The Latest ED&D Project: Equity Content for Monthly Directors Meetings

 

If we all want to promote equity in our schools, then what’s stopping us? There are two things that come to mind: time and clarity of action. 

 
 

As part of my job at ED&D, I visit special education director meetings and talk about equity data. If you’re a special education director and you attend these meetings, you know how they usually start. Busy special education directors warm up by checking-in with each other, getting caught up, and connecting around common challenges. 

How are we keeping schools safe and healthy when reopening after eighteen months of distance learning? How do we interpret the latest policy changes for individualized education programs? How do we create the most meaningful professional development for our busy staff? These are the conversations that come up during the pre-meeting warm up. 

Then it’s my turn. I talk about equity data and what we can do to proactively build awareness about disproportionality in our schools. The only problem is proactive work isn’t always at the top of our minds.

Two Important Questions

This has nothing to do with a lack of desire for proactive equity work. Educators care about the lives of their students and they want all students to have a fair shot at meeting their academic and social potential. We know that because they’ve said so during countless meetings, workshops, and phone calls with us over the last two years.

So if we all want to promote equity in our schools, then what’s stopping us? There are two things that come to mind: time and clarity of action. 

We know special education directors are solving many problems so students can have the kind of school experience they deserve. So now when I visit a special education director meeting to talk about disproportionality, I focus on two simple questions: 

How can I help special education directors find the time to be proactive about disproportionality? 

And how can I give them an action item that is simple and clear?  

Something New From ED&D

ED&D is answering these questions with twelve short disproportionality-related lessons. Each lesson is only fifteen minutes long and is meant to be used at monthly director meetings, one for each month. The topics range from how to lead data meetings with compelling stories to calculating risk ratio scores. Each lesson is designed to be inspiring, actionable, practicable, and shareable. It’s everything you need for getting equity-related content out to people in your districts. 

The basic idea is this: I’ll show you how to use these lessons. Then you can show others. 

Let’s Collaborate

We’re still developing the lessons, but we’re already testing the first few with SELPAs. Does this sound interesting to you? If so, email me at restrellado@sdcoe.net and let’s talk more about how we can help you use them. We’re also looking for more SELPAs to test this with, so if you’re interested in having me hang out with your directors once a month for fifteen minutes, contact me. 

Download the first of twelve lessons about equity you can use at your monthly meetings. 

 
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