The Vancouver school board is set to vote on the district’s new equity policy at its meeting Tuesday.
The policy comes as a response to a June 2019 letter from the state attorney general’s office, revealing that Vancouver Public Schools’ discipline practices disproportionately targeted students of color.
A third-party audit conducted by the Center for Civil Rights at UCLA later that year further identified the district’s need for more thorough training in cultural sensitivity, supplemental funding for schools with more low-income students and the addition new positions throughout the district to help district leaders better understand diversity in both curriculum and hiring practices.
The proposed policy takes aim at these shortcomings and builds upon progress the district has made since the 2019 reports, said Janell Ephraim, Vancouver’s chief equity officer.
“We commit at a district level to recognize that each student has a different experience in our system,” Ephraim said. “We then think, ‘How do we help grow their strengths?’ and go from there.”
The first major step in responding to the audit was the creation of a handful of new positions to integrate equity into each facet of education and administration — which started with Ephraim as the chief equity officer.
The district then created 10 new positions, called “equity coaches,” that began work at the start of this school year. The coaches work with students, teachers and administrators to address ways in which classroom operations or overall curricula need to change in order to be more cognizant of diverse perspectives.
“Our research has shown that although your district can have equitable policies, it might not come to fruition if you don’t have those roles who help create that sense of belonging for both students,” said Marina Heitz, an equity coach who serves three elementary schools and one high school in the district.
Heitz previously worked as a classroom teacher, and regularly prioritized lessons and subjects that pushed an understanding of equity and diversity to the forefront. The addition of these new positions, she said, is indicative of the district now holding itself responsible for previous failures.
On a daily basis, Heitz works in providing professional development and book studies for individual teachers and on a schoolwide basis.
“Every student needs to feel like they belong,” Heitz said. “I would say that VPS is looking to really make equity not just something that’s checked off, some of us coaches would call that ‘checkquity.’ We need to make sure each student is able to achieve success and understand the difference between equality and equity and what that looks like for them.”
The district also created an educational ombudsman, who works with students and families to discuss and reevaluate punishment practices and maintain learning throughout suspensions or detentions.
“I feel I’m someone they can talk to in confidence about policy and procedure, but also if they’re having issues communicating with someone in a district office, I can serve as the intermediary to get both sides on the same page,” said Rachel Cason, who stepped into the new role in August 2020 after previously working in a number of roles in student advocacy in the district for over a decade.
If the policy is approved, Cason said, the focus will then shift to evaluating over time whether or not these new positions and areas of focus are achieving the goals identified by the audit. From that point, Cason hopes her office can even have the potential to grow.
“I look forward to expanding the office, addressing more parent concerns. Being able to serve families when they have concerns on anything, not just discipline,” Cason said. “But this is a process; it takes time to initiate change in any system, especially a school system.”
Vancouver also created an equity advisory committee, which is intended to serve families and the district office as a go-between to review and monitor the outcomes of the equity policy. The committee is co-led by Ephraim and Superintendent Jeff Snell, and features 16 community members including board members, union representatives and parents.
The committee will aid the district in updating the Center for Civil Rights at UCLA with updated data on suspensions and hiring practices, as well as the specific goals of the equity policy.
Superintendent Snell said that the district failed to properly acknowledge or reflect on data that displayed these biases in the past. Going forward, it’ll be used as a necessary standard to meet, year after year.
“Historically, we’ve left kids behind here,” he said. “We need to look into our structures that haven’t done enough and ask why they’ve fallen short.”
The policy’s approval, if it happens on Tuesday, may not initiate an instant, tangible change, district leaders said. The goal is to watch to see if the new roles and accountability systems put in place, do, in fact, turn out to be a success.
“The policies reflect the beliefs and goals that the district has,” Heitz said. “The immediate outcome is that there’s a new standard for how the district is going to be held accountable for what they’re saying and believing.”
