School board members - how will you address Equity in 2020?

This week, most school boards in New Jersey "re-organized" by swearing in new and re-elected members. As with any new year, this presents an opportunity for reflection; even if we know the roles and responsibilities of a board of education, we should be asking how we can actually contribute to the path of continuous improvement in student achievement and development.

Beyond just providing oversight of the services being provided by the local schools - through policy, budget-setting, monitoring finances, facilities upkeep - a school board is responsible to see that the schools reflect the values and vision of the community. This may be the hardest responsibility to grasp, often because the board can't put their collective finger on what the community values, and/or can't articulate a vision for the schools. And with constant input from so many stakeholders coming from various directions, it can take courage to stake a position that the board has adopted together and then defend it. So here are some guiding principles that, when applied consistently, will at least help the community understand how your board approaches controversial issues.

• Ask yourselves, Who are we likely not representing well? Then practice articulating their point of view. Every community has segments that are least-likely to be vocal about education - it could be households without children, families in disarray because of divorce or other upheavals, or recent immigrants who either aren't English-fluent or familiar with our public education system. Just because they don't come to meetings doesn't mean you don't have a responsibility to represent them with equal fervor.
• Adopt research and data as your guide. If your conversations are informed by data and research, and these are not manipulated or used arbitrarily, skeptical stakeholders are more likely to at least respect your decisions even when they disagree.
• Invite participation and share information liberally. When our board adopted a standards-based approach to reporting student performance, it was with the participation of the teaching staff. Our board conversations were conducted in public, and the roll-out included parent information sessions. If you hold these conversations in closed committee meetings, then simply act on the recommendation of the committee, most boards will give the appearance of making decisions in a vacuum. Make your case for controversial decisions in public.

With this as a background, boards and school leaders are now facing questions of equity in their schools. Much has been written about equity (Equity-Focused Leadership Is Risky. Do It Anyway); task forces are formed to address it; lawsuits are being filed over it (New Jersey Hit with Major Lawsuit Arguing It Must End School Segregation). This can lead to defensiveness if the implication is that something about your schools is in fact inequitable. So just what is equity in the context of public education? Here is how National School Boards Association decided to define the concept of educational equity (www.nsba.org/Advocacy/Equity):

We affirm in our actions that each student can, will, and shall learn. We recognize that based on factors including but not limited to disability, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, students are deprived of equitable educational opportunities.

Educational equity is the intentional allocation of resources, instruction, and opportunities according to need, requiring that discriminatory practices, prejudices, and beliefs be identified and eradicated.

Here is my idea of "low hanging fruit" for boards of education to examine when discussing how well they are upholding these values and ideals. If you decide to take these on, please do so through the lens of the three guiding principles listed above. 

Homework policy

Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, an image of the student that teachers can expect to turn in their homework on time, done correctly and with clearly genuine effort. What do they look like? Where are they doing their homework? What role is the parent playing? Now, do you think those students are well-represented by the members of the board? You may even be visualizing their own children.

Then what would that scenario look like for the students who are decidedly NOT doing their homework in that manner? How might their home life be different? Or, if it's not a matter of the home setting, how much unnecessary anxiety might homework be otherwise causing?

What if I told you that there is no research that supports homework as factor in improving student achievement - certainly not in the elementary grades. (I would refer you to John Hattie's work, Visible Learning; if your board is truly guided by evidence, this is your educational bible.)

Many homes where homework is a struggle likely fall under lower socio-economic status; but not all. In my own household, my daughters were (for the most part) the model of conscientious compliance to homework assignments. The boys - not so much. And when I started looking at their homework, much of it was, quite honestly, inane. Yet the anxiety and stress it caused was almost unbearable. I could do an entire post about what I've learned about homework - not today. But our board adopted a policy that:

• explicitly identifies research as our guide in setting policy, and the home-school partnership as a community value in the social-emotional development of our students.
• sets as basic principle that homework must "have purpose, be meaningful, and advance student progress."
• prohibits a role for homework in determining course grades, or assigning homework as punishment,
• but requires that homework be used by our teachers "for the purpose of assessing student learning, and determining the need for intervention or enrichment."

Because the only thing that truly counts is whether our students have demonstrated mastery of the learning target. And if mastery is our goal and homework does not advance mastery, what good is it doing, and at what cost for already-stressed families?

Communication policies

One hundred percent of our board members are fluent in English; one is bilingual, out of seven. We report to the state that over 50% of our students are Hispanic, and about 40% speak Spanish in the home. But until a few years ago, only state- or federal provided documents (like the FASD form) were going home in two languages. So we utilized policy as the means to require that this be changed. Now,

It is the Board's policy that whenever more than 25% of the district students are being raised in families of a community sharing a common language, the administration will present a plan to the Board that will ensure that all key materials related to student rights, performance, and achievement as well as district news, events and activities be translated in that language to facilitate full access to the educational program.

Setting policy did not make it so over night; we're still not flawless in execution, and it's more problematic than you might think. But we challenged ourselves to better represent the under-represented, were guided by what data says is true about our community, and hashed out the details in public. It's a policy that I'm most proud of our board for making. 

"Zero tolerance" policies

This comes from personal experience, not as a board member but as a parent.

Two of my three daughters fully-embraced the idea that it is good to be a good student, and a worthy goal, from an early age. That leaves one of three, who described school as "the bane of my existence." But her participation in school sports kept her engaged - until she got caught up in the school's random drug testing, and its zero tolerance impact on all school clubs and activities.

As a parent, I appreciated the family crisis that the drug testing provoked. "Vengeance (or discipline) is MINE, saith" the parent! But the zero tolerance policy was NOT a benefit to my kid, who needed those school activities as a life-line to her engagement in school. Please, school board, I need to keep my kid engaged - don't deny her that. There are a lot of environmental, socio-economic or other family factors (as in my case) why kids may violate certain policies - let alone their adolescent brains aren't quite processing actions to consequences. Does your board represent these kids who may be experiencing trauma, putting them on the margins of ideal behavior? Most likely not. So stand up for them, and look at the effect such zero-tolerance policies could have on critical student engagement (and I'm not including some severe ones, like bringing a gun to school).

If you still want to see what other districts are doing to set an example, look no further than Morris School District, whose efforts and accomplishments have sprung from a 1971 court ruling (As Other Districts Grapple With Segregation, This One Makes Integration Work).

I encourage you to take these issues on this year, with the full cooperation of your chief school administrator, of course. While these may not be foremost on their list of priorities, what's important is that your role includes ensuring that the schools reflect the vision and values of your community.