What are you looking forward to in March?

All members shared out about future trips to Mexico for a family trip, Costa Rica with Parker school trip and Oakland for Equity Fellows work.  Other members shared that they are looking forward to the busy of work to slow down, children returning from college for spring breaks, and crocuses arriving in the yard.

We used the Making Meaning Protocol to read the Bill.

Observations made by the group:

Alternative testing for teaching.

Plan for increasing diversity – includes various roles.

Requires all districts to engage. We need to do this in our upcoming strategic plan.  (lines 20-27)

Educator Diversity Grant Program (line 102)

DEI officer. (line 78)

Advising Board meetings annually (line 86), mandatory diversity and implicit bias training (line 93)

Nothing about surrounding community, parents, outside of school.

Every district will have a corresponding policy (line 28)

Documentation/recording requirements (line 32)

Assist schools in applying (line 42)

Prep programs- implement plans (44)

Compliance (lines 49, 108-109)

Questions raised by work:

How does the grant we already have relate to this bill?

What are the entry point for criteria and metrics?

Is there retention money in the current grant? How does this bill support retention of faculty?

Is all of this content new? How much to we expect will become requirements? 

Compliance & Reporting: How much will be required of Parker? Individuals?

We don’t need a new law to do this, this work cannot be on the back burner.  Absent the law, how do we make sure this becomes part of our practice. Policy vs. Outcomes.  How can we focus on student, staff retention? How can we have an outcomes approach?

What are the implications for our current work? Do we need a diversity team? What would this team look like? How do we preserve time for this work? Is there a financial incentive?

What implications exist at the board level, for this committee?  Funding implications? Do we need to set aside funds for consulting?

How many things in this bill will evolve into check boxes?

Observations/Implications:

This outline good DEI work. How can we support the growth as outstanding citizens.  Fortunately this may be dictated by law to be a priority.

We have been doing a lot of this work already? Have to exhausted our resources? Do we need additional resources?

This makes me excited for the strategic plan.  How can we be certain that we don’t over talk and under act.  This time next year, how can the experience be different? (BH)

As far as demographics, how can parker begin to look more like our sending districts? (from 88/12 to 70/30)

There is a need to reach out and make calls to parents of accepted students. This will serve as a welcome and opportunity to answer questions. We have low 200 applications as opposed to high 200s.  Mario and Shawna plan to support the Ambassadors in this effort.  Suggestion of talking points/loose script.