Our Key Asks.As the movement has evolved, so have our asks. In our initial letter, with now over 950 signatures, we created a list of asks to the EISD Board and Administration to make our district anti-racist.
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Update the Curricula. |
Create an Inclusive Calendar. |
Each school should continue including materials around diversity, equity, and inclusion in required classes. While it is heartening to hear that Social Studies and English classes are updating their curricula to discuss diverse and varied perspectives, we believe that significant progress can be made to ensure that the education of Eanes students creates individuals who can be informed and well-educated participants in our country and world and thus are fully prepared for the best colleges in the country.
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Our district must ensure that events and critical educational days do not fall on cultural and/or religious holidays in an effort to create an inclusive community for all families. Previously, parents and students have advocated for Jewish and Muslim holidays to be taken into account when creating the annual calendar similar to how Christian holidays are. We love this community initiative and believe that as a district we can expand this effort to be inclusive of more cultural and religious groups as well as working to ensure that clubs and principals are more critically aware of these days of significance and avoid scheduling programming on top of them.
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Make DEI a Board Priority.WE MET THIS GOAL!The board should specifically name "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" as one of their key 2021 priorities at their Board Summit in January. This priority will ensure that the board, administration, and staff continue to push for justice in this space, in particular by creating and implementing concrete steps towards an anti-racist environment on all campuses within in the district. Furthermore, this prioritization will necessitate periodic updates from the district, allowing all stakeholders to stay up-to-date on current progress in the district.
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Update the Student Handbook.WE MET THIS GOAL!The administration should amend the student handbook to include precise language that racial slurs in any context are not acceptable. The handbook currently addresses racial slurs in the same clause as “name-calling;” these are two drastically different issues and should be treated accordingly. Eanes ISD should clearly establish and outline a transparent and zero-tolerance policy that is consistently implemented towards incidents of hate speech and other injurious behavior.
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Establish a DEI Advisory Committee.WE MET THIS GOAL!The administration should create a DEI Advisory Committee to support this new consultant in their work, ensure transparency throughout the process, and provide the district with community accountability throughout the long-term plan that will be an outcome of this consultant's efforts. This Advisory Committee should not be selected by the Board alone and must include the variety of community stakeholders impacted by this work.
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Hire a DEI Consultant.WE MET THIS GOAL!EISD Administration should hire a third-party consultant focused on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) to perform a district-wide audit. This consultant should survey our existing curriculum and culture; identify opportunities for each and every Eanes ISD school to improve on this front; outline initiatives to tackle those opportunities with clear timelines and deliverables; and continue to monitor the progress and results of those initiatives. The audit should begin in the 2020-2021 school year and should cover, at a minimum, curriculum, hiring practices, cultural competency, and bias reporting protocols.
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Disseminate Anti-racism Resources.WE MET THIS GOAL!Given the timing of these incidents and in response to parents’ expressed desire for district guidance, by the end of July, Superintendent Leonard should send out a newsletter to families containing resources on how to speak with their children about racism. While we understand these newsletters typically are not sent over the summer, we believe the importance and timeliness of these issues requires this level of affirmative support.
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