Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (MSAAC) Meeting, Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/925690239?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:43] Good evening everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started. We have a very robust meeting tonight and we want to get right to the work and to the learning. So good evening again. For those of you who don't know, my name is Erin Kunkel and I serve as chair for MSAC for the 2023-2024 school year. Thank you all for coming tonight. Thank you all for attending. For those of you who are watching via the live streams, we say hello and welcome to you as well.

[00:01:18] Tonight's meeting is a big meeting for MSAC and a really important meeting for us. We're going to do a lot of work. We're going to do a lot of learning. I've been excited about having this meeting for several months now, and so I'm glad that we are finally here and we're having it. The theme for the night or the subject for the night is words matter, the story behind the numbers and our guest presenter and basically our teacher for the evening is Dr. Ryan Tyler.

[00:01:49] So doing the welcome, we are going to, we have a couple of MSAC announcements, just a couple. We'll get straight to our presentation and then we'll close for the evening. So I can work technology. So right quick for all of our guests and MSAC delegates, if you would please click the QR code and sign in. I checked it three times. It should work. If it doesn't, please just email me

[00:02:18] at msacchair at lcps.org to just let me know that you were here. Yay, it works. So to get started, the announcements that we have for this evening, it's just a gentle reminder that we are getting close to the end of the school year. We have two more meetings after this month's meeting, and next month will be our annual equity, and it will be on a Saturday, and we'll be at Historic Douglas for the afternoon, so just be on the lookout for invitations and information, so you

[00:02:56] can mark your calendar and plan to join us. We tried to move it a little earlier in the year, so we could make sure that we could have everyone with us as we celebrate our work this year and just enjoy a great time together as delegates and as a community the next announcement is more of a reminder if you would please if you have a question or a comment please remember to click the button on the microphone that way your your question or your comment can be recorded because our meetings are recorded and it's great to have all of the questions and comments on record especially for me because sometimes I like to go back if I think about

[00:03:33] something and just listen and take into consideration your feedback and your questions as we're planning and we're going about the year and also we just want to thank you again for joining us and just say that again please dive into this training dive into this it is it is going to be really important as we go forward and continue in our work not just around racial slurs and hate speech but going into the next school year as well.

[00:04:03] And so with that, I am going to turn it over to Dr. Tyler, and we'll get started. Good evening.

[00:04:23] So I would like to ask first for you to make sure you're located next to someone who will be a shoulder partner for this work at a table. Because this started off as a review of data, and the more I thought about the way we could really best engage in this conversation, we're going to dive into the actual purpose, the why for the work.

[00:04:46] I'm going to ask you to get access to one of the equity audits textbooks that you see on a table. And we're going to reflect on our level of how well we're equipped to do this work. Then we're going to dive into the work. So it would really be beneficial for you to be sitting next to someone who could be a shoulder partner, who you could have some conversations with, And also make sure you're at a table where you have access to one of these books.

[00:05:15] There are many copies here for you to have access to, to kind of dive into. So for those of you who've been wondering, we've had a lot of great meetings at MSAC and looking for opportunities to actually engage and do some action planning around a really important topic, you're in the right place tonight.

[00:05:34] So I'm going to give you another 30 seconds to relocate. make sure you're at a table, make sure you have access to one of these books. You're going to need the agenda to take notes on, and there will also be a page that you can do your self-assessment as far as being an equity-oriented change agent. So what we're going to talk about, really discuss this evening, is that our goal is to spend at least half of the time in discussions.

[00:06:10] um, who, is there anyone here who you would say you're kind of immature at times? Maybe you have childish responses to things. Just raise your hand. It's okay. Okay. So I'm warning you, we're going to have some conversations about some weighty, heavy issues. And some of them involve how kids treat each other. There may be some surprises. There may be some factors that are longstanding issues that we won't be able to fix tonight. So if you're occasionally immature,

[00:06:43] just make sure you're sitting next to an adult who can reassure you and also embrace the challenge of the moment so that's my warning this is your last chance to leave and you're still here i'm going to talk about the equity philosophy why we're here i'm going to ask you to read chapters from a book it's pages 70 to 78 and it's from the equity audits it's it's kind of what i would consider for dr ellis williams and her team and for all of us who are doing this work kind of if if you will, a manual to being an equity-oriented change agent. And we're going to read a chapter

[00:07:20] in it, and then we're going to dive right into a real-world situation with dealing with incidents involving slurs. And we're going to dig into some of the training that our amazing school leaders have engaged in. And we're not going to finish maybe with a complete action plan, but we're going to take you through the why, have you do a self-assessment as far as your readiness level for doing this work, and then we're going to actually dive into an activity.

[00:07:46] So that said, so on this slide, those of you, whether you've been in Loudoun for one year, 10 years, 20 years, the reason for this work predates the equity office. We know that. For decades, going back many years, periods of segregation, some, we have schools historically that were still, that were segregated schools up until recently enough where we have people who still have a living memory of having segregated schools.

[00:08:13] So why do I say that? There is an equity statement on our page. There's background around it. And you may ask, well, why are we reading this? This is the why. The why was here before many of us started living here. And the why may be here years from now as we continue to grapple with and move forward as far as change.

[00:08:34] But read what you see on the screen.

[00:09:01] Okay, now here's the first challenging moment. And maybe it's not a challenge for you, but let's embrace it. Here is the main component of the equity statement. And as you read through this, I'm going to ask you to identify some key concepts, key ideas, and share with a table partner.

[00:09:19] Now, read through this. Read through every aspect of it. And read through some key concepts and key ideas. And challenge yourself to say, am I ready to be a champion for equity on all of the concepts listed here? But read through it. Take some notes.

[00:09:35] Key concepts, key ideas as you read this statement.

[00:10:26] So as you're finishing, and I'm going to just highlight this and go back to the actual excerpt here. What are some key concepts and key ideas and share with a table partner? And you're thinking, what are you thinking, Dr. Tyler? What should I be looking for? Some people may be challenged to imagine, well, can I be an advocate when it comes to discrimination based on race, ability, culture identities, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression?

[00:10:55] Some people are challenged to imagine, well, can I be a voice for all of these different perspectives? But let's talk about that. So with a shoulder partner, what key concepts or key ideas emerge for you as you read our equity statement and have a conversation with someone at your table?

[00:13:26] So at your table, as you're wrapping up your conversation, select a spokesperson. We'd like to hear from three different tables key concepts or key ideas that you shared or you heard. So select a spokesperson, one for each table, to share out key concepts, key ideas you heard in reading this.

[00:13:49] Yes, and make sure you activate the microphone. I did not know I was coming to class tonight, but thank you for the education. So the three ideas that we had is, one, it's sort of psychological safety for the students so they are able to really learn and put the success, growth, and academic rigor in there.

[00:14:18] It is also the opportunity for kids of different abilities to learn from each other and be exposed to that and what that means because that is what the world is. And then a third idea was if kids have to worry about this, if the students have to worry about the hard things that we read in this page, that takes away from the learning opportunity that we're all trying to provide them. So those were three of the concepts we've discussed. So thank you for that. So the idea of safety, the idea of creating a condition for

[00:14:57] learning. And you may ask, well, thank you for sharing that. You may ask, well, Dr. Tyler, Dr. Ellis Williams, why is this important? When we're having to push for change, coming back to a little document like this, reminding us of why it's important. And maybe we always carry that around, but sometimes sharing this with others.

[00:15:17] We do not need obstacles like this for student learning. And to put it more positively, we need to create environments where kids can challenge themselves academically. So we're doing this to give you something that we can always go back to as the why, something we can point to, something we can use to share with others.

[00:15:36] Thank you for sharing. Another table, something that you heard during the key concepts, key ideas conversation you had. - I'll go over here. - Thank you. us we talked a lot about um providing a safe supportive and inclusive respectful environment for the kids um and being an advocate for them because as adults you know some of our children may not realize some of the um inequities that they face and they look at it as oh that didn't bother me but as an advocate having this to be able to come back to to be able to make sure that

[00:16:15] we address those inequities and remove those barriers um gives us you know like you said something to actually come back to and reference so thank you for that and highlighting that as amazing as our students are there are different levels of development and being able to advocate for themselves to see something and know that it wasn't right but having that confidence to come forward and say that doesn't meet our standard so having folks like you who are adults who've had that perspective, who can speak out when we look at this racial incident data, and you see what's

[00:16:53] happening in our schools, and to build your capacity to be that advocate when maybe students aren't comfortable coming forward. So this is important to come back to. Anything that we do that matters, that's going to make a difference, has to be driven by something, a why, a personal why, or even a collective why like this one. Thank you for sharing. So that's part one. So part two, The idea of, okay, we have a why, but what characteristics does it take to be an equity-oriented change agent?

[00:17:25] You may say, well, what does that mean, Dr. Tyler? What's that phrase? So when Dr. Ellis Williams arrived, for those of you who don't know about me, and I promised the chair that I would provide a little background, I'm a trained researcher as far as methodology, program evaluations, and I spent two and a half years in Chicago supporting Chicago public school reforms, Working with parents to be advocates and leading actual school boards, because at that time they had local school boards where parents were actually members of the actual school board, leading the school, making budget decisions.

[00:18:00] I spent 12 years being a consultant working in, let's see, in D.C., in Reno, Nevada, in Philadelphia, in Boston, working across the country with different schools around school improvement, program evaluation.

[00:18:17] I've worked with schools that started off with a 0% pass rate for math, 11% for reading. I've worked with schools where kids were walking across gang lines to get to school, where it was an accomplishment to get to school safely and get home safely day after day.

[00:18:36] So I may not look like it, but I've seen some things in public education over a number of years, and I've been in Loudoun for 11 years. So the idea of why is it that the characteristics of the folks doing this work are important? Because what Dr. Ellis Williams shared when she came here was this book.

[00:18:55] And within this book, on Chapter 8, are the characteristics of being an equity-oriented change agent. And now someone said, Dr. Tal, I didn't expect to be in a classroom setting here. Well, now we're going to take it a step further. I'm going to ask you, and we're going to take some time with this.

[00:19:12] It should start on page 70. It's in chapter 8. Everybody should have a book there. Chapter 8, Becoming an Equity-Oriented Change Agent. So here's what I'm going to do. And again, for those of you who are immature, I'm just warning you, you may read something that you may look at and say, oh, I'm not quite there yet. It's okay. It's all right. Starting on page 70, characteristics of an equity-oriented change agent. So what we're going to do is you're going to read one characteristic. For example, the equity-oriented change agent has an equity

[00:19:48] attitude. You're going to read that, just that part, then turn to a shoulder partner. Now, you can save the self-assessment for later, but as you're reading this, I'm sure you're going to be wondering, you're going to be wondering to yourself, wow, do I have an equity attitude the way it's defined here? But this is why it's important for us to, now that we have the why, okay, let's think about what it takes to do this work. So we're going to take some time with this so step by step with a shoulder partner read a section then turn to a shoulder partner whether it's some key concepts or key ideas or if you're ready to say

[00:20:24] you know I think I can I can do this I have an equity attitude the way it's described here I don't demonize people who disagree with me I understand that but if you sometimes struggle with that you're going to have to address that in doing the equity work because people may fundamentally disagree with us, we have to be careful about demonizing them though, no matter how different their perspective is. So what we're going to do is we're going to kind of dive into the mind of Dr.

[00:20:51] Ellis Williams and read this chapter. She is saying, this is what it takes to do this work. So read a section, turn to a shoulder partner, talk about it. You may want to self-assess on your little, on your table, on your, on the table that you have, the one pager, or you just want to talk about it, but let's read through it. Let's take our time. It may take us 20 or 25 minutes to do this but we need a foundation before we go to the next step any questions about this next activity you should have a book you should be on page 70 and you should have a shoulder partner ready

[00:21:23] section by section any questions let's get started feel free to write in the margin full pages

[00:23:10] if you can see mine up here it's full of tabs i'm a active reader so i write lots of notes in the margin so please feel free to use the highlighters in your bins on your tables to highlight key concepts or ideas that stick out to you, or maybe talking points is post-it notes. If you choose to stop and jot, I'm pulling out all my teacher leverages here. So please, yes, it's your copy.

[00:23:40] So as you finish that first section, turn to a shoulder partner, engage in a conversation, go at your own pace, but make sure you exchange ideas as you read section by section with a

[00:24:03] shoulder partner.

[00:26:40] So at your own pace, continue. You may move on to the next section. If you find that you're having a rich conversation on the first, you can stay there. We're not going to complete the whole self-assessment, but I want to walk you through the protocol of kind of assessing based upon a certain kind of set of characteristics that it takes to do this work. So you can continue

[00:26:59] or stay where you are. I'll check in with you again, sitting in another 15 minutes.

[00:30:41] So keep reading. If you're having a rich conversation where you are, great, or move on to the next section.

[00:32:57] So I'm doing a check-in with the learners here. Who's had a moment where they read something and they thought, ooh, I don't know if I can do that, or I don't know, I have limits. Avoid demonizing anyone who's had a moment. Okay, maybe you're raising your hand internally, but that's the purpose of this work is to really, as Dr. Ellis Williams is sharing with you, is to get you to reflect on that, because when you're face-to-face with a situation where a racial slur has been targeted at a student and you're talking to the principal

[00:33:36] about how you can get that lesson out, that avoiding demonizing others who differ may get tested in a real-world scenario. So that's okay, because better to think about it now when you have a chance to reflect and be ready for the moment.

[00:33:54] So let's keep going and let's try to hit a few other sections. The avoiding demonization is always interesting to hear people read that chapter, but demonstrating persistence, maybe courageous conversations. What's your level of comfort with that?

[00:34:11] So let's take another seven minutes. You don't have to get through every area, but get through enough to kind of really reflect on what it takes to do this work.

[00:38:04] So a check to the room here. So fifth to five, how many are, you're done at this point. Maybe you haven't read every section, but you get the idea of their key characteristics. You started some reflection. But how many of you need more time? Five minutes, three minutes, or you're done.

[00:38:20] So I just want to see the idea of, okay, five minutes. I see five minutes, five minutes. Okay, so we'll go another five minutes.

[00:40:28] So what's funny is that when Dr. Ellis Williams and I saw your interest and Dr. Rasheed's interest in the building, because we're basically doing like chapter one, chapter two of our handbook tonight. Chapter three would be the first action dealing with racial antagonists.

[00:40:48] So we laugh about that. It's like, I think we're going to do that.

[00:43:28] So one more minute, and we're going to wrap up this section of the activity tonight. One more minute, wrapping up your thoughts. Whatever section you're on, let's go ahead and finish that up. And those of you who've joined, feel free to join a table.

[00:43:45] We have materials for you if you're interested in kind of engaging the conversation, or you can stay where you are. But feel free. You're welcome to join a table and a conversation if you like.

[00:44:09] Each, let's go with three tables.

[00:44:25] We did two last time. let's try three. Who would like to share an area of strength and an area for growth? Raise your hand if you can hear me speaking. Raise your hand if you can hear me speaking. If you can hear me speaking, please raise your hand. I know we're still engaging conversations here. So who would like to share an area of strength or an area for growth? I grew up in Arkansas, and we used to call these grown folks conversations. We're talking about, okay, where am I strong? And maybe I need to grow in this area. Maybe I need to come back to MSAC and talk about how do you engage in

[00:45:03] courageous conversations when I'm not comfortable with confrontation? So who wants to share area strength, area for growth? Activate the mic at your table. You don't have to have a spokesperson. This can be just you. Yes, go ahead and activate the microphone. So for me personally, the initiating the courageous conversations is a struggle just because I don't like confrontation.

[00:45:36] And, you know, if you're talking with someone who's willing to have a healthy dialogue about differences, that's one thing. But when the other person is just like dug their heels in, then in my opinion, the conversation is over because you're not you're not listening to what I'm saying.

[00:45:59] So why are we still talking? Thank you for sharing that. That was a nice that was a grown folks kind of conversation. and say, look, I'm not perfect. I'm not comfortable in this area. What we're going to do is we're going to, in the next step, we're going to look at some of our data on racial slurs.

[00:46:18] And I dare say that Dr. Ellis Williams will model for us, how do you have a courageous conversation about data that may not be comfortable to look at? Data that may suggest that our kids are struggling sometimes to treat each other with respect. And a courageous conversation, if people say, why are we looking at this anyway? She has some wonderful answers as to how one incident can do great good or it can even maybe start to unravel a culture in a school.

[00:46:48] One incident. So thank you for sharing that. Anyone else? Area of strength or area for growth? Go ahead. One thing for me personally in the growth area was demonization. I do that very easily. If I know something negative to be true about someone, it's just very hard for me to find the grace to look for the positives that they might have deep down under there? Racism? I don't know, but it's very difficult for me and I recognize that and something I need to work on, I guess. I appreciate you saying that because I heard that from several tables.

[00:47:26] Sometimes as central office staff, it's hard to hear someone target something or phrase at a student and see the damage that it does and to not see them as someone who should not be part of our conversations, who should be ostracized, it's challenging. You see the damage they're doing and you're saying they should not be part of these conversations. That damages the culture.

[00:47:53] They've lost their humanity card. Just let them play off at the side. These are real emotions. So thank you for sharing that. And you may say, okay, Dr. Tyler, we came here to look at data. Why did you take us through these two activities? The why will keep you persisting when you have to have courageous conversation and knowing that that's an area of growth for any of us to remind ourselves when someone's challenging while we're doing the culturally responsive work that's why it's important to be equipped with the why and the characteristics it takes to do this work so anyone

[00:48:27] else have any thoughts before we move on to our next activity yes please activate the mic i just want to share something that hannah said our student representative and i'm so proud of you is that it is really tough for students to engage in this conversation, especially in their friend group as well. So we have to kind of bear that in mind. Challenging for student leaders. When these are individuals you're trying to get along with on a daily basis, but there's also something you

[00:49:02] have to challenge for us to be better. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, now we're going to test this out. So action one, the idea of addressing racial slurs. Our division and school leaders have access to a data visualization platform called Qlik.

[00:49:19] And data people are cute because they couldn't actually name it and spell out Qlik, so it's Q-L-I-K as you see on the screen. It's a tech thing. But our division school leaders have access to a data visualization platform. And of all the discipline data we're able to see, we're able to drill down on any day and see how many racial incidents we've had up until that time, where they've occurred, which students have actually been the aggressors.

[00:49:50] A lot of details. It's reviewed on a monthly basis and we have multiple offices and departments that support schools in responding to them. But before we go into this, I'm gonna do a data dialogue. So before you look at the data, what do you expect to see?

[00:50:07] How many racial incidents do you think have occurred as of Monday for this entire school year? Who's engaging in these incidents, meaning who's initiating? What's the demographic makeup of the kids initiating these events?

[00:50:23] Where are they occurring in the school? What grades do we see them most prominently or most common? So predictions, what are you expecting to see? What assumptions do you have going in? Like how many racial incidents do you think occurred as of Monday?

[00:50:40] Which grade levels are they more common? Where are the locations in the school? Which students are initiating these events, not their targets, initiating them? Give you a couple of minutes at your table. Make your predictions.

[00:51:07] So I'm hearing clarifying questions. For the whole school year, for the whole county, how many incidents? Just in case you were wondering.

[00:51:32] You've had a couple of minutes.

[00:51:50] Now you can even write down your predictions or just kind of keep them up here. The dialogue we're going to follow is, what do you expect to see? When we analyze the data, what's popping out? What are some patterns? And then we're going to do some action planning. And you're thinking, Dr. Tyler, we're going to do action planning?

[00:52:08] we're actually going to dive into some of the training that division folks have received on responding to racial incidents. And you're going to consider your role as an MSAC delegate. Okay. Thumbs up if you're ready for the next, the reveal. We're ready. 622 incidents as of Monday across the entire division. So as of Monday, so the beginning of the school year through two days

[00:52:39] ago, 622 incidents. I think our record for one year is 510 or so. We're going to race right through. Now, maybe we're more accurately accounting what's happening. Maybe we haven't seen an increase. We're just accurately counting what's actually happening, and we weren't capturing it before. But so Dr. Ellis Williams, who needs no introduction, and people have asked, well, is that a lot? I mean, for 82,000 kids, 622 incidents, she has an example for you. Thank you, Dr. Tyler, and good evening. So we think about, say we have a student who's

[00:53:18] returning back to school, been out three months, possibly a surgery, and they rented a school building. And in this one day, all of their peers, including the adults in their lives, greet them with a welcome, warm, and affirming environment. Let's think about the way in which that student would feel. Counter to that, same student enters the building. No one holds the door no one says good morning and then someone says an unkind thing to them based on being on

[00:53:51] crutches or not being able-bodied the counter and that's one so for some of our levels right now there are students who are pervasively being addressed and we are capturing racial slurs and hate speech and we will begin next year to capture acts that coincide with racial slurs and hate speech as an example it was brought to our office to help support an elementary school after a unit of course during black history month on the former enslaved there was a slave block on the playground

[00:54:31] and peers of color were being sold by their counterparts for five dollars so with that was language and language was reported under the auspice of racial slurs and hate speech but the act that coincided with the language was something that we did not or do not currently have the tracking for. So oftentimes when we peel back the layers after there's been a report of an incident prior to working with our communications office to provide parents with insight as to what type of incident took place, we've now had to evolve to having a letter that's a holding letter saying,

[00:55:08] hey we're still investigating because we have not gotten to the bottom of the capture game which turned out to be peers chasing who were pretending to be enslavers chasing the former enslaved and when they looked at the dynamic between the two groups it was persons of color being chased and whipped and their counterparts being the persons that were the enslavers. So when we think about culture responsive instruction and of course the list goes on and on in our minds each day in my division about how do we account for culture responsive instruction when you're going to

[00:55:46] engage in salient topics we have protocols in place that when we're engaging in topics that could be controversial there's a way to engage to set the tone to set the temperament and disposition for learning whereas when you leave that learning space we also close it out because if we don't then our students will go out developmentally in that space because their brains are the size of a softball at that point, trying to get into a space to play out acts of oppression.

[00:56:21] So when we talk about that culture-responsive environment, the culture-responsive classroom, and the culture-responsive curriculum, we're speaking to those measures. And when we introduce concepts, we have to do so with the understanding that this is now a part of the repertoire of the students who have been introduced to said concepts.

[00:56:44] Thank you. So we have shared the slide deck with the executive board for MSAC, and I know some of it may be kind of hard to decipher, but we'll make it available. We can review it later, and we may dice it up because we have different sections.

[00:57:00] But as you look at this, 622 incidents involving 627 violations. So sometimes it could be multiple students involved in that. And this is data not on the students who were the targets, but the students who initiated the actual incident.

[00:57:19] 33% of the students who initiated the incidents are white. 28% were Hispanic. 18% Asian. 13% Black or African American. And I believe we have 7% two or more races. So a wide range of students who are the initiators of these events.

[00:57:38] Of these students, 147 were English learners. And you see a little two-colored bar chart down where it says incidents by EL indicator. And 174 of the students who initiated events were kids with IEPs. So I don't know at this point that some of your predictions may have held up or maybe they're being challenged.

[00:58:03] Thumbs up and ready to go to the next slide. I like the laughter there. It's like, okay, this is interesting. Where do these occur? And you're thinking maybe it's not confrontational. Maybe it's a student targeting another student across a room, and it's anonymous.

[00:58:21] 53% of the incidents are in classrooms. Okay, I heard an appreciative hmm right there response. I like her because I can hear what she's thinking. 28% occurred in an interior common area of the school building.

[00:58:40] So just the location and the nature of what's happening, some of these are more direct perhaps. I would have thought it wouldn't have been as direct, but there are a lot of face-to-face, close, confrontational situations occurring in a physical classroom directed at another student.

[00:58:58] You can see and they can hear you. I don't know if you had any other observations. Yes, in environments where we actually have supervision, sometimes there's a misconception that these endeavors happen in spaces where there's no adult supervision. But we're talking about the classroom proximity of no more than 25 other persons in a room.

[00:59:18] We also have reported cases. We have less reported cases in a hallway than we do in a classroom with adult supervision. We have incidents in cafeteria, which outweigh those that happen, believe it or not, on a playground.

[00:59:34] Again, a space that's actually supervised. So the acts we're finding are happening more on our elementary and middle playground, the acts that coincide with the language of racial slurs and hate speech. So I think maybe we've caught a few of you off guard with the numbers.

[00:59:54] Let's talk to your shoulder partners at the table. So again, a wide range of ethnicity and demographics and happening predominantly in a classroom or in hallways where kids are seeing each other.

[01:00:10] And again, these are students targeting other students with these acts. At your table, what are your initial thoughts? What are you seeing here? What facts are jumping out or popping out at you? That'll be next.

[01:00:30] that will be next so at your table what you've seen so far and let me know if you want me to go back to another slide what's popping out initially when you've seen where this is happening go ahead right here so the the on the bottom on the bottom right the IEP indicators in the on the bottom right hand corner 174 of these students were kids with IEPs 147 of the students and it's not always

[01:01:04] the same. It's maybe exclusive. 147 of the students who engaged in these behaviors were English learners. So it means that there's some representation of different demographics in the students who are initiating these behaviors towards other students. I'll answer your question.

[01:01:22] So at your table, what pops out? What are you noticing in just the first couple of slides we

[01:01:27] shared?

[01:05:23] Who's ready for the next slide? Thumbs up. Thumbs up. You ready for the next slide? I see a few folks. So the gentleman at this table kind of preempted this. So this was interesting. You see here, by grade, the total number of incidents, and you see kindergarten is at the bottom. And the idea is we have about 62 to 6,400 students in each grade level. So it's pretty equivalent. But you see where most of the, a disproportionate number of the incidents are

[01:05:57] occurring. And where is that? Isn't middle school a special place? So the idea is, it is a special place. It's the idea of the transition between elementary and high school. So at your table, the gentleman was asking about that. So at your table, was that surprising? Okay. And one of my colleagues brought up with Dr. Tyler, it may be that we're not capturing all of the incidents.

[01:06:25] Maybe some schools are reporting better than others. Something that we will talk about later, we get a chance to get to it is we have climate surveys that go out to families, students, and staff. What percentage of students, now I'll just say this quickly in passing because I was sharing this because I guess Andrea brought this up. What percentage of students would you say that responded, that adults treat them with respect regardless of race or other factors? What percentage of students from one to 100 would you say responded yes to that question? 70, 70 percent,

[01:07:04] 10%, hmm, how much? 20, 93%, 93% of students said, my teachers treat us with respect regardless of race or other factors. What do you think that percentage was when kids were asked about how kids treat each other with respect regardless of race or other factors?

[01:07:24] What percentage of kids would you say, 93% of adults are treating us with respect regardless of race and other factors. What do you think the percentage was when kids were looking at treating each other? What percentage was it? I heard 75, I heard 50.

[01:07:41] 30. It was 75%. But what that means is that kids are more likely to see disrespect amongst each other than adults disrespecting them on the basis of race. So why is that important? So Andrew Weiscopper brought that up. The idea is that we have climate data, we have racial incidents, we have multiple data points that indicate that there's a lot of positive interactions going on, And there are isolated incidents, however isolated they are, that are occurring that don't meet our climate standard.

[01:08:17] And those so-called isolated incidents can have a disproportionate impact, as Dr. Ellis Williams pointed out. An act of kindness can build your culture, and an act of animosity targeting another student can undermine it.

[01:08:35] So these are the incidents by grade. So as Dr. Ellis Williams was saying, the highest number occurred in the classroom. Students in close physical proximity to each other, they can see each other, even in the presence of an adult, maybe an adult witnessing it, maybe a teacher orchestrating instruction, and maybe it's two kids, one student targeting another student, in the cafeteria, again, interacting at lunch, perhaps, and then in a hallway or playground.

[01:09:08] So not so much casting a statement at a student from across a field or at a great distance where there's separation, it's personal. Many of these are face-to-face in a classroom where they may be no more than 10 feet away from the student that they're focusing this statement on.

[01:09:27] So before we go on any further, we're going to talk about your role. And you're thinking, Dr. Tile, okay, this is like three activities. You've already triggered me three times, got me thinking about all my growth areas. Before we go on, any other questions?

[01:09:49] It's multiple reporting. Sometimes it's parental reporting, and we haven't heard from a school. Sometimes it's students reporting to adults that do report, and that's when you get the notifications via e-mail saying this incident occurred at this school.

[01:10:09] Your child may have been within earshot or may have been the person that was accosted and or mistreated. So it's a combination. So they're coded for our internal records as to who tracked it, who investigated, and what were the outcomes.

[01:10:26] And at times, well, within all of them, we have our SOP, which is our standard operating procedures, as to what has to occur when it happens. And that's all based on what's reported, either by a bystander, a student, or the adult it was reported to.

[01:10:42] And I stress about what's reported because sometimes we find that a parent might be calling us about a concern and we go and look in our database and we don't have that reported on behalf of the student or the school. And therefore there was no follow through. And so we're working on ensuring that fidelity of not only reporting so that we can track.

[01:11:02] And what we find is a caveat with our high school students, which is probably no surprise, We attribute a percentage of their low numbers to they handle certain situations themselves, and that's not me, that's parents saying to me, I've given my child permission to take up for themselves, and that's differing from various household to household, so we don't get as many reports from the high school from students.

[01:11:27] Thank you for that context. So, and you're thinking, okay, Dr. Tyler, that's a lot. What is my role in this? So, just some ideas. You're here at MSAC getting a larger perspective. division perspective important to have that and as dr ellis williams had mentioned to me this is something we can provide an update at the end of the year wherever we end up and being able to have a division perspective so if you talk to your principal say this happened at the vision level so what's happening here and it may overlap and it may be different uh this may be a particular school that has a high level of incidents but we can also equip you with the climate survey data

[01:12:07] to what percentage of kids are saying they're seeing this in your school that may not always align with a number of reports. Build awareness of the protocol for responding to incidents. We're going to introduce it tonight, but we can't do it justice in the next like 15 or 20 minutes. But what we're trying to do is to share with you a protocol that you can emulate what our division staff do to address it. And you won't be alone with it. The idea is that what can you do to kind of expand on what the school is doing in the school community to maybe engage the community in addressing these things as they happen, and then we'll talk about building and equipping you

[01:12:44] to be able to meet with school leaders. We say, I've seen the data. I know we have a great division. I also know that we ended up with 800-some incidents. I'm really just here to talk to you about what are you doing to address this at the school, and what can I do to support it? So there are some resources here, and I'm going to exit here, and we have shared the slide deck with the MSAC board. So it's actually longer. It has like two other parts that look at like getting kids into advanced course pathways and looking at climate data. You're thinking Dr. Tyler, I might

[01:13:22] be done with data in about 15 minutes. Can't do that tonight. We'll be talking about that next time perhaps. So what we're going to do here is just remind you there's training that is provided for school-based staff in multiple forms, including our administrative leadership team trainings that occur in August, now July. And there's also a resource here that I'm going to, when you get the slide deck, when you click on that link, it'll take you to a page. And we're kind of giving you kind of an inner look at what Dr. Ellis Williams and her team and schools do to address this and to really kind of get you thinking about, okay, if they're doing that, what can I do to

[01:14:00] support it? And there's a link here, a lot of wonderful resources, a welcoming, inclusive, and environment, how to listen and communicate, respect, and student experience, the student voice, I'm going to look at responding in the moment. So the idea is, in this case, I'm going to just walk you through it and get you kind of thinking about what can interrupt, what language or actions and language can interrupt, but you can use to educate when responding to slurs or these events.

[01:14:34] And I'm just going to kind of touch on some key topics here. It defines what a slur is, what hate speech is, to make sure you know it when you see and then there are supports from the division of equity, ways to respond proactively, and then approaches to responding to a hate speech handout and a resource link. And I think what we might do

[01:15:06] is stop on anyone that you think would be a good example on this one. Okay. So this document is a document which is a one-pager that everyone has in our division, particularly our school leaders, our teachers, so that they have a quick glance as opposed to trying to go and read through the entire SOP. So it's an infographic that highlights how we interrupt and intervene, how we question and educate, as well as how we follow through. So our standard operating procedures is not the granular understanding that we need to have for this group because you're not actually the ones

[01:15:46] engaging in that particular work, but this gives you an understanding. So sometimes you may call and be like, this happened, what's being done? This is the what's being done, the high-level overview of what's being done when reported when accurately denounced and handled with the same fidelity so this document you'll have access to as well and it's just a quick reference so that in the moment if you are caught off guard or it may have been so egregious that you can't even think in a moment because these things happen teachers in the middle of a lesson something happens and how do you redirect and how do you bring the class back together where you can

[01:16:25] continue to provide a safe environment for those who have been impacted, those who are within earshot. So just to give an understanding around when incidents occur in any space, we have to take into account not only who committed the act, who was impacted, not just the intended person, but everyone around that heard the slur or the language or witnessed the act received support from our UMHT team. And our team takes it a step further. We have the 15-day check-in. So there's the incident. We go through the protocol. UMHT is a part of the process. How

[01:17:04] do we get to a place where we can bring the community back together and have some understanding, have some learning around the offense by the person that committed or persons and those who had it committed against them, as well as the persons who witnessed it without even wanting to engage. So we're intentional about these steps and which is why it's so important that we adhere to this fidelity because we want to build a culture in which we know that this is not acceptable the denouncement and the letters that go to the community is put it on top for the community to be you know transparent about how we're measuring how we're handling and what's being

[01:17:40] done to mitigate so we'll give you an up thank you we'll give you an opportunity and we'll scroll through slowly and as dr ellis williams said some of the content we want to keep it plain language too i mean you work full-time jobs you come here it's been a long day you don't want to i'm assuming you don't want to have to read textbooks to kind of understand all the terminology and acronyms so plain language take we're going to take some time to read through this so read through this and when you're ready raise your hand for us to scroll down we're just going to give you a

[01:18:11] chance to read through this two-pager okay when you're done I when I see all the hands raised we'll

[01:18:39] scroll down so you of course I can see there's like bright intelligent eyes when I look around

[01:19:23] the room now you get why you have to have those characteristics because in the middle of that statement being made, can you stay on point and not demonize what you've heard? Or maybe you're thinking, man, this is going to be a really tense confrontation to deal with this. You see why it's important to have those characteristics when you're actually engaging in these actions to address

[01:19:45] that issue. And finally, I think we may have finished right.

[01:20:14] Let's see what else we have. We'll go right here. Stop right here. May need five or so minutes before we wrap up this activity.

[01:20:54] So we've talked about the why. You've done a little bit of a self-assessment, looking at the characteristics it takes to do this work. We've looked at data, and we've looked at action steps. Now, you don't have to go out and engage in this tomorrow, but really want you to reflect on from what you've seen.

[01:21:14] Think about what would your plan be outside of as far as your role in this, getting access to some materials that are straightforward, two-pager, that you can look at an incident occurs. Principal is saying, I need maybe a community to engage with us as we address this.

[01:21:32] You're going into the school. You're checking those characteristics. I'm putting aside the demonizations. I'm gonna look at my little protocol and I'm gonna play my role. Think about what you've heard today and think about what's next for you. You don't have to have a plan yet, obviously, but from what you've heard, preparing yourself, what do you need that's next?

[01:21:54] What is your plan of action as far as what's next? Thinking about responding to these racial incidents or these slurs. So at your table, just reflect. I'm going to give you a few minutes, and if need be, we can kind of show you other content here to kind of think about that.

[01:22:10] As Dr. Ellis Williams said, get resources to you in a targeted way and not overwhelm you. We understand you've got full-time jobs, you're running households. We're going to do this in a targeted way and just build capacity. At your table, reflect on what you've heard today and think about your next steps.

[01:26:07] Okay, how much more time do you need? Who needs five minutes? Who's done? Who needs three minutes, two minutes? Fifth to five. Who's done? Fifth. Who needs five more minutes? Okay, five more minutes.

[01:28:17] So what you see on this slide is an example.

[01:28:37] It doesn't have to be your action plan, but the idea of what could you do or concrete steps could you take? The idea of contacting the school and saying, I've seen division-level data, and I'm seeing some patterns. I'm wondering how I might support efforts you're taking with incidents that are occurring in our school.

[01:28:56] The idea of are there some differences maybe in this particular middle school versus the division at a whole level. The school is taking actions to address it. The idea of you could be invaluable to actually taking those lessons into the community as an actual representative of families.

[01:29:15] Especially we have situations where maybe the message isn't getting out there. The principal and the staff are sending it out there, but maybe someone to do those one-on-one face-to-face conversations with folks about the impact of these actions. So how can you play a particular role when something occurs and the principal's getting the message out and you're one of those key leaders in that family community to say, this is important?

[01:29:40] Yes, it's one incident. One incident can make a big difference to build us up or to even undermine the culture we want. So that's the activity. Now, you see why when we started it off, the thought was, well, we're just going to look at data.

[01:29:59] But then having known Dr. Ellis Williams for, what, several months, I was just thinking, no, we've got to build a foundation for this. We've got to talk about the why. We have to be able to assess the characteristics it takes to do this work and build our own capacity to do it and give you a concrete example that you can carry out.

[01:30:17] But there's other things. There's getting students into advanced course pathways, making sure students are challenged, college career ready. There's looking at the results of the stakeholder surveys that, by the way, they closed, I think, late last week or early this week.

[01:30:34] What do the parent, what do the family, staff, and student surveys say about what it's like to be in our particular school, your particular school, and our division? Because you may find that there's very few racial incidents, but you go in and look at survey results and you find that 60 percent of kids agree that they're treating each other with respect regardless of race and 40 percent disagree wait a minute we didn't have any racial incidents but kids are seeing something so that is a lot um no one left the room no one threw a tantrum

[01:31:06] everyone dealt with the any discomfort of wow i'm not i'm not ready to do this work in this area or am I ready to have those courageous conversations? Am I ready to, am I able to not demonize folks? Am I able to look at data that's about a hard topic and join in and addressing it?

[01:31:27] So before we hand it over to our chair, our fearless chair of MSAC, one word describing how you feel right now having gone through this activity. Yes, empowered, like the sound of that.

[01:31:44] Others, informed, to others. Yes, challenged. And challenge is okay. It helps you to grow and stretch and to kind of build your capacity. One more. I know some of you have kids, you have careers, you're saying, the word is tired, Dr. Tyler.

[01:32:07] Okay, along with that, the word is tired. But another word, how you're feeling right now having seen this? Prepared. So as we hand it over to our chair, the idea is that there will be follow-up, there will be resources, there will be practice.

[01:32:30] Ideally, we would come back at different meetings and talk about experiences we've had. I had a great experience with an incident, and someone else would say it was challenging for us. It kind of really challenged our community to address it, and we can talk about the work moving forward.

[01:32:46] So thank you for your time and attention. Thank you for being adults and grown-ups. So we'll hand it back over to the MSAC chair. I was just wondering if these slides will be available anywhere? So the board will take the slides, probably convert them to PDFs, and distribute them to folks, and I think leave it where the links to key documents can kind of take you to the

[01:33:14] links that will include them as attachments. Thank you, Dr. Tyler, and thank you, Dr. Ellis Williams.

[01:33:31] We -- I have no shame in saying that we needed this training. We needed to expand our horizons as an advisory committee, and I am so excited for you all as MSAC delegates and community members to have come to this training, to have sat through this meeting and grown and stretched and been a little flexible.

[01:33:53] Now, if you're not a fan, please be nice to me when you email me tomorrow, but I promise, I promise that it is worth it because the next step that's coming had to come from this training and you will be ready to go into the schools.

[01:34:11] You will feel empowered and engaged and prepared. I definitely feel prepared. I definitely feel like I understand things a lot better. And I was sharing with Dr. Tyler that I do better when I have learned something because I don't like to go into any situation unprepared because then I go into a panic and I feel like I feel more prepared and better able to ask a question and not just sound like, can I see the data, please?

[01:34:37] And they look at me like I'm crazy. So thank you all for coming. Right quick, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Deans. Thank you for joining us this evening. I didn't see you come in, but I saw you as we got started. And then I would also like to offer a moment to Dr. Rashid if she has anything she would like to share with us.

[01:34:58] they're all like, please stop. And I'm like, I will. I'll make it quick. I just really look forward to bringing things to fruition more and then being a bigger voice to represent MSEC wherever I go. You know, I really wish I had something like this when I was growing up. And even though I lived in a very diverse area, it was some Jersey City in New Jersey. And it was very diverse. And I wish we had something like this to fall back on and also to have a resource for me and my family unfortunately you know you know that was then but now fortunately this is now

[01:35:35] and I'm so glad you guys have this to to utilize so that we can you know bring about change and be aware and like you said you know feel challenged so that we can move forward thank you so much so with that it is 7 36 I know what time it is and I want to thank you all one more time for coming this evening um please stay feel free to talk and discuss even more um next month we have another great meeting a really big meeting coming and we're going to get to work on planning that and we will see you all after spring break have a lovely safe restful spring break you will not

[01:36:14] hear from me after friday i will leave you alone to enjoy your family your rest time and whatever plans you have so be safe enjoy your spring break and thank you again see you next time

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