Access and Inclusion

We have made equity a core part of our strategic plan.

• When we redid our Comprehensive School Improvement Plan, or CSIP, in 2018, we added a sixth focus on our list of core values -- equity. 
• Our CSIP has two main goals. One of those goals is to ensure success for ALL students, regardless of background. This means that, in addition to making this a focus at the district level, each of our schools has built this focus into their own strategic improvement plans.
• We created an Equity Index and a College and Career Readiness Index to help us measure how well we are meeting students’ needs.
• Our latest CSIP is not the first time we tackled these issues. Years ago, we created a vision statement that reflected our journey: “Building successful futures, each student, every day."
• As the new 2023-2028 CSIP team created the next cycle of the plan, teams members continued to prioritize access and inclusion. Specifically continuing the work of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIB) Council throughout the strategies of academics, culture and systems.

In Park Hill, we engage with thought partners to help us navigate and grow the work of access and inclusion.

• We've studied culturally responsive education since 2015. We study the work of Zaretta Hammond on culturally responsive education, and we've provided training to our leaders and teachers on this important framework. We've also incorporated culturally responsive teaching into our system for evaluating our teachers.
• We work with consultants. They help us facilitate implicit bias trainings for our Board and our administrators. We plan to extend this training to our teachers and support staff. 
• We are working with Sophic Solutions on listening to our stakeholders, and we will use their input and the input of our community as we do our work in the Park Hill School District.
• We are working with People of All Colors Succeed to lead conversations with coaches and students in our athletics programs.
• We implemented the national AVID program, which is designed to close the opportunity gap, in all our schools.
• We developed a library of expert resources, including books, articles and movies, for staff to use.
• We know that partnering with people to help guide this work expands our knowledge and actions.

As we developed a model for our instructional vision over the last couple years, our best and brightest teachers helped us not only identify the best practices for teaching, but also to make sure our instruction reflects our values of access and inclusion.

• Part of the instruction vision was a list of our instructional beliefs, and a few of them specifically target access and inclusion:
  • We believe that learning is inclusive of every student.
  • We believe that learning is enhanced when social, emotional and cultural needs are met.
  • We believe that learning is supported on a foundation of positive relationships.
• Another part of the instructional vision was a learning model. This is built on a foundation of a positive classroom climate, where students enjoy a high-trust, low stress environment, as well as positive relationships with the adults. This is core to culturally responsive education.

We have worked to increase learning opportunities for each of our students, removing barriers that might stand in their way. This includes . . .

• Increasing opportunities for families of our youngest learners to access our Title I preschool.
• Requiring each of our departments to conduct equity audits to identify ways we can remove barriers for students and families.
• Providing transportation to programs like summer school, Professional Studies and Northland CAPS, so that lack of transportation is not a barrier to participation.
• Eliminating fees so that every student can participate in opportunities like field trips, sports and extracurricular activities.
• Making the gifted program screening more equitable.
• Implementing the Equal Opportunity Schools program at Park Hill South to make their enrollment in advanced placement and dual credit courses more reflective of the entire student body.
• Eliminating tracking so all students can access the highest-level courses.
• Offering high-school courses in African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, Asian-American Studies and Latin-American Studies.

The Park Hill School District offers an environment where all staff and members of our community feel a sense of belonging. We use our resources to remove barriers to learning and continually search for ways to diversify our workforce so that our staff better reflects our student body. We also provide employee resource groups - affinity groups organized around a shared interest or identity.

Employee Resource Groups (ERG) are employer-recognized workplace groups voluntarily led by employees. These groups allow employees with commonalities to meet, support each other and produce a particular outcome that can help improve your business and their job satisfaction. An employee resource group is a workplace club or more formally realized affinity group organized around a shared interest or identity.

ERG in Park Hill

From DEIB community forums and updates and through the development of the 2023-2028 Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP), the community spoke loudly and clearly that part of our efforts should include implementing restorative practices.

We recently held our first Restorative Practices live webinar with Collaborative School Culture providing a more detailed introduction to restorative practices.  You can watch a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel.

We recently held our second Restorative Practices live webinar with Collaborative School Culture providing a more detailed introduction to restorative practices. You can watch a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel.

This community learning opportunity provided greater insight into restorative language and restorative circles, as well as a preview of what you can expect to see in the cohort #1 PHSD buildings next school year. You can watch a recording of our third Restorative Practices webinar.