Equitable Practices

The start of the 2022-2023 school year saw Springfield Township come closer to a return to normal following the pandemic. Our staff were able to participate in professional development and hear about our plan to sustain the equity work formalized last January.

More teachers have received training on facilitating difficult conversations in their classroom, our school and classroom libraries continue to grow their diverse title options, and ALL staff are getting the opportunity to hear and learn more about the equity action plan.

2022-2023 is sure to be an exciting school year!

Recognizing the diversity of our community, The School District of Springfield Township is committed to and accountable for advancing equity and excellence for all of our students. We, in the School District of Springfield Township, endeavor to provide equitable opportunities for high level, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences for each and every student, regardless of racial/ethnic background, economic condition or other dimension of identity or difference.

We recognize that in order to achieve Educational Equity we must apply principles of fairness and justice in the allocation of resources and work toward the elimination of institutional barriers to access and opportunity. We aim to ensure that funding, policies, practices, and initiatives will enable every student to receive what they need to maximize their success. In order to foster growth toward equity, we must engage in continuous reflection and ongoing measurement of our efforts.

Year 1

• Adopt and enforce an Educational Equity Policy (Complete)
• Identify administrator responsible for conducting review and analysis of data and leadership of EAP (Complete)
• Communicate the purpose and goals of the EAP broadly and consistently (On-Going)
• Support conversations in the classroom that help students to be prepared for difficult topics and conversations around equity (On-Going)
• Improve safety for marginalized students, including students of color and LGBTQ+ students (On-Going)
• Utilize analytics to assess the impact our communication has on students and families (Complete)
• Create feedback/communication system for parent teacher conferences (Complete)
• Provide training for ALL district staff on equitable practices that are able to be implemented in the classroom and across district offices (On-Going)

The district continues to move forward with our equity action plan goals. This summer, the Equity Initiative website page has been given a makeover! New resources, information, and links have been added to make this page a one-stop shop for equity work in the district.

Looking to hear updates about the equity plan? This year, administrators will provide updates on the plan in already established parent group meetings, including EEHSP, STSHSP, and MPA monthly meetings. We hope you will join us to stay up to date on district initiatives.

In the upcoming weeks, district administrators will embark on a listening tour to hear about concerns specific to our students from marginalized groups. This feedback will be reviewed to determine appropriate action steps and the district will work with students to make improvements.

Recently, the district has partnered with Dr. Sophia Rodriquez, professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and winner of the Congress Literacy Award, to collect and review research on district belonging. Dr. Rodriquez works to promote equity for immigrant students and will be lending her expertise to the district to help increase a sense of belonging for our students.

Sophia Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor in the Minority and Urban Education specialization in the Teaching, Learning, Policy, and Leadership department. Dr. Rodriguez's interdisciplinary scholarship, drawing on tools from education, anthropology, and sociology, asks questions about the social and cultural contexts of education policy and practice. Her integrated research agenda addresses issues related to racial equity, urban education and policy, and centralizes minoritized youth voices. Her two current longitudinal projects, funded by the Spencer and W.T. Grant Foundations (2018-2022) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), utilize mixed-methods and ethnographic designs to investigate how community-school partnerships, teachers, and school-based mental health professionals promote equity and advocate for undocumented (im)migrant and refugee youth. The IMLS project that focuses on newcomer migrant youth belonging was recently awarded the prestigious Library of Congress Literacy Award. Her scholarly work has appeared in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Educational Policy, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Teachers College Record and Urban Education. In 2022, she was named a William T. Grant Scholar to conduct a longitudinal study about how schools manage the welcome of newcomer immigrant youth. For her work to date, Rodriguez received the Early Career Award for Division G (Social Contexts of Education) in the American Educational Research Association.

University of Maryland Profile

William T. Grant Scholar

Our district is a proud member of the DVCEE, Delaware Valley Consortium for Excellence and Equity, an organization sponsored by the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Springfield Township is proud to continue our membership and work collaboratively with the 37 other districts in the Greater Philadelphia region to enhance equitable educational practices for all students.

For more information on DVCEE, please visit their website.

The following information is shared with families to help strengthen equity conversations in the home. Please note that these resources are not shared in the schools. However, we encourage families to use these resources to engage your children in conversations around equity in the home.

An infographic depicting how diversity works at multiple levels.

Reference:

The Four Layers of Diversity, Adapted from Marilyn Loden and Julie Rosener.