A society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without an opportunity to play with beautiful ideas and see the world in a new light. -Francis Su (2020)

One of the most difficult challenges I have come across in teaching is finding a systematic approach to providing equitable learning opportunities that provide successful results for all my students. I continue to struggle as an effective educator working in the second-largest school district in the United States. In the last two decades, I have felt more disappointed and overwhelmed by not meeting all of my student's academic needs. I am a little hesitant about describing the school’s vision, vision, and equity-related goals because of my limited time at my new school site. At Marianna Avenue School, the vision is "We strive to develop a self-motivated community of long-life learners and critical thinkers, through a rigorous curriculum that includes technology and an appreciation for the arts. By instilling a strong work ethnic, the Mariana Avenu Elementary School community will enable students to meet or exceed grade-leel standards. We promote a positive, clean, and safe learning environment that fosters respects and tolerance for the needs of all individuals, and the community as a whole.

Marianna Avenue Elementary, the mission of our urban East Los Angeles school is to provide all students with a challenging education, to foster cultural awareness, and promote high standards in academic achievement for life-long learning. All students will achieve mastery of core grade level content standards.

Problem Statement

Poverty in the United States is on a drastic rise. Minority children in poor communities suffer the most in our educational system. This is evidenced by academic indicators such as test scores, grades, and graduation rates where students from lower

socio-economic communities struggle to stay afloat in school as they focus on taking care of their basic living needs. The disproportionately impacted students will have a greater disadvantage in particularly reaching higher mathematics. Such evidence as looking at feeder middle and high school scores provide evidence that SES are underperforming in the area of math. An increase of students having homelessness, inadequate nutrition, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools is more common in today’s classrooms. I want to find new innovative methods to bring into practice ways to increase students’ engagement, discourse, and understanding of higher mathematics. I want to find systems and tools for schools with high populations of low socio-economic students to bring awareness and opportunities to educators, students, and families about this urgency.

Learning Cycle Plan

Stakeholder Engagement: I will create a continuous protocol that will assist me to demonstrate and apply research-based tools and resources that will be utilized and implemented throughout my findings and learning. It can be described as a 3-stage improvement cycle, this particular protocol will promote discourse among school administrators, teachers, and other vital front-line employees that work with students directly. We will meet consistently in the school conference room and.or the math lab (Room 23). I will keep accurate records of every meeting using agendas with time, dates, and purposeful items on the agendas. I will add an inclusion activity to create a community of learners and build capacity among all stakeholders. Then, I will project the purpose of the meeting for the given date. I will always have either qualitative or quantitative data to share among attendees. I will definitely assure that I provide opportunities for members to discourse that data and to share thoughts and that their thoughts are acknowledge and recorded with possible follow up. The following table provides a more explicit protocol I plan to take.

Stage 1

Digging Into the Data addresses the question “Do disparities in mathematics exist in our school?” The guide I will provide will have a set of tasks to help determine data needs. We will also harvest the data that teachers already have at your disposal (Edulastic), identify additional data you may need, disaggregate and

analyze your data, and then develop preliminary findings.

Mid- January 2022

Stage 2

Getting at the Roots of Disparities addresses the question

“What are the root causes of our disparities in

mathematics?” Teachers will learn how to dig deeper and conduct a root cause analysis to understand why disparities exist in your discipline outcomes.

Late January 2022

Stage 3

Creating an Action Plan addresses the question “How will root causes of disparities in mathematics be

addressed?” This stage walks you through developing an action plan for eliminating the disparities discovered in your root cause analysis that can be implemented, monitored, and continuously improved over time.

The first week of February 2022

MY PLAN

My plan will consist of first gathering qualitative data from teachers, staff, and parents. This will allow me to gather authentic data that will provide me with specific information about what the teachers know, what to do know, and would like to learn from. This is vital for my collection hence this will also give me insights of how teachers efficacy is evident at Marianna Avenue. I

will use empathy interviews to start. Since I am new to this school site, I feel that it is essential to build a relationship with the teachers and build me own credibility and confidence within. This

will ensure validity in the interpretation of the data collection. Then I would like to analyze the data among stakeholders for different purposes. In general, to build conversations vertically in grade-levels and ultimately holistically as a school. For example, I would have teachers get into grade-level groups and analyze the data then, have guiding questions that would assist their dialogue, and lastly have them share out loud what they felt was valuable learning. The ethics behind my plan is solely based on the confidentiality and mutual relationship that is being cultivated and nurtured along the process.

December 2021

• Instructional Leadership Team meets 4 times a month:

Discuss possible outcomes, learning goals, and aspirations

Go through casual system analysis, create a fishbone diagram and driver diagram on the equity issue.

Present Literature Review to facilitate the qualitative data collection methods. Create Surveys (bitly, empathy interviews, etc.) to distribute to teachers,

students, and parents. Create discussion questions for teacher interviews.

Meeting after presenting to ILT to consider feedback and prepare to distribute surveys and set up teacher meetings.

• Instructional Leadership Team→ every Thursday from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in the Conference Room

ILT presents casual system analysis, surveys, and meeting details for math teachers.

January 2022

• The second week: Meet with the ILT team to review qualitative data from the teacher's syllabi. Create a parent list with the help of AP and Community Representative.

• The third week: Conduct focus group interviews. Transcribe the data and bring the results to ILT. ILT will analyze the data and propose the PDSA cycle.

• The fourth week: Meet with the local district math administrator to share data,

surveys, and drives.

February 2022

• Implementation of PDSA Cycle 1

Every week we will meet weekly with ILT every Thursday at @1:30 p.m. Discuss how the PDSA is going.

First week: Email all TK-3rd grade teachers with a support availability schedule. Share findings among each other.

Second week: Analyze and share NEW implementations, possibility creates new drivers for new goals.

Third week: Revisit the new findings, grows, and glows.

March 2022

• Reflect of PDSA Cycle 1

ILT meets up to review findings, drivers, and review other quantitative data.

Second week: ILT team presents findings to staff and gathers input from the process.

Third week: Pull grade-level groups and create cycles of improvement in one particular area of need.

(note: Spring break on fourth week)

April 2022

• Implementation of PDSA Cycle 2

Start of 3rd semester: Provide teachers in grades TK-K a calendar with availability for support and guidance.

Second week: Meet with ILT and discuss progress toward goals.

Third week: Create and share among each other the goals, plans, and resources that will be utilize to assist with the math specific content improvement task.

Fourth week: Return to share among each other what possible improvements can be added, adjusted, and supports while instruction.

May 2022

• Reflect of PDSA Cycle 1

ILT meets up to review findings, drivers, and review other quantitative data.

Second week: ILT team presents findings to staff and gathers input from the process.

Third week: Pull grade-level groups and create cycles of improvement in one particular area of need.

(note: Spring break on fourth week)

June 2022

• The Instructional Leadership Team develops a 2nd PDSA cycle and recruits NEW-to-the-grade teachers

First week: Provide an inservice for the NEW to grade in a YEAR-AT-GLANCE goals in where the teachers can read, analyze, and hopefully enhance and edit if needed

Second week: Create and share an evaluation with the NEW-to-grade about their knowledge of the following. -math CCSS, Math Practices, Equity-based math teaching practices, Orchestrating Math Practices