1. Listen to Seeing White podcast episode 2: How Race was Made
  - What strikes you?
2. Read Uncovering Internalized Oppression by Angela Valenzuela
  - Highlight two passages from the reading you would like to speak to for 2-3 minutes in a small group. Consider the following questions:
    - How have you contributed to the oppression of others?
    - When have you personally experienced oppression?

TOPICS:
1. Review norms, agreements & definitions
2. Deep dive into understanding systemic racism
3. Understand race as a social construct
4. Understand & recognize internalized oppression
5. Analyze our school achievement data for racial disparities

SPRING - PART TWO

(2 hours)

MANDATORY PRE-WORK:
1. Read Courageous Conversations About Race Ch. 4 excerpts on white talk vs. color commentary
2. Watch POV implicit bias videos
  - What is bias?
  - How does it function?
3. Watch Verna Myers TED Talk:
  - Who are you scared of?
  - Who’s missing from your circle?
  - Who do you need to confront?

4. Take 3 implicit bias tests (one must be race) and complete reflection worksheet

TOPICS:
1. Understand, recognize and interrupt our biases

Page updated

Report abuse