Family & Community Partnership

Are You an Ally? Try Taking on These 5 Roles

This short course provides an overview of what we mean when we use the term “ally,” which is a person who uses their privileged social identity to empower, support, and defend individuals and groups who are being marginalized. Learners gain an understanding of the different types of allies: a confidant, champion, amplifier, sponsor, or upstander. Allies play important roles in school environments, helping children, youth and staff members feel safe and included, leading to a more positive culture and climate.

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Building a Trans Inclusive School Environment

Transphobia, or discrimination against transgender people, can and does occur in spaces where youth deserve to feel safe and included, such as school. School staff are responsible for fostering a school climate that supports learning and healthy development. Research shows that a student’s sense of belonging improves academic outcomes, increases continuing enrollment, and protects mental health.

This course provides steps you can take to help make your school more safe and inclusive.

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Making Culturally Responsive Teaching More Manageable

Zaretta Hammond explains why one of the biggest challenges teachers struggle with when first embracing this approach is trying to operationalize it in their classrooms. They worry that they have to learn 19 different cultures – their customs, holidays, foods, and language. This simply isn’t true. The other instinct is to reduce it to a set of checklists for each culture as a way to make it manageable. Cultural responsiveness is more of a process than a strategy. The process begins when a teacher recognizes the cultural capital and tools students of color bring to the classroom. She then responds positively by noticing, naming and affirming when students use them in the service of learning. The teacher is “responsive” when she is able to mirror these cultural ways of learning in her instruction, using similar strategies and tools to scaffold learning. The author offers three easy starting points to help make the process more manageable.

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HR Toolkit for Racial Equity

This resource comes from W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s work that includes recommended tools and resources for implementing racial equity strategies as part of a human resources function. This resource can be valuable to human resources and culture and equity professionals. It may also be useful to any leader doing internal organizational transformation work in school communities.

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Building a Culture of Joyful Learning

Research shows that students who feel known and valued are more prepared to meaningfully engage in learning. Students who experience a sense of belonging have better self-esteem, higher rates of classroom participation, and higher academic achievement (Korpershoek, 2018). As a result of creating a positive school climate for both students and educators, the elementary school featured in this report had the conditions in place to make rapid academic gains. When educators implemented the instructional improvements described in this case study, student proficiency improved dramatically because children were in the right mindset for learning.

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