At its final meeting of this school year, the Equity Leadership committee settled on a preliminary definition of “equity,” as it applies to the school setting. This was labeled preliminary, because there may be a reason to change the definition after further study, or after a wide audience of parents, teachers and administrators has been engaged in a discussion.
An equitable and excellent school district is one in which all students achieve high levels of academic success, regardless of any student’s race, ethnicity, culture, country of origin, neighborhood, income of parents, or mother tongue. In an equitable and excellent school district, there are no persistent patterns of differences in the academic achievement or treatment of students grouped by race, ethnicity, culture, country of origin, neighborhood, income of parents, or mother tongue. Equity and excellence occurs when each and every student is served effectively to achieve at high levels.*
The meeting ended with a things-to-do-list for next school year. The first task will be to increase committee members’ awareness of their own biases, then learn strategies for engaging school and community groups in productive conversations about equity, and finally to determine when and where to have these conversations.
One committee member suggested that BSD talk to staff in the Bellevue Regional Library to see if they would like to do what Seattle Public Library has done for several years in encouraging all its residents to read the same book and participate in programs and discussions related to it. One possible reading choice is the book from which the definition came, but also perhaps a book to be determined later that is less academic and more accessible to the broader community.
*Modified from a definition given in Leadership for Equity and Excellence: Creating High-Achievement Classrooms, Schools, and Districts by James Joseph Scheurich and Linda Skrla. *Modified from a definition given in Leadership for Equity and Excellence: Creating High-Achievement Classrooms, Schools, and Districts by James Joseph Scheurich and Linda Skrla.
