https://go.boarddocs.com/oh/prcsd/Board.nsf/Public#

Book: Policy Manual

Section: 2000 Program

Title: ENSURING EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

Code: po2133

Status: Active

Adopted: January 6, 2020

2133 - ENSURING EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

The Board of Education is committed to the success of every learner in each of our schools and to ensuring that all learners graduate ready for college, career, and life.  We believe that the responsibility for learner success is broadly shared by District Staff, administrators, facilitators of learning, communities, and families.  We are focused on closing the opportunity gap and creating learning communities that provide support and academic enrichment programs for all learners.  Additionally, we believe that it is the right of every learner to have an equitable educational experience within the District.

Our learners, staff, and stakeholders bring their personal culture and their backgrounds into our schools, and the District is richer for it.  The concept of educational equity goes beyond formal equality – where all learners are treated the same – to fostering a barrier-free environment counteracting the contemporary and historical impact of implicit or explicit bias, prejudice and discrimination which for generations has produced a predictability of learning outcomes based on race, class, socioeconomics, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, cognitive/physical ability, diverse language fluency, and religion.

This means differentiating resource allocation, within budgetary limitations, to meet the needs of learners who need more supports and opportunities to succeed academically.  A learner whose history and heritage are appreciated and celebrated will learn better and be more successful than if that learner is forced to overcome a cultural barrier.

It is the responsibility of the District to fully appreciate the diversity within our District while actively eliminating practices that perpetuate the disparities among our learners so that all learners have the opportunity to benefit equally.  We stand firm that these disparities are unacceptable and are at direct odds with the District’s vision.

In order to achieve educational equity for our learners, the District shall:

1. Provide Equitable Access as the District is obligated to provide a high-quality curriculum, support, facilities, and other educational resources to all, even when this means differentiating resource allocation.
    

2. Facilitate equitable access to co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, social services, tutoring, and enrichment opportunities.
    

3. Promote the universal values as expressed and adopted in the Board Resolution – Adopting Working Definitions for Cultural Competency, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Excellence in Education so that these values are shared across the District by a wide range of students, staff and stakeholders who are committed to act on these values without bias, prejudice, or discrimination.
    

4. Adopt Cultural Competency Standards which are intended to be used by the District in creating a new plan or enhancing an existing plan to increase district-wide cultural competency. 
    

5. The District shall provide professional development to strengthen employees’ cultural knowledge and build their skills to decrease opportunity gaps and other disparities in achievement.
    

6. Commit to ensuring that fairness, equity, and inclusion are essential principles of our school system fully integrating these principles into all of our policies, programs, operations, and practices. 
    

7. Adopt a teaching and learning culture that includes high expectations of learners and staff, varied teaching and learning styles, and individualized and systemic supports for facilitators of learning and learners.
    

8. Create multiple pathways to lifelong success in order to meet the needs of the diverse learner body, and shall actively encourage, support and expect high academic achievement for all learners.
    

9. Provide high-quality, culturally relevant and responsive curricula for all learners and facilitators of learning regardless of learning sites.
    

10. Eradicate District policies, structures, and practices that perpetuate inequities and contribute to disproportionality of access and outcomes.
     

11. Identify, develop and apply best instructional practices that will make a positive difference for learners and groups of learners in order to reduce prevalent and persistent learning outcome gaps.
     

12. Ensure that each school creates a welcoming culture and inclusive environment that reflects and supports the diversity of the District’s learner population, their families and communities.
     

13. Engage, include and collaborate with our families, learners, community, and stakeholders as this Board recognizes that their active involvement is essential to the Board’s own responsibility for effective and equitable governance.
     

14. Include other partners who have demonstrated culturally specific expertise – including families, government agencies, institutes of higher learning, early childhood education organizations, community-based organizations, businesses, and the community in general – in meeting our high goals for educational outcomes.

Thus, each Board member holds themselves and each District leader/decision-maker, including faculty and support staff accountable for building/District-wide equity.

At the direction of the Board, the Superintendent, Treasurer, and all other key leaders shall create a clear plan with measurable accountability standards/procedures that can be maintained, sustained, embedded, measured, charted and reported with full transparency to the public/stakeholders. This plan will be reviewed, adjusted and approved annually by the Board.

Legal

Goals 2000 - Educate America Act

The Ohio Improvement Process (OIP)