CP&I Newsletter #AISDEquity
Cultural Proficiency & Inclusiveness ~ December 2019
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MESSAGE FROM DR. WARD, AUSTIN ISD RACE EQUITY ADMIN. SUPERVISOR
As we engage Austin ISD staff and community members in professional learning we learn about multiple worldviews that exist in our community. We also learn about the historical knowledge base missing from our colleagues and fellow citizens. History is important to the work of AntiRacist educators because history reminds us where we have been. If we are unaware of our history we run the risk of repeating the worst of our history. The system of education is notorious for telling a revisionist history of our world. We offer this article as a historical narrative that is often glossed over, ignored or revised to be more palatable to the everyday citizen. History is not always about winners and losers, often history entails dark moments that we must learn from so we do not repeat those moments.
As you review the article consider where this history lines up with your personal history. The law that frames the title of the article still has impacts on the lived experiences of people we live, learn and work with today.
How do I register to attend CP&I Professional Learning?
Austin ISD Staff
1) Search the session number in the HCP, or
2) To view all CP&I sessions in the HCP, search "cultural proficiency" and click "view all sections" under each of the three CP&I courses.
Community Members
We welcome community members to our professional learning sessions. If you are a community member interested in attending any of the CP&I sessions, please email cultural.proficiency@austinisd.org to receive an the EventBrite registration link.
No partial credit available. Please check the session times and plan accordingly.
CP&I PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Speak Up: How to Respond to Everyday Prejudice, Bias, and Stereotypes ToT- 3 hours
Dec. 11th 8:00-11:00 session #93446
As the largest No Place For Hate district in the nation we create this opportunity for participants to review Austin ISD board policy on harassment, examine the ADL's Pyramid of Hate, learn strategies to speak up, and practice interrupting biased language or stereotypes.
Principals who attend will receive materials to conduct the Speak Up session with staff. Please share this session with principals so they can facilitate Speak Up on their campus!
Cultural Proficiency: The 6th C
April 8th session #93133
Austin ISD highlights six Power Skills as values for planning, teaching and learning environments. The Six Cs of collaboration, communication, connection, creativity, critical thinking, and cultural proficiency are listed in our Theory of Change. Participants who attend this session will begin to understand and build Cultural Proficiency awareness as the inside/out approach to how we do our work as Austin ISD staff. Cultural Proficiency is a way of being. It is not a program, an initiative, a checklist, a curriculum, a one-day session, or simply the celebration of culture & holidays. It is an understanding of personal background, values, biases & beliefs and the impact identity has on our daily work with students, staff and families.
Isolating Race- *This session is a prerequisite session for the others below.*
January 16th session #93557
January 22nd session #93121
January 30th session #93122
February 18th session #93123
Participants use the Courageous Conversations About Race Protocol to racialize their daily lived experiences, gain awareness of personal bias, consider racial disparities within educational structures, and examine Austin ISD data to highlight local racial inequities in education.
Becoming an Antiracist Educator: Words Have Power
February 11th session #93124
An interactive, critically self-reflective process designed to enable participants to develop an awareness of equity words, notice the feelings equity words create, strengthen AntiRacist commitments, and take action in daily professional practice.
* Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
It’s Not Discipline: Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices 101
February 13th session #93125
Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices (CRRP) model is a culturally proficient, child centered, developmentally appropriate, social, emotional, academic and trauma informed process founded on indigenous roots of harmony and community connection. Participants experience academic and social, emotional processes, and protocols on a continuum of affective language, affective questions, and intentional conversations to develop campus wide Tier 1 implementation of CRRP. * Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Want to know more about the Austin ISD CRRP Model?
Check out the CRRP section of this newsletter
White Fragility:
Understanding Whiteness to Overcome Discomfort in Conversations About Race
February 20th session #93449
March 4th session #93127
Designed for white educators and community members to engage in, sustain and deepen conversations about race, examine the presence and role of whiteness in American society, explore their own racial identity, identify white cultural norms prevalent in our schools, and practice strategies for sustaining conversations about race to support the creation of identity-safe school spaces for students. Please note: this session will require participants to lean into the feelings quadrant of the Courageous Conversations About Race Compass.
* Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Institutional Racism in an Austin, TX Context
February 25th session #93128
AntiRacist educators and community members grow through critical self-reflection and collaborative learning about situational and systemic inequality in Austin, Texas. In support of effective, equitable instructional outcomes, participants will apply their understanding of racism’s centrality in Austin ISD personally, practically, and professionally.
Attend this session to consider:
How deeply embedded is racism across American historical, social, and political traditions? How has racist policy and practice evolved in two centuries, since Stephen F. Austin?
* Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Connecting with Families: Exploring & Planning to Interrupt Implicit Bias & Stereotype Threat
February 27 session #93126
Participants deepen understanding of family communication from an Antiracist lens, think deeply about how schools operate in ways that can negatively impact communication to and with families, and recognize how to support healing and connection with families.
* Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Equity and Belonging
March 31st session #93129
Educators and community members do you recall your years in school preK-12? If so, what about that school experience made you feel like a valued member of the school community? Educational equity aims to provide developmentally appropriate, high quality instruction to all students. We recognize if students do not feel connected in school or in class our schools are not able to achieve educational equity. This session was created in response to the persistent predictability of who succeeds and fails in public school across the cultural factors of race, economics, age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity...., and for AntiRacist educators who seek to improve their practices through meaningful professional learning opportunities. * Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Mindfulness and Unconscious Bias
April 2nd session #93130
In the field of education mindfulness and unconscious bias are rarely linked together in formal professional learning opportunities, yet they are deeply connected. Attend this session to explore mindfulness through experiential practices and learn how the age-old practice of Mindfulness (and its more modern iterations) can help us solve age-old problems that arise due to unconscious bias and institutional racism that exists in our schools.
* Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE RESTORATIVE PRACTICES
In Austin ISD, we use a Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices (CRRP) model that focuses on building relationships with students, staff, families and the community. The CRRP Model, aligned to the Response to Intervention Model, takes a relational approach to teaching academic, social, emotional and behavioral skills. This approach is both culturally relevant and responsive focused on using affective statements, affective questions, and engaging in restorative chats to build community at tier one. These practices are also used at tiers two and three as processes to resolve conflict, heal relationships and teach skills necessary for adults and students to contribute to a safe and welcoming school and classroom community. Take a look at the model below we use to align whole school CRRP in Austin ISD.
Creating a campus environment where students, parents, and staff nurture trusting relationships, are invited to share and be their authentic selves, and have a sense of belonging and connection in the campus community.
It’s Not Discipline: Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices 101
February 13th session #93125
Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices (CRRP) model is a culturally proficient, child centered, developmentally appropriate, social, emotional, academic and trauma informed process founded on indigenous roots of harmony and community connection. Participants experience academic and social, emotional processes, and protocols on a continuum of affective language, affective questions, and intentional conversations to develop campus wide Tier 1 implementation of CRRP. * Completion of Isolating Race required to register.
Tricia Ebarvia: How Inclusive Is Your Literacy Classroom Really?
"Reading and writing can be powerful tools for agency and liberation, which is why making sure our practices are grounded in [inclusiveness] is so important. What do I mean by inclusive practices? Inclusive practices are those that guarantee the perspectives and contributions of all people—especially of diverse backgrounds who have been traditionally marginalized such as LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, and people of color—are given equal recognition, attention, and care in all learning environments.
Inclusive practices consist of both curricular materials and teaching methods. It assumes that because the aim of education is to empower students, decisions regarding curricula or methods are always political in nature. When our teaching practices are not inclusive, we perpetuate systemic inequalities."
Read more at the link below.
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Essential Conversation
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
Beyond Heroes and Holidays
~ Analyze the roots of racism
~ Investigate the impact of racism on all our lives, our families, and our communities
~ Examine the relationship between racism and other forms of oppression such as sexism, classism, and heterosexism
~ Learn to work to dismantle racism in our schools, communities, and the wider society."
LATINX SUMMIT FOR COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
Amazing Professional Learning Opportunity!
The 2020 Latinx Summit for Courageous Conversation
will be held April 15-18, 2020
at the Hyatt Regency Downtown in Houston, Texas.
The Latinx Summit for Courageous Conversation is our annual convening of Latinx people to build capacity for racial equity leadership in the United States and beyond. Uniquely different from our annual National Summit for Courageous Conversation (NSCC), the Latinx Summit for Courageous Conversation (LSCC) is specifically designed and developed to meet the unique and pressing racial equity needs of Latinx people. To this end, PEG staff, speakers and participants may freely engage in the languages spoken by Latinx communities while discussing relevant issues that draw on community-based experiences unique to members of the Latinx diaspora. While recognizing the importance of creating affinity space for cultivating emerging Latinx racial equity leadership, all are welcome to join this rich and rare gathering.
Learn more and register at: https://summit.courageousconversation.com/latinx-summit/
Past CP&I Newsletters
November 2019 https://www.smore.com/n0x65
October 2019 https://www.smore.com/7te4p
September 2019 https://www.smore.com/7z9hk
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