Check out the following resources to help create equity in schools…

Two organizations with shared missions to create equity in our schools – Beloved Community and Ripple Effects – are partnering to share resources and a survey to nurture respect.

For Educators or Parents Involved In Your Children’s Schools…

Check out the “I to I” survey. 

It’s a FREE, ANONYMOUS, DIGITAL tool to help students, parents, teachers, and non-teaching staff learn more about how each person, and their community as a whole, sees different groups of students. All four groups separately register their level of agreement or disagreement with the same three sets of 8 statements. Everyone gets a picture of the results, showing how what they see compares with the rest of their group, and how their group compares to the other groups in their setting. The more people use it, the more power it has as a national picture of how we see each other.  See the survey here and note protections for participant privacy.

If you are a parent looking for ways to get involved in your child’s school, this survey could be a wonderful tool to introduce at a Parent-Teacher Association meeting.

Check out and add your ideas to the Free Resource Bank!

It’s a list of simple practices from which members of the school community can draw to see each other more clearly, more deeply. You can add to it by describing in one line one way students, parents, teachers, and staff could call attention to or initiate a small habit for cultivating safety, caring and respect for one another. For example, Ripple Effects contribution is simply: Invite kids to tell a story about something they love about their ethnic background. These ideas will be listed at the end of the survey, along with a link to your organization as a Resource Contributor. Schools can sort through this bank of suggestions and find one to try.

Confident Parents, Confident Kids shared the following ideas:

• Hang a banner (roll paper) along with markers in a highly-trafficked area. Label it “The Strengths of Our Families” and ask all to contribute drawings and words that best represent the family cultures who make up the school community.
• When collecting contact information for the school directory, ask for one attribute of each family that is a source of strength or pride to list with contact information.

Thanks, Jessica Berlinski for sharing these new resources! You can check Jessica’s latest article on Ending One-Size-Fits-All-Programs for Social and Emotional Learning in the Hechinger Report.