Spring 2022

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Newsletter

#WeAllBelong

The spring season brings many important celebrations of diversity, including Arab American Heritage Month (April), Autism Acceptance Month (April), and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May). So many of our educators and students are working to promote the awareness that these markers bring during this specific time, as well as year-round. Here are some resources that might help promote our collective understanding of these important identities. (Check out our Spring 2022 newsletter for a monthlong list of profiles of in Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month!)

Arab American Heritage Month

Autism Acceptance Month

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (May)

Celebrate AAPI

Many LPS students are working with the Chinese American Association of Lexington to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month. Check out the festivities on the accompanying PDF or go to this webpage.

LPS Demographics

Did you know that Lexington Public Schools majority of students are students of color? Lexington is nearly 60% students of color, reflecting the diversity that many believe will become the norm in the United States in the near future. Check out our recent stats here.

Staff Shoutout:
Christopher Brunner

For our spring newsletter, Aashan Gandhi, member of the Class of 2023 and the DEI Student Advisory Council, offers this staff shoutout in celebration of the hard work of our educators:

"Although it is commonly believed that it’s difficult to teach about systemic issues in STEM subjects, Mr. Brunner effectively incorporates real-world issues into his lessons. This creates an informative and inclusive classroom environment while continuing to teach the curriculum. Rather than using the made-up data and scenarios from the generic textbook, Mr. Brunner’s statistics lessons include issues such as skepticism over climate change, analyzing if commonly Black or white-sounding names are more likely to get called back for a job, and discrimination in the college admission process. This is an extremely effective way to include current topics because being intentional about it and creating a safe environment for these discussions allow us to think deliberately about these issues and realize how they infiltrate all aspects of life. Recently, we did a statistics test, observing the association between force level used by New York police officers and the race of the suspect. Mr. Brunner also had an alternative assignment for students who chose to refrain from reading about this subject. The lessons are not always so heavy, though, which I believe is a good way to keep the classroom lighthearted too. For example, we also do problems about M&M consumption and weights of backpacks. With this combined way of learning, we as students are also able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter in terms of real-world applications. Simply using problems that address these issues can be a way to promote diversity and make the classroom a more representative environment.

Active Bystander Training

At the end of March, more than 50 Lexington High School students gathered in the central office gymnasium to be trained as "active bystanders." The program, as adapted by Lexington Public Schools staff and community members, helps students develop the skills necessary to intervene when a member of our community is being harmed or threatened, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This particular need arose from conversations with students, faculty members, and community members, including ongoing collaboration with the Lexington Human Rights Committee. The hope is that the nearly five dozen students who engaged in the day-long training in March will help bring the learning to other students, including at the middle and elementary levels.

Religious & Cultural Observances

As noted in previous communications, we have updated our official school calendar to ensure it represents our district's core values. Separate from that official school document, we have worked with community members to create this list of cultural and religious observances that matter to our students, staff, and families.

Our community marks this season in a variety of ways. Click on the links below to learn more about each observance.

Support for the LGBT Community

The LGBTQ Subcommittee of the Student Health Advisory Council (SHAC) recently updated this document highlighting the ways allies can support transgender students and families. Across the country, these students’ rights are being debated and withheld. While our core value of “we all belong” in Lexington includes these students and their families, the national news and rhetoric still impacts us here. The document includes some ideas for supporting students, staff, and family allies to the LGBTQ community to “care for ourselves and others.”

For more reading, read this piece from Learning for Justice:

District Equity Teams

Last summer, the district began the important work of horizontally and vertically aligning building-based equity teams, thanks in large part to the work of LPS educators Remy Coombs, Celeste Freeman, and Krystal Velazquez. The summer work entailed dozens of representatives from across the district, and the work continued into the fall, where the original three educators were joined by Angela Carpenter, Esther Kim, and Claudia Vanegas to form an alignment steering committee. Their work resulted in the following vision statement for building-based teams:

Equity teams are building-based groups dedicated to removing long-standing barriers and inequities. They recognize and dismantle hierarchical structures deeply rooted in an ongoing history that privileges certain groups and oppresses others.

Equity teams are collaborative, democratic bodies strategically centering and amplifying marginalized and BIPOC student and staff voices. These teams disrupt traditional power dynamics, acknowledging and seeking to rectify existing imbalances by providing marginalized community members equal weight in key decision-making with regard to anti-racism and equity initiatives. These teams should be integrally connected to school innovation and improvement plans.

Equity teams address detrimental effects of history through restorative practices that center trauma-informed and sustainable frameworks. Equity team work occurs at all levels of an institution, with special emphasis on teaching and counseling practices, professional development, leadership, staff recruitment and retention, and inter-professional relationships.

This spring, representatives from the building-based teams will come together to develop guidelines for a needs assessment each building should complete in the fall, as well as determine foundational training for all equity team members.

Student Advisory Council

The DEI Student Advisory Council continues its work this spring, particularly in supporting the recruitment and hiring efforts to diversify our staff. Many students have already participated in hiring fairs and interview committees, providing valuable student perspectives in the process of recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse staff.

Several students continues to work on specialized projects that help LPS live their core values. Some groups are working to amplify the voices and experiences of LGBTQ+ staff, some to examine the intersection of mental health and racial equity, and some to support the diversity of literary experiences for our elementary students.

The DEI SAC meets monthly in each middle school during WIN block and the high school during I-block. All students are welcome to join!

Curriculum Notes

The DEI Community Input Team (CIT) is approaching it's one-year anniversary and hoping to wrap up the first phase of the work just as we end the school year. The superintendent's original charge for the CIT included the development of "a comprehensive PK-12 DEI curriculum framework, ensuring all students (a) understand their identities and celebrate one another’s personal journeys; and (b) demonstrate what it means to be culturally proficient by the time they graduate from Lexington High School. Students will have opportunities throughout their PK-12 experience to explore our diverse community and appreciate and value our differences. These differences can include but are not limited to the following: abilities, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status or class."

The DEI CIT is finalizing recommendations for this curriculum framework, which includes the following:

  • adoption of the Social Justice Standards from Learning for Justice;

  • the creation of differentiated, age-appropriate curricular materials that will be delivered to every student in the district;

  • the commencement of a regular review cycle for this specialized curriculum;

  • the incorporation of the standards into department-based curriculum review cycles;

  • the inclusion of student and community voices, especially those from historically marginalized and silenced groups, in all curriculum review processes;

  • opportunities for students to pursue individualized deeper learning in social justice topics at the secondary level.

The CIT hopes to come to consensus on these recommendations and a final report soon!

ICYMI: Systemic Barriers Report

In Case You Missed It: Check out our annual report Report on Efforts to Reduce Systemic Barriers to Equity. It's full of data and information about our approach to dismantling systems of inequity, a long-term process to which our district is committed!

Resources

The following are recent articles, editorials, videos, and educational news items to check out as we engage in the lifelong journey of bringing greater equity to our community!

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