MMSD Today

News and information for staff members and the Madison community

Vol. I No. 1 - November 18, 2005

Update on Race and Equity Initiative

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Diane Crear, Special Assistant to the Superintendent For Parent Community Relations

Over the past few decades MMSD has provided untold amounts of money and person hours toward raising the achievement of all students. During the past three years, we have explored what race means and its impact on student achievement, the relationships between colleagues, students, staff and families.

We began this most recent journey by learning how to talk about race, focusing our thoughts on our personal experiences, with the hope of understanding and overcoming racism while utilizing the four agreements and six conditions presented to us by Glenn Singleton.

Isolating race and focusing on personal, local and immediate have probably been the most difficult conditions, but they must remain in the forefront of the work ahead.

On September 27, we renewed our commitment to academic achievement for every student in every school, to providing a welcoming and respectful atmosphere for all staff, and a welcoming and respectful environment for all families. We began by reflecting on the work that started in 1999, and we concluded by working on the identification of effective strategies that we can use in our worksites. This is the focus for this year's work.

Through research and the voices of our students, we know that the relationship between students and staff play a huge part in the achievement of students, particularly students of color. The voices of our staff and students on staff development day hopefully ignited a desire to continue to have courageous conversations, book study groups and other staff development activities to deepen our understanding about race.

A recent addition to the Parent Community Relations lending library is Fires in the Bathroom – Advice for Teachers from High School Students by Kathleen Cushman and the students of What Kids Can Do, Inc. If you want to hear what other students are saying, this is a must read.

The introduction is by Lisa Delpit and it opens with a job description written by students:

WANTED ONE TEACHER: Must be able to listen, even when mad. Must have a sense of humor; must not make students feel bad about themselves; must be fair and not treat some students better than others; must know how to make schoolwork interesting...

If you want to know the rest of the story, come check it out – Room 100 in Doyle or contact me via Groupwise.

Update on Race and Equity Initiative

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