The Equity Observer

The first Annual Equity Report has been shared with staff and community and is available on the FCCPS DEI Website. Please review when you have time and space. If you have questions, concerns, or feedback please email Jennifer Santiago.

Our world is ever changing day by day. Experiences within our own school community, Falls Church City community, our country, and the world lead us to have questions, and wonderings of how to support those ourselves and those around us. We are regularly updating resources on the DEI website to support staff, students, and community. The website is live and intended to provide support. If you know of resources that are helpful to add please reach out! Recently resources have been added that support learning surrounding the Israel-Hamas War and Antisemitism. Recently we have begun adding the date added for new resources so it's easier to pull out the newer items.

Our History Matters celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 - October 15, Filipino American Heritage Month, and Italian American Heritage Month throughout all of October. In November we will honor Native American/Alaska Native Heritage Month. This year we will be adding Disability Awareness Month in March and next year we will add Polish American Heritage Month in October. If you're interested in having a spotlight for for any of the upcoming months this year, please email Jennifer Santiago.

If you have resources which would be helpful to add to any of the Our History Matters websites, please send those to Jennifer Santiago.

In the last edition of the Equity Observer from last year we had stated that there would be School-Based Equity Office Hours at each school this year. Starting in November, Jennifer Santiago will be at each school for a full day each month, typically each Tuesday unless there is scheduling conflict. You can stop by and chat, ask questions, say hi, or pop in for whatever she can support you with. The visit schedule is below:

Mount Daniel - Tuesday November 7

Oak Street - Thursday November 16 in the Family Resource Center

Henderson - Tuesday November 21 in the Family Resource Center

Meridian - Tuesday November 28

JTP - Tuesday December 5

ELLevation Strategies

Not only are you able to learn about your specific students in ELLevation you can also participate in self-guided PD on working with MLs. The PD modules in ELLevation Strategies are fully vetted, provide opportunity for learning, implementation, and reflection. You could do these solo or with a team. You can access the full suite of Strategies learning opportunities via ELLevation and click "strategies" on the upper left of the screen. When you complete modules you can submit your completion certificate to Frontline for Continuing Education Credits to be added to your Transcript.

If you haven't logged into ELLevation yet and need your invitation please email me and I can get that to you quickly. If you need a password reset, also just email me! I'm happy to help anyway I can!

Equity Professional Development

Self-Paced Virtual Equity Learning Opportunities

If you are looking for some self-paced learning opportunities the Equity Literacy Institute offers a variety of learning opportunities for free and for minimal cost. While not all of these have been attended or vetted by FCCPS they could be a good learning opportunity on a variety of topics in which you may have interest.

If you complete a session you can add those sessions to your Frontline PD Transcript for PD points.

Cultural Proficiency Training - Self Reflection

Well this has been a wild ride of information from VDOE! Over the past two years you'll recall we have provided this training session to all staff as a requirement and originally we were told it would count toward teacher licensure renewal requirements for CP training, then they told us it would not count. I recently spoke with the VDOE Director of Equity Adria Merritt, and she confirmed that our in-house Professional Development sessions for Cultural Proficiency do count toward your license renewal requirements as long as they follow the VDOE Cultural Proficiency Framework, and they do. Therefore, all of your current and future learnings in FCCPS regarding Cultural Proficiency will count toward your license renewal requirements for this element.

If you have not yet participated in the 2 hour face-to-face Cultural Proficiency Training - Self Reflection with Jennifer Santiago new sessions will be offered in November and December for new staff and those who were not yet able to complete this required training. Please stay tuned to your newsletters regarding those upcoming dates.

Future sessions will be developed in a variety of modalities which align with the VDOE Framework Domains:

Domain I: Culturally Competent Self-Reflection

Domain II: Culturally Competent Pedagogy and Practice

Domain III: Culturally Competent Learning Environments

Domain IV: Culturally Competent Community Engagement

Teacher Evaluations now include standard 6: Cultural Responsive Teaching and Equitable Practices. To help you in your work of developing your evaluation evidence this section of the Newsletter will be dedicated to highlighting VDOE Cultural Proficient Standards. Provided here will be learning resources, ideas for implementation, and a general idea of how it looks, sounds, and feels like in practice. In this first edition we'll focus on Culturally Competent Pedagogy and Practice - Establish a classroom and school culture in which all dimensions of diversity are respected and valued.

School Environment

• Displays in the school are representative of diverse experiences and cultures. Ways in which we see this are in displays aligned with Our History Matters, a great example are the library displays at Mount Daniel Elementary School. But we also want to consider ways in which we intersectionally honor culture and representation outside just the honored months.

• Displayed images of students and staff.
• Morning announcements being inclusive of diverse learning, an example are the announcements at Oak Street and Meridian being offered in both English and Spanish over the intercoms.
• Highlighting flags of all the countries represented by our students and staff.
• A welcoming front office that offers the use of Language Line and ensures all visitors feel welcomed, wanted, and supported.

Classroom Environment

• Classroom decor that shows all are welcome
• Classroom libraries of choice reading that all can see themselves reflected in
• Morning Meetings which highlight cultural learning, empower students, and build cultural awareness
• Infusing cultural learning within content learning
• Knowing your students - when a student feels known, they feel seen and cared about. You don't need to know everything about every culture but if you have built a relationship with a student to show they are known and cared for they will feel seen and represented in your classroom.
• Resource - https://custom-writing.org/blog/culturally-responsive-education

Creating Identity Safe Classroom Resources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhBVbg4yB_Q
  
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/creating-an-identity-safe-classroom-becki-cohn-vargas-dorothy-steele
  
• https://us.corwin.com/landing-pages/identity-safety

This year the Equity DLT will meet on a quarterly basis with subcommittees meeting more frequently. The team has been working on their Strategic Plan charge - reviewing all school programs for barriers and ways to mitigate those barriers. This is a multi-year project with the possibility of opening opportunities to grow and build a caring community for all. If you have ideas about what you'd like to learn, or how you might support that work please reach out to the Equity lead at your building.

JTP - Nora Rosenberger and Amanda Davis

Mount Daniel - Carol Felderman and Tim Kasik

Oak Street - Miriam Schimmoller and Michelle Goldberg

Henderson Middle School - Rob Carey

Meridian High School - Shakita Fox-Billingslea and Tia Moore

Operations - Amy Hall and Katie Clinton

Leadership - Trish Minson, Angelina Prestipino, William Bates

Community - MaryAnn DeRosa

This Year's Meetings

September 27th

December 6th

January 31st

April 17th