To create a safe and inclusive school community and learning climate for all students through meaningful collaboration between parents, staff, and students.
We possess:
Respect for all people
Humility in our personal beliefs
Appreciation of differences
We seek diversity of thought and rigorous reflection.
We build partnerships between families, staff and students.
We believe students are global citizens who must understand and engage in social justice.
We resist assumptions in an effort to de-center the dominant culture.
To help parents have conversations with their children about being empathetic toward their classmates and teachers. We believe our children deserve to be proud of and accepted for who they are, and that starts with how we talk to and about other people. We will measure this through surveys that evaluate personal attitudes and levels of personal safety over time.
To seek learning opportunities for students, staff and parents, around issues of equity. This may include workshops led by outside experts on applying a racial equity lens to our programs and events.
To provide a process for parents to engage with staff regarding concerns in curriculum or classroom culture. Through this process, parents can learn about plans and strategies related to creating supportive learning environments and the associated challenges and triumphs.
To create relationships with other school and community organizations in order to grow understanding of and resources for equity.
To provide resources or experiences to parents, staff or children that support the emotional maturity and well-being of students as they become global citizens. An example would be hosting an anti-bullying improv group or anti-bias training.
Guidelines
Leadership and Decision-making
The Odyssey Equity Team is an informal committee of volunteer parents that seeks to work with school administrators, faculty and students to develop and implement plans and actions that focus on creating and maintaining a welcoming, safe school climate.
Ideally, a steering subcommittee will provide key leadership.
Decisions will be made during public meetings by the majority of people in attendance, not including the Chair(s).
Meeting structure
The Odyssey Equity Team will meet around the halfway mark between PTA meetings.
The meeting will typically start by sharing Community Agreements.
In order to be transparent and include as many voices as possible in the plans and actions of the team, meetings will be held by conference call to accommodate as many participants as possible. Each meeting will be recorded and shared out through the school-wide email list. Feedback will be accepted up to the day before the next meeting. This feedback will be shared at the next meeting.
Deliverables
Survey
To know where to start planning our actions, we must first assess the needs of the Odyssey community. The Odyssey Equity Team will develop a school climate survey that will be made available to all families. The National School Climate Center defines school climate as the quality and character of school life. School climate is based on patterns of students', parents' and school personnel's experience of school life; it also reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures.
Outreach plan and actions
Fun and inviting activities for students and parents, such as homerooms taking over the front hallway board with messages around diversity and inclusion, weekly email messages and kindness challenges.
Engage speakers and workshops on topics, such as cultural competency, implicit bias and being a white ally.
Compilation of racist and hateful incidents
Create a tracking system for events in our school
Programmatic remedies
A process that gives parents an avenue to address concerns with staff
Policy and process for addressing racist and hateful incidents
Collaborative evaluation of academic curriculum through an equity lens
Re-imagination of the 7 Caring Habits
Can we improve on the Odyssey 7 Caring Habits of support, trust, accept, encourage, listen, respect and negotiate differences?
Workload
The success of volunteer organizations is dependent on the energy and interest of the participants and as such requires a sustained level of passion and dedication. One consideration is to only take on plans and actions that appeal to team members’ exact passions in order to have the highest follow-through.
Communications
Committees can feel monolithic and therefore unapproachable to an outsider. To create an inviting space, core Odyssey Equity Team members will be encouraged to share their names and contact information with every school-wide communication so that a diversity of entry points exists for anyone to engage with our plans and actions.
Revision history
July 2020 - First draft
February 2021 - Stephanie Yao Long adds “We resist assumptions in an effort to de-center the dominant culture” Under “Our Values.”