EOS' Excellence in Equity Newsletter
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Your bimonthly newsletter on equity & opportunity at the highest levels
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The Heart Work
Many educators enter the profession to directly influence students’ lives through instruction and counseling. Others work to administer educational system improvements, influencing and introducing system-wide policies and adaptions. All of us influence students and contribute to their life experiences in the classroom and beyond.
The 9,340 students of color and low-income students surveyed in the 2017-18 Student Experience Survey, reported that enrolling in AP/IB courses helps them:
- experience a college-like academic experience that is rigorous and challenging
- develop study skills like time management, organization, and note-taking
- increase the possibility of earning college credit for a high school course
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When
Adriana
arrived as a 9th grader at East Leyden High School, she was placed in designated classes for English Language Learners. It wasn't until one teacher asked her if she knew Spanish and helped enroll her in AP Spanish that she was encouraged to challenge herself in one of these rigorous courses.
The support and encouragement that Adriana’s teacher provided her changed her educational pathway; she has since immersed herself in a number of other AP classes throughout her high school career. She embraces struggles not as indicators of weakness, but as opportunities for learning. This past year she took on AP English, AP History, AP Art, and AP Statistics. She did this because a teacher at East Leyden made a personal commitment to this equity journey.
"Being in class, doing homework, studying and taking the AP test, have changed the way I see myself as a student. For me college used to be something that would come eventually, in a couple of years…But now that I am taking college-level classes, I see there is no need to wait. AP classes show me what I am capable to do now…Now I can see that achieving my goal of becoming an environmental engineer is closer than I have had." -
Adriana Olvera Cabral - 2017 EOS Symposium Keynote Speaker
For more on Adriana's story, follow this
link
(Adriana video: 3:12 - 4:50 short version) and for additional student voices watch these
testimonials:
Francis Lewis school
and
Bentonville.
-
Bernadette Merikle, Senior Director, Partnerships
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Welcome to the 2018-19 Access Opportunity cohort
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To our newest partners: You have taken the first bold steps toward a future where race and socioeconomic status are no longer factors in a student’s experience of rigor in your buildings. EOS is privileged to be walking with you on the path toward equity and excellence.
Those of us who get to introduce the work of EOS to districts and schools take particular joy in sharing a new crop of partners and leaders with our colleagues each fall and imagining the successes and stories to come. 2018-19 is no different – the Strategic Initiatives team so enjoyed working with you over the course of your application process and expects great things from you, your staff and your students this year!
District and school partners joining the EOS network this year hail from 18 states, including expansion into Utah (Granite School District) and New Jersey (Franklin Township School District). This cohort is unique in that your partnership with EOS coincides with the first full year of the Action For Equity (A4E) framework. This framework applies insights learned over a decade of study and partnership work with districts and schools across the country in order to increase your impact on students’ life trajectories. 2018-19 Access Opportunity partners will have the same intensive and impactful partnership structure in their first year of work with EOS, while also benefitting from the experiences of their peers in earlier cohorts, who, for example, have administered over 1 million student surveys and over 40,000 staff surveys as of Spring 2018.
The entire EOS team looks forward to collaborating with you throughout this journey. Please don’t hesitate to call on us with any questions or opportunities for support as you begin the work, and once again, welcome! -
Alexa Llibre, Director, Strategic Initiatives
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2018-19 District Partners
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Greetings and a happy beginning to the 2018-19 academic year from the team at Equal Opportunity Schools!
We celebrate this season because of the opportunity and possibility it signals: the unique opportunity to view our students and our work with fresh eyes; and the inspiring possibility of providing students with enriching educational experiences that prepare them for leadership and excellence beyond the schoolhouse doors.
Through our partnerships we will collectively glean unprecedented insights into the experiences and aspirations of underrepresented students. In many ways, these insights will confirm what we already know about how and why we must better serve these students educationally. together, with a commitment to bringing the opportunity and possibility of this season into fruition, we can and will ensure that students of color and low-income students are afforded equitable access to the advanced coursework that they deserve and need for post-secondary life.
The words of
Ronald Edmonds
,
an African-American educator, author, and pioneer of effective schools research,
remind us that this important work both can and must be done if we aim to serve effectively as educators leading for equity.
“We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all students whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need in order to do that. Whether we do it or not will finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
The Partnership Team is ready to get to work with you. Cheers to a transformative year ahead! -
Kia Franklin, Senior Director, Partnerships
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Access Opportunity: Leadership Orientation
As part of EOS’ dedication to continuous improvement, three leadership orientation sessions were held to kick-off the Access Opportunity partnership year. These pilot events, strategically located around the US, were enormously successful and provided tremendous feedback that will be used to structure expansion next summer.
Hosted by returning partners Salem-Keizer Public Schools (OR) and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC) and new partner Franklin Pierce School District (WA), each orientation covered a range of topics, including (1) the value of equity work; (2) how to build an impactful equity team; (3) how to establish base expectations; (4) and how to push back against institutional pushback.
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Student survey
responses will guide new insights and lead to enriched student - adult conversations.
Last Fall, we surveyed
198,734
Underrepresented
students across
93
new partner schools and
184
returning partner schools.
This year we welcome
104
new partner schools and
239
returning partner schools.
How many
underrepresented student voices will we amplify this Fall?
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At the end of the day, “what the participants learned is enhancing their partnership and carrying them forward by at least a month if not more, in comparison to last year.” – Dorothy Miranda, Partnership Director. Because of the tremendous success, we will be coordinating with existing partners to serve, as regional hosts, and share their equity journey and welcome new members to the EOS community for 2019-20.
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"AP has opened new doors for me"
Labiba Al-Juneidi
, a Leyden High School student talks about her AP experience, from not being sure she was able to enroll, to receiving the support she needed. The impact of her taking an AP class has boosted her self-esteem and given her the confidence to take on additional opportunities.
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Recruiting Our Missing Students
Dr. Chris Belcher, former superintendent of Columbia Public Schools.
"My audacious goals were to change the sense of what’s possible and break the cycle of low expectations of teachers, students and parents..." Originally
published in AASA November 2017.
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The School Spotlight Series is a way for our clients to have a regular venue to learn and hear directly from a variety of schools about what has worked well in their unique situations, and how they overcame challenges to get there. Each webinar features a panel of three school leaders from different schools and is attended by EOS school partners from across the country. The webinars are moderated by a staff member from EOS and end with a short Q&A session.
These one-hour webinars concentrate on a particular topic that is in need of a deeper dive. This past year we explored family engagement, changing staff mindsets, and AP/IB summer retreats. Our partners were able to share useful resources, strategies, and stories that related to their schools’ equity work. All webinars are accessible via the
EOS Portal support page
.
The series focus for this school year will be around Belonging and Student Voice. Be on the lookout for further information!
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Equity Leader Labs
The Equity Leader Labs (ELLabs) convene our partner districts' and schools' Equity Team members to develop and adopt the policies, practices and mindsets to sustain equity in support of historically marginalized student success.
The ELLabs are for districts and school champions who are entering their third year or more, of partnering with EOS.
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Equity Case Studies
Equity case studies highlight districts reasons for engaging in the equity work as well as what they have learned.
To have your district profiled, download the
questionnaire
and submit for inclusion to
marketing@EOSchools.org
.
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Upcoming Events
•
Tableau has invited EOS to present at their
national conference
on data visualization, Oct. 22-25th, 2018 in New Orleans, LA.
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EOS in the News
For updated articles on EOS and district partners, visit the
EOS News Page
.
If you have an interesting story you would like to share with EOS community, tweet to @EqualOppSchools or @EquityLeaderLab.
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