What is the work?
Each year in the early fall, the committee that oversees our equity work meets to set overarching goals for the year and define our scope and sequence of professional learning. We met as a whole organization on September 28th to share this overview for the year, which is focused on two big goals: 1) fostering a sense of belonging for all our community members and 2) promoting equity of opportunity and outcomes for all of our students.
After reviewing our arc of professional learning for the year, we split off into groups; new staff members joined Carolyn and Mrs. Allen for an orientation to our VCS goals, framework, and tools while returning staff met with Mrs. Schauer at VCES and Ms. Henriquez at VCMS to plan student experiences that advance the goal of fostering a sense of belonging for all students. From this planning, which extended into PD time on October 5th, came a series of assemblies and lessons at VCES and a series of advisory lessons and council experiences at VCMS. VCES teachers chose to focus broadly on exploring different cultures through assemblies and lessons; the first assembly is focused on exploring bread from different cultures. VCMS teachers chose to ask students to identify objects that represent their identity, share those objects in a council setting, and reflect on commonalities.
In the spirit of continuous improvement, teachers will be engaging in an additional layer of professional development through a process called Japanese lesson study. This practice includes planning a lesson together, observing the lesson in one teacher’s class, and refining the lesson for the next implementation.
How does this work advance our goals?
The underlying goal for the plans at each school is to foster a sense of belonging for all students. What teachers planned will allow students to celebrate their own cultures, appreciate others’ cultures, find commonalities, and respect differences. All of this in service of a harmonious school culture where students see our diverse-by-design student body as something special about VCS and are able to listen to and consider others perspectives in all aspects of their daily lives and academic work.
Valley Charter School 