Hello Families,
I would like to thank all of our wonderful staff who are working tirelessly to support every student. That includes all of our families who are being asked to support school. This is an overwhelming task and I have seen remarkable commitment and dedication to make this a positive experience for each child.
I wanted to take this opportunity to share work that we are doing in every classroom across the district. Starting this year, each classroom will engage in lessons about equity. These lessons are based on the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards. The vision we had as we began creating these lessons was to create an anti-racist district that provides students and staff with the tools, skills, knowledge and courage to make schools more equitable, just, and safe. The goal of the lessons is that students will have practice speaking about race openly and will know how to be anti-racist.
You may be asking, “What does this look like in an elementary school?” The first step of this work is to create a safe space for conversations. Our teachers are working to intentionally create a classroom environment where students speak their truth and others listen to understand. The big idea of the lessons at the elementary level is for students to develop positive social identities based on their membership in multiple groups in society. At the K-2 level, this looks like, “I know and like who I am and can talk about my family and myself and name some of my group identities.” At the 3-5 level, this looks like, “I know and like who I am and can talk about my family and myself and describe our various group identities.”
I look forward to working with our teachers to engage in these discussions with each and every student. If you have questions about these lessons, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or call 541-757-5941.
Sincerely,
Principal Santy
