The Essential

Happy February DDSD!

In February we celebrate both Black History Month and Lunar New Year! The diversity in our district is what brings such vibrance to our community. Below you will find resources for the cultural celebrations of the month, teacher learning opportunities, and a look some of the things happening around the district.

-DEI Team

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.

Lunar New Year is the beginning of the new year based on the lunar calendar or lunisolar calendar. The lunar calendars follows the lunar phase while lunisolar calendars follow both the lunar phase and the time of the solar year. The event is celebrated by numerous cultures in various ways at diverse dates.

Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently has been observed in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

K-5 resource created by Oregon's Children's Theatre that highlight's Black individuals who made history.

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.

What: The Cascade Festival of African Films is the longest-running annual, non-profit, non-commercial, largely volunteer-run African Film Festival in the United States. There are showings of African films all throughout February and parts of March.

Where: Different PCC locations and online

When: February 2nd - March 2nd

Cost: Free!

What: Dr Gholdy Muhammad, known for her book "Cultivating Genius" is holding curriculum workshops with Scholastic aimed towards classroom teachers. Filling out the interest form will alert someone from Scholastic to give you the schedule.

Where: Virtually

Cost: Free

Click here for access to the interest form.

How you can make your Black history lessons more meaningful, unique, and powerful for your students? We asked Colorado social studies teacher Kevin Adams to join us for a discussion about breaking stale patterns when teaching Black history and shaping your lessons to fit your classroom and community. Listen to Kevin's advice and experiences in this 36 minute School Me Podcast.

What: Celebrate LGBTQ2SIA+ youth and allies at the Portland Art Museum! Experience Africa Fashion and Black Artists of Oregon. Manifest your superhero from within with comic artist Rupert Kinnard. Join a drag workshop with performance artist Carla Rossi. Speak your truth at the open mic with MC TW. Make art, make friends, and have fun!

When: Friday, February 9th 4:30-7:30pm

Cost: Free!

Click here to register.

A program lead by SHPE: Leading Hispanics in STEM at OMSIs maker-space focused on mentorship, creativity, and career exploration. The first session that already past was optional.

Who knew that applying for financial aid could be fun AND empowering? Well, put a group of brilliant Grow Your Own participants together in a room and find out! Throughout the month of January, dozens of GYO participants took part in a series of Financial Aid and Scholarship work sessions offered in our district office. Together, we learned the WHY, WHAT, and HOW of applying for financial aid to fund our educational pathways. Importantly, we determined that learning how to use financial aid tools will not only help us as individuals. It will also help us help our families, communities, and future generations of BIPOC and multilingual educators fund their education. See more information on applying for financial aid and links to resources here.

If you are or you know a David Douglas student, family, or community member of color who is interested in pursuing a career in education, please contact Andreina Velasco (andreina_velasco@ddsd40.org), Grow Your Own Pathway Navigator.

The District has been extremely busy this year when it comes to curriculum adoptions. The adoption process for a new Science curriculum K-12 began this past November. This will be a two year process to allow the adoption committee enough time to prepare fully. There have been two adoption days thus far. The first consisting of a process overview, a look into the NGSS standards, and the start of a book study. The second day included equity training, focus groups of industry science workers led by students, and some visioning around our desires for district's new science curriculum. There is a lot of hard work that goes into a curriculum adoption! Thank you adoptions committee, Carrie Foster, Brennan Brockbank, and Brooke O'Neil for all of the work you are doing to benefit our community!

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.