The BSD Equity Collaborative is a rebranding of the Restorative Practices Collaborative (RPC) and now focuses on a broader vision of equity and antiracist work through centering students as partners and working alongside student consultants from the Summer Racial Justice Academy as permanent members of the team. There are representatives from every school on the collaborative and permanent student members who co-facilitate the work.
The goals of the Equity Collaborative are to:
- Create a thriving community where members are seen as equity champions and beacons of this work
- Identify bright spots across district
- See ways that equity work is infused in schools
- Create a working model of youth-adult partnership
- Work with youth to follow through with Racial Justice Academy recommendations
This page is a place to archive the important work of the Equity Collaborative. Click on the links below to see the specific content.
October Equity Collaborative Youth-Adult Partnership Training The first meeting of the Equity Collaborative was entirely youth-led and focused on using values to set group agreements and training the adults in the do’s and don’ts of youth-adult partnership. We seek to disrupt the power dynamic by prioritizing youth as equal members of the collaborative team.
November Equity Collaborative Racial Justice Academy Recommendations Rooting our work is moving forward the recommendations from the Racial Justice Academy over the past years. The work began by looking back at the first three years of the academy and working in groups to rate the progress of the school district. We placed the recommendations under umbrella themes which included Staff Accountability, Restorative Practices, Mental Health/Well Being and Systems. Then we started to do a deeper dive into the recommendations from year 4 starting by previewing the student capstone presentations.
December Equity Collaborative – Youth Leadership was student led and featured a deep dive into the recommendation of Youth Leadership. Special guest students Bella Listi and Debba Beynnon presented their Racial Justice Academy capstone presentation which recommended expanding youth leadership clubs in middle schools. This was followed up by some horizontal action planning that split the groups into PreK, elementary, middle, high and district level to consider where youth leadership is celebrated and where it could be expanded.
January Equity Collaborative – Safety focused on Physical and Emotional Safety. Action groups broke into four categories: violence, drug use, mental health & sense of belonging and brainstormed a problem statement and three possible solutions to each problem. Then there was a “dot-mocracy” process by which everyone voted on one solution from each of these areas.
February Equity Collaborative – Staff Accountability This student-led meeting focused on staff accountability which is a topic that has been revisited all four years of SRJA. Students shared personal stories of how staff were not held accountable for harm caused and their accompanying capstone presentations. It also included a panel of speakers that have a role in the accountability process in schools; the BSD Human Resources Director, BEA Union President & BEA Grievance Chair. Participants filled out a survey to collect data to see if adults in the school district felt the same way as students and were asked to reflect on the question, “What does staff accountability look like in a Restorative School District?”
March Equity Collaborative – Looking Back, Looking Forward This was the kickoff of our passion projects which focused on creating action groups to bring the recommendations from the students forward into a deliverable product. Three action teams were formed under the themes of Staff Accountability, Safety and Youth Leadership which were all directly following through with SRJA4 recommendations for school equity.
April Equity Collaborative – Passion Project Work We revisited our agreements and focused on “Take action by empowering each other & advocating”, “Follow through on what you say you are going to do”, “Be open to new ideas and change” and “Dream big”. We broke right into our small groups to plan the concrete action steps we were going to take. Staff Accountability assigned students roles to interview principals about how they hold staff accountable. Youth leadership collected video footage of students to create a PSA and an accompanying professional development workshop template. Safety brainstormed a “Compassion Project” involving a public art installation. May Equity Collaborative continued this important planning work for the teams and June featured presentations and celebrations.
SY 24-25 EQUITY COLLABORATIVE MEMBERS:
Champlain – Jim Kelliher
EES – Joni Pecor, Betsy Nolan
SA – Sara Leysor
IAA – Infinite Culcleasure, Ciara Takayanagi
Smith – Kate Guilmette, Katie Bowman
Flynn – LeVar Barrino, Keith Brown
EMS – Mickey Zadworny, Katie Wyndorf
HMS – Aria Batten, David Kerr
BHS – Shannon Walters, Heather Washburn
BTC – Emily Kayoi, Becca Shute
Eagle Bay – Ann Gatch, Genevra MacPhail
Early Ed – Shanon Moran, Elizabeth Weaver, Liz Casey
District – Seham Alsakkaf, Erika Saunders, Sparks, Autumn Bangoura, Teresa Giallorenzo, Mika Moore, Karyn Vogel
Student Partners – Summaya Farah, Noah Mitchell, Binti Awayle, Victoria Tornwini, Esther Lokossou, Habiba Siidi
