Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Pack Pals is a program at Tonda Elementary designed to support relationship building between neurotypcial and neurodivergent students through academic and non-academic activities that encourage teamwork and conversations. This peer-to-peer support program pairs neurotypical students with neurodivergent peers to model behavior in educational environments throughout the school day. Pack Pals teaches students to interact with and support their peers who have differences by increasing social and learning opportunities in the educational environment. This leads to new skills and builds a sense of belonging that comes with inclusion and participating in typical school activities.

Pack Pals fosters leadership skills, celebrates diversity, promotes community, teaches responsibility, develops social competencies, and builds empathy in students. In Pack Pals, students receive training and work together 2-3 times per month. Students are supported by staff members who serve as program supervisors to problem solve and answer questions.

Thank you to Ms. Patel at Tonda for providing this information!

The Kindness Club is a new club this year at Hulsing Elementary that is facilitated by Kellie Broderick-DiCiuccio (4th grade teacher), Deborah Bragg (Resource Room teacher), and Jessica Hejka (School Psychologist).

The goal of the Kindness Club is to teach students about kindness as well as how to promote kindness in all that they do each day. The Kindness Club is open to all 4th and 5th grade students and meets once per month during second recess. So far, Hulsing's Kindness Club has made birthday cards for staff members, made holiday and Valentine's Day cards for patients in rehabilitation facilities in the community, and filmed a video to share with the whole school about ways to show kindness.

The Kindness Club also introduced a school-wide kindness initiative called The Great Kindness Challenge. To help Hulsing's students practice kindness and put their compassion into action, all students were given checklists to encourage them to focus on kindness while at school and in the community. The goal is for each student to complete as many kindness-related activities as they can and return their checklist to school for a special kindness certificate!

Thank you to Ms. Hejka for providing this information!

Is your school or department doing something to celebrate or highlight diversity, equity, inclusion, or belonging? We would love to hear about it and share with colleagues! If there is something you would like highlighted in our newsletter, please send information to Katie Ilijic at katie.ilijic@pccsk12.com.

In February 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week. Dr. Woodson selected a specific week in February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom were instrumental in the lives of Black Americans. In 1976, President Gerald Ford extended the observance to a full month in the hopes that the citizens throughout the United States would recognize the "important contributions made to our nation's life and culture by our Black citizens." Since 1976, every U.S. President has issued an annual proclamation designating February as Black History Month. In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February as National Black History Month.

Today, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) determines a theme for Black History Month each year. The theme for Black History Month 2024 is "African Americans and the Arts." This theme encourages exploring the influence of African Americans on the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary arts, and other forms of cultural expression. The theme for Black History Month 2025 will be African Americans and Labor.

The background for this month's newsletter is artwork by E.J. Montgomery entitled Caribbean Dreams (2001). E.J. was part of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA) in Philadelphia exploring the themes of cultural identity, political and social issues, portraiture, landscape, patterning, and abstraction. Click here for more information.

Below, please find a list of resources that may be helpful as we observe this month.

• Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Black History
• Black History Month Lessons & Resources
• Classroom Resources for Black History Month
• Black History All Year
• Black History Month Resources
• Teaching Black History in Culturally Responsive Ways
• Connecting Black History to Joy

Lunar New Year, sometimes referred to as "Chinese New Year" or the Spring Festival, celebrates the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. This two-week celebration includes family and friends, feasting and fireworks, and parties and parades. This year, Lunar New Year begins on February 10 and culminates on February 24 in a Lantern Festival known as the Yuan Xiao. On the night of the Lantern Festival, the streets are decorated with colorful lanterns. People eat sweet rice balls called tangyuan, watch dragon and lion dances, and set off fireworks.

In the Chinese zodiac, 2024 is the year of the dragon, which is considered the luckiest zodiac sign in Chinese culture. Dragons are focused and driven and surround themselves with friends who will be honest with them. Although Lunar New Year is sometimes referred to as "Chinese New Year," it is a public holiday in several countries, including China, North and South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, and Vietnam.

Five things to know about Lunar New Year:

1. The holiday typically involves travel to visit family.
2. 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is the only fictional animal in the Chinese zodiac and symbolizes power and magnanimity. Other years of the Dragon include 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, and so on (every 12 years).
3. Food is very important during the Lunar New Year. Many food items are symbolic of luck and prosperity.
4. Elders customarily give money to young people. In Chinese culture, red packets containing money are given out.
5. There are a lot of traditions during Lunar New Year to avoid removing good luck, including: not washing hair or clothes on the first day, not sweeping up or taking out garbage, not using negative words, and not breaking glass.

For more information about Lunar New Year, please see the resources below.

• Lunar New Year Celebration
• Lunar New Year
• Lunar New Year 2024
• National Geographic Kids - Which Lunar New Year animal are you like?

February 19, 2024 is a Day of Remembrance of Japanese Americans' internment during World War II. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the forced evacuation and incarceration of thousands of United States citizens of Japanese ancestry. In 1982, a Congressional study found that this incarceration was due to "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." This is an opportunity to educate ourselves and others on the fragility of civil liberties in times of crisis, and the importance of remaining steadfast in protecting the rights, freedoms, and dignity of all. Today, the National Park Service preserves sites in California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Idaho, Nevada, Washington, and Washington, D.C. associated with the Japanese American incarceration so visitors and future generations may learn their stories.

For more information, please see the resources below.

• Japanese American Internment: Righting a Wrong
• Day of Remembrance: Photographs of Japanese American Internment During World War II
• Japanese American Confinement
• The Day of Remembrance
• Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II

Canton Township presents the traveling DEI Exhibit "We Don't Want Them": Race and Housing in Metropolitan Detroit at the Summit on the Park in the banquet area. The display will be accessible to the public through Friday, February 2, 2024.

The "We Don't Want Them" traveling exhibit has toured through Metro Detroit since 2010 and has been viewed by thousands of people. The exhibit serves as a tool to begin looking deeper into the issues of southeastern Michigan's racial history in Metro Detroit and how it created and influenced our neighborhoods and region. We hope that you are able to take time to experience the exhibit, which shares local history and explores the impact of local and national policies and major events within our communities using historical photographs, documents, and personal stories.

The exhibit is open during Summit on the Park's operating hours, which are 6a.m.-9p.m. Monday-Friday, and 7a.m.-8p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The exhibit is displayed in the Banquet Area. There is no cost to view it, and it is self-guided; people can walk through and view the information panels at their leisure.

This is a safe online reporting platform for P-CCS students/ families to document incidents of hate and bias in our schools or at school-related events.

P-CCS is committed to the elimination of systemic disparities and "interrupting systems that perpetuate inequities within our school system." P-CCS works to understand "the lived experiences of students from historically underrepresented communities and identify strategies to remove systemic barriers and improve programs and services." We are committed to creating solutions for "improving asset-based, evidence-supported, and data-directed pathways for students."

In doing so, it is important to understand the term "institutional racism," which P-CCS defines as "the collective failure of a public or private organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their race, color, culture, or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in practices, processes, systems, attitudes, and behavior. It looks beyond individual acts of prejudice to the systemic biases that may be built into institutions. These systemic biases discriminate against and disadvantage people of color through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, or racial stereotyping."

To effectuate the District's commitment to the elimination of systemic disparities, we must ensure that we are dismantling any areas of systemic biases that may be built into our system.

Please click here to read the entire Educational and Racial Equity Policy (Policy 2260.03) for Plymouth-Canton Community Schools.

Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Email: katie.ilijic@pccsk12.com

Website: https://www.pccsk12.com/about-p-ccs/departments/diversity-equity-and-inclusion
Location: 454 South Harvey Street, Plymouth, MI, USA