Equity Teams
Bethel School District's core values drive the aspirational goals of student success. The equitable outcomes we desire for all students, our collective promise to each student, regardless of background or circumstance are fundamentally established and supported by equitable practices.
It is our belief that equity is an approach that ensures everyone has access to the same opportunities. Equity recognizes that we don't all start from the same place because advantages and barriers exist. It's a process that acknowledges uneven starting places and seeks to correct the imbalance. Diversity and inclusion are both outcomes. Equity is not. It refers to the process an organization engages in to ensure that people with marginalized identities have the opportunity to grow, contribute, and develop. It's a belief, a journey not an event.
Equity Teams support a growth mindset, a professional development opportunity where the Bethel School District staff gain insights and understandings of not only ourselves, but the school community we serve.
The following statement gives meaning and purpose to our "WHY EQUITY TEAMS?"
How can our words...what we say we VALUE, translate into...ACTIONS...that result in a positive learning experience for all?
Goals and aspirations of EQUITY TEAMS...
- Grow and develop leaders around equity by engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity.
- Build capacity for Culturally Responsive practices; provide research based and promising skills and strategies needed.
- Provide the space for the Equity Team to plan for their schools' equity professional development, to begin analyzing systems through an equity lens that could diminish education opportunity for all students. Community Engagement; fostering positive relationships with families, bringing that voice into the conversation.
- Understand how our individual background and experience – and that of our students – matters in the educational process.
- Work to understand and reduce our assumptions and biases about those who do not share our race, class, culture, linguistic background, gender, etc.
- Believe that all students are capable of achieving at high levels, and take responsibility for our students' learning, despite the circumstances in students' lives and our that can make achievement difficult.