K-12 Anti-Bias Task Force Recommendations

Principal Recommendations

In May 2024, the Board of Trustees approved the below recommendations of the K-12 Anti-Bias Task Force. Embedded under themes previously identified during a DEIJ audit conducted by Blink Consulting in 2021-2022, the recommendations are a result of months of interrogation, reflection, and discussion about how to best ensure that DEIJ is an indelible thread woven into the fabric of school life.

Consisting of a variety of parents and administrators representing a diversity of identities, members had children across many grade levels and represented a variety of domains of expertise, including: early childhood development, restorative justice, inclusive curriculum development, policy and law, teaching and administration, and more.

Going forward, administrators will facilitate the collaborative work of making progress on these recommendations. As indicated in many of the goals, as a community, we understand this work is ongoing and will require sustainable cycles of feedback, reflection, and improvement.

Recommendation #1

Clarify Sequoyah School’s institutional vision, philosophy, and mission for DEI.

Recommendation #2

Establish clear responsibilities for DEI in program design and position descriptions.

Recommendation #3

Articulate expectations for baseline DEI fluency for community members and support ongoing practice and growth.

Recommendation #4

Build an internal system to track vital data about DEI in design and demonstration.

Clarify Sequoyah School’s institutional vision, philosophy, and mission for DEIJ.

Include the Pillars of Practice (affirmed by the DEI Board Committee and the full Board of Trustees in 2021) in the K-8 and high school handbooks.
Based on data reports (4.1), direct the Administrative Leadership Team to create yearly goals in support of the Pillars of Practice. Communicate these goals at the beginning of each school year to students, families, and staff.
Create a communications plan that will keep community members informed of progress on the goals throughout the year.
Create a working group of staff members to draft a statement on the school’s philosophy toward conflict and conflict resolution. This should consider our progressive educational philosophy as well as policies and practices in our handbooks regarding topics such as student discipline.
Develop a communications plan for prospective families, onboarding process for new families, students, and staff, and education plan for current families, students, and staff, that makes clear our Pillars of Practice, our goals for the year, and our philosophy toward conflict. Ensure each community member understands their role in upholding the Pillars of Practice, their role in working towards the goals, and how to navigate conflict.

Establish clear responsibilities for DEIJ in program design and position descriptions.

Strengthen the bias protocol recently added to student handbooks so it meets the following criteria in response to a reported incident of harm, bias, racism, or other forms of harassment or discrimination.
- Behavioral discipline on bias incidents is decided by staff with multiple perspectives, focused on prioritizing immediate de-escalation during periods of ongoing investigation by meeting the initial needs of those harmed and supporting student safety.
- Accountability for harmful biased conduct is a priority for the school.
- For all offenses, clear communication about the breach to all parties is important, with options for administrative response as described in the handbooks. Lack of communication can have unintended consequences for the health, stability, and well-being of all students, especially those who share an identity with the impacted students.
- Communicate channels for reporting and how to access support when issues of harm arise.
- Create an implementation plan that includes the clear communication of this protocol with students, families, and staff.
Train staff on their role in addressing bias and conflict in the moment. Help them understand when multiple perspectives are needed to address an issue, and clarify what resources are available to them for moments when they are unprepared.
Create an identity-conscious pairing process to place all new faculty in supportive mentoring relationships.
Identify the primary programs, such as Advisory and Health & Wellness, where students develop skills and gain content knowledge related to DEIJ (see 3.1 and 3.2). Identify ways the curriculum can better support this learning. Create a clear leadership and resource structure for alignment of those K-12 programs.
Create opportunities for parents and guardians to meet each other and learn about the school’s ongoing commitment to DEI work and current areas of growth.
Review recruitment, hiring, and onboarding practices, as well as our evaluation procedures, to ensure the ongoing successful co-creation of racially, socio-economically, and gender-diverse faculty and staff.

Articulate expectations for baseline DEIJ fluency for community members and support ongoing practice and growth.

Program coordinators and Program Leads, under the guidance of the Director of Teaching and Learning and other key administrators, will center the Social Justice Standards as a key guide for curricular development and teaching practice at Sequoyah School.
Identify a set of restorative justice learning outcomes (e.g., skills, practices, mindsets, knowledge) that help community members navigate conflict, reflect before reacting, understand impact versus intent, collaborate across differences, navigate power, build coalitions, understand neurological development, and more.
Set school minimum standards for faculty fluency in equitable practice (curriculum development, classroom management, conflict management, etc.)
Provide faculty with the ongoing support they need to examine how their own identities shape their curricular choices, and to examine how historical bias shapes curriculum. Establish an ongoing dialogue with faculty about how to create equitable and inclusive classroom practices.
Create a yearly plan for ongoing professional development to further teachers’ capacity, motivation, and evaluation to teach toward the Social Justice Standards and facilitate restorative justice practices.

Build an internal system to track vital data about DEIJ in design and demonstration.

Create a panel of inclusion metrics to track and report on annually to the Head of School, Board Diversity Committee, and Administrative Leadership Team:
- Create a system to track incidents of harm and their outcomes. Ensure data remains confidential. Use the patterns observed to prioritize topics for training of staff and students.
- Gather bi-annual feedback from parents and students that pertain to the panel of metrics.
Create regular and predictable communication feedback loops that report back annual data to the school community. Remember to protect the anonymity of the data and feedback.