The Essential

Welcome to the new year DDSD! We hope that you had a restful break that left you ready and energized to comeback to your school communities! The DEI department is wishing you a wonderful start to the year filled with joy and good memories.

Below you will find resources for MLK day, learning opportunities for adults, student resources that were curated by the DEI team to have conversations with students around equity topics, and a look into some exciting things that happened around the district in December.

Enjoy the beginning of the new year!

-DEI Team

The DEI team has recently got some feedback around the desire for an LGBTQ+ affinity space. An affinity space is a place where people who share a certain identity can come together in community. If you identify as LGBTQ+ and would like to be a part of this affinity group, please email Gabie Mbenza-Ngoma (gabie_mbenza-ngoma@ddsd40.org).

Over the last two years, the Equity Department has been given feedback that there is a need for resources to be able to have conversations with students around some of the PD topics that have been covered. We take feedback very seriously, so we have put together student resources PreK-12 that match the PD that we are going over throughout this year.

Click Here to access those resources.

Every month, we will highlight the cultural and identity based celebrations that are celebrated nationally within each month. However, it is important to state that people who hold the identities that we are celebrating should not only be celebrated one month out of the year. We choose to celebrate the diversity of often marginalized groups because their histories and stories historically have been left out. There are many people who hold these identities within our community, students and staff, who deserve to see themselves in the work we do. We move forward with these celebrations encouraging a continuing visibility, representation, and celebration of the groups we highlight.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday in the United States marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year. Born in 1929, King's actual birthday is January 15.

As you prepare lessons and/or resources for MLK day this year, we encourage you to connect what Martin Luther King advocated for to the present and how these issues of racism, exclusionary actions, and bias, are still very alive. Martin Luther King did not fix racism or race issues, he was a change maker who advocated for a more just world, something that many are still working towards today.

When it comes to equity, we are all learners. As we become more intentional about this work in our schools, we may find the process challenging at times. It might be easier to be dismissive when we are uncomfortable. As educators in an extremely diverse district, we owe it to our students and the communities they come from to listen. We owe it to those students whom our data shows are consistently falling behind to seek to understand what exists beyond our own paradigms and experiences in order to better serve their needs.

Below are opportunities to listen, to challenge ourselves, reflect, and gain new tools for practice.

If you were to walk into Rob Harris’ high school social studies class earlier this semester, you would have learned firsthand about the women's suffrage movement. How, you ask? Well, Mr. Harris has a knack for teaching history through real world scenarios that students can connect with, or as he says, “bringing the old to the new and the new to the old.”

He explains: “What I did was tell the students we were going to have a pizza party at the end of the term. I asked them to vote for the type of pizza they wanted on a piece of paper. I collected all of their votes, but I separated the women’s from the men’s votes. Then I proceeded to count ONLY the male votes.” Of course, the female students were shocked. “Why are you doing that Mr. Harris? How come we don’t get a say? That’s not fair!” He followed up with a question. “How do you feel about the situation? What do you think about not being allowed to vote even though you are a full member of this society?” And so began their learning about the women's suffrage movement.

“Big Rob”, as his friends and colleagues like to call him, brings a wealth of life experiences into the classroom. Born and raised in Harlem, New York, he played professional basketball in Spain, France, Israel, and Germany before pursuing a career in the business and finance sector. While the technical side of teaching is relatively new to him, his years of traveling and working with people from diverse backgrounds taught him what he considers to be the most important skill a teacher can have: the ability to read the room. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into teaching, but most of the time, the lesson you design is not the lesson you end up teaching. You have to know how to read the room, and based on what you see, sometimes you have to call an audible.”

For the non-football savvy readers, an audible is when a quarterback sees something in the field and has to switch the original play by calling it out to his teammates. Big Rob connects that to teaching, noting how “that’s similar to what you have to do in the classroom. If you look out and you notice that half the kids are sleeping and the other half are looking at their phones, it’s time to call an audible. For example, one time I had to get a bag and tell everybody to put their cell phones in it. Then I told the students that to get their phones back they had to answer the questions on their assignment correctly. Everyone got their cell phones back at the end of class and I never had to do anything like that again.”

For the past twenty years, Rob has been a campus monitor at Fir Ridge, an experience that taught him the importance of building trust and respectful relationships with students. “I’m always at the door saying hi to the kids, giving them a fist bump, making sure they know I see them and that they belong. I learned that at Fir Ridge, how important it was to be the first person that the kids saw when they got off the bus. I took the time to check in with them, so when I noticed a kid was in crisis, I could pull them aside for a one on one conversation and help them through it.” Ultimately, it was Rob’s desire to support students and give back to the community that made him realize teaching was his calling.

And it was not an easy road. “The struggle is real. There’s a lot of sacrifice that goes into it, a lot of sleepless nights, but remember, you’re not struggling alone.” And on Saturday, December 8th, all of the struggles paid off. Rob Harris walked across the stage and received his Masters in Education from Warner Pacific University. Congratulations Big Rob! We are proud and fortunate that Douglas students have you in their court.

At David Douglas High School, senior students have options when it comes to their senior English Language Arts Class. Last month, we highlighted Black Studies. This month, we're highlight Gender Studies which is taught by Hilary Reed.

I have had the absolute pleasure of sitting in on a day where they were doing some deep analysis of the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The class was digging into different passages of the book, looking at an intersectional experiences of gender with the characters of the book. Students were fluently discussing race, gender, and poverty independently with passion. As students discussed, Reed expertly weaved in and out of the discussions that she had fostered in such a beautiful way. I found myself in awe of the complexity of the conversations. It was a treat to be a part of this community!

At Gilbert Park Elementary School, Principal Stacie Moncreif holds Coffee Talks with families from different identity groups monthly. These meetings serve as a space where families can share their perspectives on different aspects of their experience with their school. On December 5th, a Coffee Talk was held for Slavic families at Gilbert Park.

During this meeting, 15 parents attended and were able to share some of the positive things they have experienced at the school and ask questions. "It was so wonderful to hear some of the things that the caregivers had questions about," stated Taye Spears, Assistant Superintendent of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. "As educators, we do our best to support out families. The best way that we can do that is by listening to what they need instead of assuming."

Thank you Stacie and Gilbert Park for providing a space for families to express their needs!

On December 6th, we had our first Staff of Color PD with Joe Truss as the keynote speaker. We had about 80 staff attend between the two sessions. We look forward to having more!

Our district is currently in the adoption process for ELD materials for both Middle School and High School. An adoption process is a lot of work! We wanted to highlight some of the amazing work that has been done this past year for the effort and the things that are coming up in the new year.

Thus far, there have been two meetings. One where teachers on the adoption committee did some background work, prior to looking into publishers, and then another meeting where publishers were been selected to pilot. During the next meeting, teachers on the adoption committee will be given some time to plan out how they are going to pilot each of the curriculums that were chosen. The adoption committee is not only going to be teaching two new, to them, curriculums, but they're going to be doing them during ELPA (English Language Proficiency Assessment) season! The ELD teachers at the secondary level are going to be juggling a lot of important work this spring, on top of the already important work that they do.

After piloting, the adoption committee will meet again and determine which curriculum works best for students at the middle and high school level. The new curriculums will roll out next year!

We are very grateful to have such dedicated and passionate ELD teachers in our district. Thank you all for the hard work that you are doing to ensure that are students are getting the supports that they need.

Are you doing something wonderful in your classroom, building, or in the wider community that has to do with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? Are you super proud of an engagement strategy, a lesson, or a community bulletin board that you’ve created? Do you see someone else doing something wonderful and want to shout them out? The equity departments want to hear from you! Every month, we’ll be highlighting a few educators and staff members who are doing wonderful work. We know that there is wonderful work being done out there, and we would love to hear from you and share! To submit something, or invite one of us to your classroom or space, please email gabie_mbenza-ngoma@ddsd40.org.