Qualification Statement regarding Diversity of Students

Qualification Statement regarding Diversity of Students by Sunny Dawn

I believe that through my Administrative Credential Tier 1 classes at Mills College, which include readings and discussions on equity, I have acquired a skill set that compliments what was already in motion regarding fair and conscious treatment of students with diverse backgrounds or ability levels. In my Educator career, as well as my Non-profit career, I have focused on social justice. As a recent graduate of Mills College, a school with the oldest reputation for social justice and Educational Leadership I will reference my training often and reflection tools handed down from the Education Department of Mills College.Some of the research I will use as tools overtime include:

1.Equity: Traps: A Useful Construct for Preparing Principals to Lead Schools That Are Successful With Racially Diverse Students by Kathryn Bell McKenzie and James Joseph Scheurich

2.Tim Wise video from Law class: (http://msdawnsturntospeak.blogspot.com/2012/09/tim-wise-on-white-privelage-video.html)

3.The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

With these skills and strategies I hope to take my deep political as well moral belief that we need to have conversations and narratives to open up the dialogue around diversity and equity in our classrooms, schools and institutions. A concept I have dealt with in my own education and my daughter's is racial erasure. Although I moved from Napa, when I first started teaching, to expose my family to diversity, maintaining my cultural identity and my daughter's has been close to impossible. I feel, as a multiracial educated woman, empathic to students of color every time they step into a public education institution, which has a history of discrimination and marginalization.

I bring a deep knowledge of human rights violations to people with different sexual orientation or gender identification and believe this will be an asset as an administrator in your department. Furthermore, I want to also express I have been advocating for the rights of my Special Education students, as a recent Special Education teacher, but also as a past Program Manager who worked with adults and children with development disabilities and physical disabilities.

I know these issues I have dealt with for the past 6 years as a public educator transcend elementary education and that learning disabilities and biases are present for students even in adulthood. Once hired in administration my skills of understanding diversity and complexities will be present in all my handlings of sensitive issues as well as in my communications with students of different backgrounds than my own.