1. Dropout Prevention & Student Engagement Summit February 18, 2011 Welcome!

2. Using the Equity Toolkit in Building & Maintaining a Positive School Climate
Bill De La CruzDe La Cruz Consulting Inc.
Rachel Heide
Greeley-Evans District 6

3. Introduction Personal background Interest in the study
Goal of the study
Perhaps a heightened level of awareness will lead to a more culturally proficient teacher and stronger relationships between the teacher, their students, and the school community.
The key here is not the kind of instruction but the attitude underlying it. When teachers do not understand the potential of the students they teach, they will underteach them no matter what the methodology. --Lisa Delpit (1995, p. 175)
Being Assistant Principal in Greeley has opened my eyes to inequitable situations between minority and non-minority student groups
Discipline, academics, sports, extracurricular activities, family involvement, etc.
I desire to understand these gaps and how we might bridge these gaps so we can ensure access and equity in our educational system

4. Research Background and Rationale
Educators cannot escape the growth of diversity within the student population and the accompanying inequities that are present in our schools and communities
2000 U.S. Census revealed an increasing number of minority groups in the U.S
Many teachers and administrators in schools have a limited awareness of how their class, gender, race, and bias impact their work
These limited, or uneducated, views may also contribute to the achievement gap that exists between students belonging to the minority and non-minority groups
The minority student population is growing while the minority teaching population is shrinking

5. Demographic Chart
ources-Links/Equity%20toolkit%20Final_2010.pdf

6. Reflection
The positive or negative manner in which educators and community members respond to the cultural and racial diversity present within schools has extensive impact on students’ self-esteem and academic success of students from varied cultural backgrounds (Phutsog, 1999).

7. In order to effectively teach a diverse population of students, teachers need to examine their own classroom practices and reflect on the contradictions that may be influencing student’s abilities to learn (Delpit, 2006, Beegle, 2003).
At your tables discuss what you see to be the current reality of your system in regard to teaching students from diverse populations.
Share out discussion points

8. Need for the study
Closing the achievement gap could be viewed as the Civil Rights Movement of our time
A key element to bridging the achievement gap is to remain student-centered by connecting learning to students’ lives through the students’ culture, strengths, goals, dreams, and interests as a starting point for learning rather than focusing on the students’ deficits (Williams, 2003).
Access and equity in education for all students

9. Participants
Multi-site design comparing four public middle schools in Greeley
John Evans MS, Heath MS, Franklin MS, and Brentwood MS
104 participants took the self-assessment from the CDE Equity Toolkit for Administrators
Focus groups- A minimum of five teacher participants and a maximum of eight were gathered for three of the four sites

10. District Information
Approximately 19,851 students served in grades K-12 in Greeley-Evans District 6
Approximately 2,900 students in Middle School grades 6-8
Demographic Data
Approximately 57.93% Hispanic
Approximately 37.53% White
Approximately 1.42% Asian
Approximately 1.32% African-American
Approximately 0.36% Native American
Approximately 0.27% Pacific Islander
Approximately 1.17% Two or more demographic identifications
Socio-Economics
Approximately 53% eligible for free/reduced price meals

11. Individual School Information
J Evans I.B. Middle School
674 total students
73.3% Hispanic
26.7% Non-Hispanic
Heath Middle School
781 total students
63.4% Hispanic
36.6% Non-Hispanic
Brentwood Middle School
655 total students
68.9% Hispanic
31.1% Non-Hispanic
Franklin Middle School
751 total students
77.7% Hispanic
22.3% Non-Hispanic

12. Data Collection and Analysis
Quantitative data
Survey data
Discipline data
Qualitative data
Focus group
Reflective journal
Over/Under Representation Analysis
Pearson’s Correlation and Spearman’s Rho
Coding using a Priori themes
Inductive Coding
Over/Under looks at the proportion of students in the dichotomous groups receiving discipline referrals
Pearson’s and Spearman’s used to see if a relationship exists between survey score and dichotomous student discipline data– Comparing average score of each school with overall percent of Hispanic students receiving discipline referral
Focus group- Month 1 Bias; Month 2 Discrimination and Harrassment; Month 3 Community and Family Engagement
Reflective journal- prompts from toolkit

13. Survey Scoring Possible answer choices:
Most of the time= 3
Some of the time= 2
Never= 1
Individual answers added together for one final score
Cultural Proficiency- 75 and above
Cultural Competence
Cultural Precompetence
Cultural Blindness
Cultural Incapacity
Cultural Destructiveness- 34 and below

14. Cultural Proficiency Continuum
Culturally destructiveness: negating, disparaging, or purging cultures that are different from your own.
Cultural incapacity: elevating the superiority of your own cultural values and beliefs and suppressing cultures that are different from your own.
Cultural blindness: acting as if differences among cultures do not exist and refusing to recognize any differences.
Cultural precompetence: recognizing that lack of knowledge, experience, and understanding of other cultures limits your ability to effectively interact with them.
Cultural competence: interacting with other cultural groups in ways that recognize and value their differences that motivate you to assess your own skills and expand your knowledge and resources and that, ultimately, cause you to adapt your relational behavior.
Cultural proficiency: honoring the differences among cultures and viewing diversity as a benefit, and interacting knowledgably and respectfully among a variety of cultural groups. Lindsay (2005, p. 54).
Table discussion- Have tables discuss where they feel they are on the continuum

15. Findings November 19, 2018November 19, 2018
Average Cultural Proficiency Score by School
School Identification M Proficiency Level
MS Cultural Precompetence
MS Cultural Precompetence
MS Cultural Precompetence
MS Cultural Precompetence
November 19, 2018November 19, 2018

16. Findings (cont.)
Over/Under Representation Analysis for Dichotomous Student Groups at Each Site School Identification Hispanic Non-Hispanic MS MS MS MS
Positive number indicates an over representation of that student group while a negative number indicates an under representation
Discussion point: At your tables discuss your thoughts on why student groups are either under or over represented in the discipline data.

17. Findings (cont.) Pearson’s Correlation and Spearman’s Rho
Spearman’s Rho not statistically significant at the level [r(104)= 0.118, p=0.234]
Pearson’s Correlation was also used and was also not statistically significant at the 0.05 level [r(104)=0.106, p=0.286]
It would seem that a relationship does not exist between the average scores on the survey by school and the overall percent of Hispanic students receiving discipline referrals at each school site. A limitation of this research study is not having individual teacher data in regard to the discipline data to be able to look for relationships between individual teacher Cultural Proficiency and the disaggregated discipline referrals they write.

18. Findings (cont.) Journals Reflective
Participants identified past experiences which influence their current perspective and understanding of race and culture
Share prompts
Read John’s entry

19. Findings (cont.) Focus group Bias Discrimination/Harass ment
Community and Family Engagement
Identify current reality
Plan of action
Participants shared experiences and insights into the current reality at each of the school sites and the district overall; examples of the various levels of Cultural Proficiency could be identified throughout the transcripts; a very serious need for Culturally Responsive strategies was apparent throughout the transcripts; deeper understandings of the quantitative findings could be identified through the qualitative findings

20. Findings (cont.)
Recall your table discussions around the Over/Under Representation Analysis
Focus group data gave insight into why the inequalities represented in this data may be occurring
“Deficit Descriptors” for Hispanic students
Courageous conversations page xiii
Words and phrases such as “gangster,” “Mexican kid,” “those Hispanics,” “families who are gangsters,” “those kids,” “hard to build community with those kids,” “Greeley Hispanic,” “rough, tough Hispanic group,” “real bad Hispanic kids,” “tough kids,” and “hard core,” are examples of the negative perception teachers are functioning under regarding Hispanic students which were not present for other student groups within the focus group data.

21. Findings (cont.) November 19, 2018November 19, 2018
I don’t really know how to put [this] in words but I think part of this has really opened my eyes to a lot of different views and issues. Part of it has made me a little bit more uneasy about things too that there is such a problem and we right now don’t have anything really concrete in place to deal with it. But I think this was just very beneficial, opening my eyes to what’s going on here and especially the big change since I’ve been out in the classrooms…it’s enlightening really just eye-opening. And that affects me and how I tell that poor Hispanic student about their ‘C.’ And it might affect how I tell the not so poor Anglo students about their ‘C’ because of how I might forecast their future. And is that okay? As an educator noticing those things has a tendency in me, I just really have to consider those, whether that’s a good thing or not.”
November 19, 2018November 19, 2018

22. Findings (cont.)
I don’t think we really know the culture that students are coming from as a staff. I don’t think we do. We have some snippets but we’re always—I think that as a staff, we are really in the process of just starting to perceive the culture we’re teaching and comparing it to the one that we came from and pointing out the way that they should be so that we can teach them the way that we teach. And I think that’s where there is a disconnect…I think that it’s very easy to want to expect students to change so that they can learn from us and not expect us to change so that we can teach them how they are.

23. Conclusion
Thank you to Dr. Medina and her staff for the incredible work put into the toolkit. Thank you to all of you for giving me the opportunity to share with you my research.