Daily Archives: February 22, 2021

By Asher Lehrer-Small| The 74

This story first appeared on The 74, atwww.the74million.org, a website that covers public education across the United States.

Under Gov Gina Raimondos leadership, Rhode Island won appreciation for its schoolsswift transition to distance learningwhen COVID-19 first hit, then again made national headlines for itsaggressive pushfor students to return to classrooms in the latter months of 2020, also largely spearheaded by the governor.

As Raimondo now hands off a number of key education issues including charter school expansions, plans to address learning loss during the ongoing pandemic, and a state takeover of the Providence district the man picking up the baton is no stranger to public schools.

In his political start as Cumberland mayor, Dan McKee innovated anew model of public charter schoolthat requires academies to draw students from neighboring districts for diverse-by-design classrooms and seat at least one of those towns mayors as a board member.

Stepping into the governorship at a time when worries for students are widespread, McKee talked about his bold ideas for addressing COVID slide, teacher vaccines and the future of the Providence takeover.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Everythings changing so quickly in Rhode Island. Whats top of mind on education for you?

McKee: Top of mind right now is, obviously, the COVID issue. And the vaccination. We want to prioritize teachers in that mix, to come shortly after our most vulnerable. So thats a key issue right now, getting kids back in the classroom. Thats front and center right now.

Long term, its an extension of the work that Ive been involved in since I was a mayor. We have 39 cities and towns in Rhode Island and we want to make sure that all our leaders, municipal leaders, are engaged with supporting the learning of our students.

When I was a mayor, I got a statute passed that opened up a municipal education department. It [focused] on early childhood education, but also went all the way through senior year of high school. Thats been a very valuable resource. Were running programs for young kids all the way up to high school, whether its reading or math, art, music, science, different types of civics, entrepreneurial strategies. Thats done year-round to help supplement [in-school learning].

Im going to be in a position where were going to encourage all 39 cities and towns to do what I did especially in the backdrop of COVID and the loss of learning time. … Ive said this over and over again, but it doesnt matter if its high, low income or moderate income, it doesnt matter if youre a minority or not a minority, if youre going to a public school, private school, whether youre a boy or girl, the lost learning time right now should be a really high priority for us to tackle.

And so this is an absolute way that we can be intentional about getting on top of the hours that have been lost. By creating municipal education departments all around the state the way that I did in Cumberland, thats operated now for 15 years. Our school districts are going to have everything they can handle just to run a normal day when they get back. So the catch-up is going to be virtually impossible for them to do inside of the time frame that they have with the young kids.

Q: A lot of people are talking about this issue of the COVID slide and how to catch students up. Can you say a little more about what these municipal education departments would look like?

McKee: We have one [in Cumberland] and its been operating for 15 years. You bring in educators, retired, under-employed teachers, current teachers, and we run a reading program. Its kind of like when you were 10 years old, taking a piano lesson. We structure curricula, and we have these programs that families sign their kids up for, and they come in a couple times a week for a reading lesson, or a math lesson, or a music lesson. We have thousands of kids that visit through that program every year.

So now, customizing that model to communities around the state in terms of how to address their individual needs in different communities. For instance, if you have a language issue, thats a deterrent [to learning], well, you can put in a language conversion strategy, and really promote that.

And then if you align it with the school districts, which Im going to have that opportunity now as governor to make sure that we get buy-in all over the state, including from the Rhode Island Department of Education, now you can actually even do better, right? Because now you might be able to physically use school space for this program, outside of the school day. Or you can do what we did. We converted a 6,000-square-foot space on the backside of our library that now functions every day for academic programs for kids.

Its very cost effective, too. Because of the way its structured, youre able to leverage the investment that was made on an annual basis. And then we do have some level of program fees for families who can afford it, non-program fees for families who cant afford it. So its sustaining from a program strategy perspective.

These municipal education departments can actually help pick up that lost learning time in an intentional way. I mean, its not going to cover all of it, but its going to really give us a jump-start.

Q: Would you consider tying stimulus money to the creation of these departments?

McKee: I am. Im considering it. I think that Ive seen a path to create the early type of funding to help establish these in communities as they roll it into their budget. But yes, the answer is yes.

Q: So just to clarify, cities would be only eligible for education-related stimulus funds if they make steps toward creating a municipal education department?

McKee: Well, wed only take a small piece of the dollars that could be allocated to the communities for district schools. Wed only take a small piece of that. We would still distribute dollars that would be available on some equitable allocation strategy. And then we reserve some of the funds to kick off [municipal education centers] in as many communities that would want them.

Q: You were known as something of a mayors lieutenant governor. Im wondering what mayors think of that idea of the municipal education department in their own locales?

McKee: We had a handful of mayors already before COVID hit starting to think about passing their own statute and opening up these offices. Well start with the communities that are interested. When we put some resources on the table, which I think we can with the federal dollars that are coming in through these stimulus programs, I think that more people will be actively thinking about it.

Its a territory that mayors dont always dip their toe into. But when you start talking about this lost learning time, and the understanding that our school districts are going to have all they can handle to just do what they need to do right now, I think its more likely that well have the partnership between mayors offices and school departments.

Q: Transitioning to the mayoral charter schools that you helped found, could you tell me about the inspiration behind them?

McKee: It actually was the kids that I coach in basketball, back in my Boys & Girls Club days. We played at a very high level and the boys, we won a couple state tournaments, went to four national tournaments.

We had a number of young people, primarily kids of color, coming from poor situations that, when it came time to attend a local community college, they werent ready to take any classes. And that was an eye opener. I thought that everybody was getting a fair shake in their education. That was my wake-up call.

So when I was at the [Harvard] Kennedy School, I started to think about mayors involvement in education. In my hometown, we were having some trouble with our schools, some failure. And so we asked ourselves, if we started a public school from scratch, what would it look like and how would it operate?

Now, weve graduated our third high school class at that particular school [that the idea led to], Blackstone Valley Prep, which is kind of a map of what you would normally see in our area, those four communities, in terms of number of kids of color, kids not of color, and, you know, kids that are coming from families with a certain level of income.

And weve been able to increase that footprint with another mayoral academy in northern Rhode Island, another mayoral academy in the city of Providence.

But we have enough [charter schools] right now in the mix, to tell you the truth, with the new [charters] that will be approved to let that roll out for a couple of years.

Our focus is going to be into the district schools to help kids in that space excel.

Q: What would that look like?

McKee: I think its going to look like partnering with the current structure without being demanding, right? Youre going to have to create partnerships, and youre going to have to listen to the people who are running those schools, including the labor groups, and youre going to sit down and say, How are things going and how do we make things better? You cant just drive in and demand change. Our approach is going to be, OK lets, lets hear what you think can happen. Providence included. Providence is a takeover model right now, and this COVID has only compounded those problems.

Q: Right, I was going to ask whats to come for Providence in the takeover?

McKee: Yeah, too early to tell. The way youre going to create positive change is not by saying, Were going to do it my way. The people who are actually in the classrooms, they dont take kindly to that. So, I think you need to have some level of patience. But, you know, its a courageous patience, right? Its making sure that youre plugging ahead on behalf of the kids, but also understanding that youre working with a system that has been around for a long time.

Q: First, I know that you were part of the team that revamped the states education funding formula, and I was wondering what Rhode Islanders should expect to see in terms of school funding during your governorship?

McKee: Yeah, thats the thousand-dollar question against budget constraints right now. It will depend a lot on what the federal stimulus does. Our anticipation with the new president is that theres going to be support for states and municipalities.

[In terms of accounting for high-cost students in the funding formula] up to a certain threshold, the local community should take it and after that the state should cover it, again, with the understanding that youre going to get some results from it. So attaching funding with kind of a results-oriented strategy makes sense.

Q: Now shifting gears to the Rhode Island Promise Program, which GovernorRaimondo started. I was wondering, because theres a sunset provision on that law, whether you plan to push for it to become permanent?

McKee: Yeah, I think that thats good. On the community college level that first two years, I think were going to support that. And again, I think that President Bidens going to actually make that more real than less real, too. Im hearing that the Pell Grants are going to get increased. So I think in that area, I think things look pretty bright for students in Rhode Island.

Q: To close, what do you see as GovernorRaimondos legacy when it comes to education? And where do you see yourself specifically departing from her policy stance?

McKee: Ill let the reporters decide how we differ.

Q: And in terms of the governors legacy?

McKee: I think she made a very good effort to do some good things on education in the state, but I think that we need to do better.

Continued here:

McKee aims to help students catch up on learning lost to COVID pandemic - The Providence Journal

Each time Marilyn McCottrell, the principal at Fuller Elementary on Chicagos South Side, looks up from her desk, she sees a whiteboard rippling with clusters of color-coded Post-It notes with student names.

As the pandemic has brought new urgency to helping students catch up, she and her educators track whether they meet grade-level standards through a digital tool. She also uses the Post-It notes to pay closer attention to two groups: special education students and Black boys.

A national debate is raging over the extent of the pandemics academic fallout, and a string of studies have offered widely diverging estimates.

Even amid broad consensus that the coronavirus has deeply disrupted learning, especially for vulnerable students, the term learning loss has become politically charged in heated standoffs over reopening schools.

Some Chicago schools have already started looking for ways to address the pandemics disruption. Some have expanded one-on-one tutoring for students; others, such as Fuller, are leaning on an intentional strategy for small group instruction and on pushing students to forge ahead rather than remain stuck on material they did not master in previous grades.

Chicago leaders have said they are working on a districtwide plan to address learning loss, an undertaking that could claim a significant portion of the roughly $720 million the district received from the second federal stimulus package.

There are no details yet, but district officials have said that the most pressing learning loss remedy is to reopen school buildings, even as some critics argue that focus leaves out students who are sticking with virtual instruction.

At Fuller, McCottrell said its not productive to argue over semantics or expend too much energy quantifying what learning might have been lost.

We know learning loss is there, she said. But if you concentrate on what you dont have, you lose the opportunity to move kids ahead. I dont want this to be another excuse why kids cant achieve their dreams.

It is not clear how Illinois districts will assess the extent of any learning loss. The pandemic has upended the states typical testing schedule, and recently more than half of Illinois school superintendents signed an open letter urging the federal government to waive assessments this year.

Pitched debate over loss

Morgan Conneely, a language arts teacher at Fuller, recently pulled a handful of seventh-graders into a virtual breakout room to read about New Hampshire during the Revolutionary War.

Fuller, where the student body is overwhelmingly Black and low-income, has long prided itself on a small group culture. In previous years, Conneely might have offered the group of struggling readers a simpler text. Now, she encouraged them to read material chock full of complex vocabulary and sentence structure the same reading she uses with her more advanced students.

With a grant from the Chicago Public Education Fund, Fuller set out in the fall to reimagine how teachers work with students in small groups, with the long-standing goal of bringing children up to grade level. Teachers get extra time to plan in teams, designing small group instruction, assignments and assessments that all get at grade-level standards in unison.

McCottrell said there has been a key shift. Small group interventions once focused on remediation, covering academic ground students missed in previous grades. Meanwhile, peers who were already at grade level pulled further ahead, widening disparities.

Now, the focus is to narrow the academic gulf with their peers as quickly as possible by offering them extra support.

Nationally, educators and their unions have pushed back against the idea of a pandemic-caused learning loss, wary of its use to argue in favor of reopening school buildings.

In January, as it faced off against the district in tense school reopening negotiations, the Chicago Teachers Union tweeted that learning loss is a rather shallow, naive and ridiculous concept. It suggested that to argue students have lost academic ground is an affront to educators who have worked hard to make the most of remote learning.

Earlier studies that attempted to quantify the extent of academic setbacks appear to have significantly overestimated them. Still, with more research emerging, there is also growing evidence that many students are behind where they would normally be, and these effects are much more pronounced for low-income and other students who already faced disparities before the pandemic.

Constance Lindsay, an education professor at the University of North Carolina, said she sympathizes with concerns that learning loss is weaponized to push for reopening. She said she is reminded of how the concept of achievement gaps was used to promote some policies that ultimately harmed students of color. The pandemic is a cohort-level, global shock, that affects students across the board, Lindsay said.

Still, she said, districts are eying some promising strategies to address disruption such as beefing up summer school offerings or launching large-scale tutoring efforts.

Getting kids on grade level is the priority, she said. That means some kids will need extra resources to get up to speed.

Opportunities to innovate

Conneely, the seventh-grade teacher at Fuller, said she pulls out students at similar reading levels in groups of three or four several times a week. She often works with them on the same or similar texts, asking more challenging questions of her more advanced learners.

With the Revolutionary War text, for instance, she asked her less-advanced readers about the setting and what they learned about the war. With more advanced students, she dove into word choice and sentence structure.

She said students who struggle with reading balk at getting assigned texts clearly intended for much younger children. They have responded well to the more challenging material, she said.

Marley Olivera, an eighth-grade language arts teacher, said she meets more frequently in small groups with students who are below grade level, while the rest of the class works on more independent activities with a teaching assistant. She offers more accessible texts, but sticks with teaching grade-level reading comprehension skills.

If I keep students at a fourth-grade level, we wont have time to close that gap, she said. Students feel defeated. Now they say, This is a little bit challenging, but I can work through it.

Educators at Fuller say parents, teachers and staff have rallied to support remote learning. For many students, that collaborative effort has minimized the pandemics disruption. But Olivera worries that hasnt always been the case for students who were struggling before school buildings closed.

For students who were already behind grade level, the effects will be around for years, she said.

Steven Guy, a member of the schools local council whose grandson is a seventh-grader there, said parents like him know instinctively that students have lost some ground.

A critic of the amount of screen time the district has required, he said he often wakes up his grandson in front of his computer or nudges him back when he takes a break from the gauntlet of virtual classes. The boys grades have lapsed, and the social and emotional fallout from protracted isolation compound the academic setbacks.

His focus isnt on learning because its too easy to get distracted, Guy said.

Other schools are taking different approaches. Curie High School, on the citys Southwest Side, has expanded its tutoring program. The school recently hired additional tutors fluent in Spanish or Cantonese to work with bilingual students, who have faced steeper hurdles.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Chicago schools chief Janice Jackson also stressed the importance of moving away from remediation in addressing learning loss. The focus instead should be on providing students who are below grade level additional resources to accelerate learning, she said.

Jackson said the district is in the early stages of planning, but the effort could involve a longer school day or more after-school programming.

A lot of that is going to be predicated on the additional funding that we received from the federal government because all of our ideas and plans cost a lot of money, Jackson said.

Chicago philanthropists also appear eager to pitch in. Last year, the Chicago Public Education Fund heard from benefactors interested in an effort to provide direct support to schools in communities hardest hit by the coronavirus. Two hundred schools, including Fuller and Curie, received grants last fall.

The projects these campuses pitched ran the gamut from efforts to better engage students and families, such as home visits, to plans to buy more instructional supplies or adaptive software for students with disabilities.

Chaula Gupta, the Funds vice president, said she was struck by how many applications reflected a sense that this moment of disruption offers opportunities to innovate and speed up learning for students.

The underlying theme for almost every application was learning acceleration, she said.

Last week, the nonprofit A Better Chicago also announced the launch of a program called Chicago Design Challenge with backing from some of Chicagos philanthropic heavy-hitters, an initiative to help fund promising innovations to accelerate learning recovery and promote well-being.

At Fuller, McCottrell said the school is seeing promising results from its small-group push, particularly in reading. Chicago elementary schools are gearing up to reopen for students in March, but educators say they expect the small-group instruction will remain virtual.

McCottrell looks forward to kicking the effort into higher gear down the road.

When kids come back man, we can probably change the world, she said. We can make a big difference.

Cassie Walker Burke contributed to this report.

View original post here:

How one Chicago school is confronting the thorny learning loss question - Chalkbeat Chicago

The Biden administrations recent reversal of U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen is a welcome departure from a foreign-policy agenda that yielded little but sufferingand a reliable market for U.S.-made weapons. But President Joe Bidens move shouldnt be hailed as a panacea for the Yemeni people, who have endured immeasurable suffering over the past six years. Rather, resolving the worlds worst humanitarian crisis will require a larger paradigm shift in foreign policy.

The reason Yemens humanitarian situation is so acute is because its people are starving. Data from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) reveals that 16.2 million of the countrys 30 million people need food aid. According to the U.N., nearly half of all Yemeni children under the age of 5 suffer from stunted growth because of malnutrition, with some 400,000 children now in danger of dying from severe acute malnutritionan increase of 22 percent over 2020.

Hunger has generally been confronted as a humanitarian issue. And rightly so. But it must also be treated as an essential element of military or foreign policy. This means that Bidens new approach to Yemen must not only focus on arms sales and high-level negotiations but also on helping civilians to meet their basic needs. Doing so is not just morally right but strategically smart: Addressing hunger helps people build the resilience they need to resist militancy and migration pressures and recover from conflict.

Conflict and hunger are intimately acquainted. Six out of 10 people struggling with acute food insecuritylivein countries experiencing violent conflict, as do 80 percent or 122 of the worlds 150 million stunted children, who face a lifetime of physical and cognitive challenges. Now, the coronavirus pandemic risks making things even worse. WFP Executive Director David Beasley estimates that 270 million people globally will hover on the brink of starvation after the pandemicmost of them in countries suffering violent turmoilup from the 135 million acutely hungry people pre-pandemic.

Conflict both creates and exacerbates food insecurity. Syria was once the breadbasket of the Levant, but after nearly a decade of civil war, agricultural output has plummeted, and in the most recent country survey, WFP found that the price of some basic food items had increased by as much as 236 percent. In this same survey, WFP estimated that 12.4 million Syrians, or nearly 60 percent of the population, are now food insecure.

Aside from destroying productive capacity and hindering access to food, violence also displaces people from their livelihoods. This is especially damaging when a large portion of the populations livelihood is food production, as in many low- and middle-income countries.

When the quotidian is marred by violence and uncertainty, farmers plant smaller areas and lower-value subsistence crops. They also keep small livestock rather than more valuable cattle. And ultimately, they may seek safety and food security elsewhere: The WFP estimates that each 1 percent increase in food insecurity is accompanied by a nearly 2 percent increase in migration. Put together, when faced with an existential crisis, a previously productive food system can quickly become unable to support the broader populationbegetting another crisis altogether.

It is easy to understand how conflict creates food insecurity. But it is also possible to reverse the equation and use food security as a weapon against conflict.

Large, targeted efforts to improve the food security of vulnerable populations would almost certainly provide a major point of resistance against conflicts entrenchment and spread. One reason extremist groups across northwestern Africa have gained so much traction is that they offer suffering communities a source of food and security.

Controlling the cost of food would not just get to the roots of conflictit would create a preventive mechanism against it. There is an emerging consensus that rising food prices increase the risk of unrest: When global food prices soared between 2007 and 2008, a spike in riots and civil conflict followed. Thats because the specter of hunger drew in much broader swaths of the populationincluding students and low- and middle-income earners.

Historical data suggests that those unable to afford food before prices rise find little reason to take to the streets when they do. Importantly, food riots dont cluster in places where chronic food insecurity is the most profound but in urban areas where market-dependent working-class communities feel a sudden change in their purchasing power. As a result, countries experiencing acute food price inflation must prioritize not only relief for the chronically hungry but price-stabilizing efforts for populations traditionally seen as less vulnerable. Doing so can mitigateor even preventriots and violent conflict.

Given all that we know about food insecurityand how to prevent itwhy is the humanitarian situation in Yemen so bad?

The success of a humanitarian intervention is dependent on access. And in Yemen, access has been very hard to come by. International humanitarian law and protocol require that state and nonstate actors alike must grant adequate access for local and international humanitarian relief providers. Granted, in order to operate, humanitarians require consent of the concerned parties, whether state or nonstate actors. However, parties may not arbitrarily or unreasonably withhold that consent. Where denying access to food results in starvation, no valid reason can justify refusing consent, and it amounts to nothing less than using starvation as a weapon of war.

Yemen is a stark reminder of what happens when humanitarian access (or the lack thereof) is used as a weapon against civilians unwittingly struggling to survive on the front lines of war. De facto threatening famine as political leverage by withholding consent is both inhumane and unlikely to yield geostrategic ends. This is true applied to both the well-documented access challenges created by the Houthis and the designation by the United States of the Houthis as a terrorist group. In reversing the designation, the Biden administration rightfully recognized this truth. To starving Yemenis, both actions resulted in an unreasonable denial of their access to food.

When I was executive director of the WFP, I stressed that we must put the people we serve at the center of our solutions. I pleaded for all parties involved in intrastate conflicts from Syria to Somalia to Yemen to provide access for humanitarian groups to ensure that women and children did not die.

Exceptions to humanitarian accesswhether through the Saudi-led coalition blockade, the delay or denial of consent by the Houthi government, or the 70 or so armed checkpoints limiting food transport by roadare never acceptable. And our recognition of that fact must go beyond official statements at the United Nations: We must actively provide the politicaland, if necessary, militarysupport that humanitarian operators require to deliver assistance to every conflict area. We can do that if global leaders commit to prosecuting the use of hunger as an illegal weapon of war and crime against humanity.

In May 2018, the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed a resolution condemning starvation as a tool of war. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), meanwhile, defines extermination to include the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.

In short, decisions and actions that knowingly cause or abet starvation constitute a crime against humanity. We should encourage the ICCs efforts to prosecute it. This includes discouraging amnesty for war crimes and redefining war crimes to include actions perpetrated under the banner of fighting terrorism. An effective ICC backed by the strong support of the international community, including the United States, is needed now more than ever to send the message that impunity for mass atrocities will not be tolerated.

We also need to increase the global salience of long-running conflicts. Donor governments tend to fund hunger emergencies the same way they fund quick-onset emergencies like natural disasters. After an initial rush of interest, attention on the crisis quickly subsides as the affected community ostensibly returns to normal. But there is no such thing as normal food insecurity.

For this reason, longer-running conflicts, which ebb and flow between violence and fragile peace, risk becoming orphaned. Somalia has been orphaned for 20 years, Syria for 10. After only six years, Yemen joins a growing list of orphaned conflicts. In cases like these, civilians grind along miserably and experience ever shortened food rations. Now, the operational limitations of quarantines and coronavirus infections have orphaned scores more.

Avoiding orphaned conflicts requires a long-term commitment. This means making humanitarian and development aid a more central part of security policy. Donor governments and peace negotiators should not hesitate to insist that humanitarian aid and access accompany any military investment. Security planning in conflict zones should not treat humanitarian access as an afterthought. Tying aid to the peace process isnt new, but a policy commitment to long-term financial follow-through would break new ground.

In 2020, the WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for working to prevent hunger from being used as a weapon of war. Im incredibly proud of my former organization for this recognition. Yet this struggle is a long one. In 1949, John Boyd Orr, the first director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for similar reasons. Boyd Orr had insisted then that hunger and want in the midst of plenty are a fatal flaw and a blot on our civilization [and] one of the fundamental causes of war. More than 70 years later, hunger continues to ravage civilians, including those in Syria, Burkina Faso, and Yemen.

In that same speech, Boyd Orr said something else that remains critical today. To fight hunger, he stressed, we have to build from the bottom upwards. A foreign-policy lesson most have yet to learn. But as Biden reverses U.S. support for the war in Yemen, he has the opportunity to finally move the countrys approach to conflict prevention in that direction.

See the original post:

Fighting Famine Will Help Prevent Further Conflict in Yemen - Foreign Policy

On February 13, 2021, the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields posted a job listing searching for a new director. While their goal was to find potential applicants for hire, what resulted was another glimpse of marginalization within the hiring process. What made this job description so volatile was their search for an individual who would help maintain "the Museum's traditional, core, white audience." I first learned of this news while scrolling through my Twitter feed and seeing a tweet made by long-time Archinector and Archinect Sessions podcast co-host Donna Sink.

Donna provided a screenshot of the listing and followed up with an updated image of the job post with "corrections" made by the museum a few hours after her tweet was posted. Sure, edits were made, but the damage was already done. Seeing a job description like this was disappointing and stomach-turning, to say the least, but does it shock me? Not entirely.

While the level of awareness and intentionality to dismantle white supremacist views and racist acts towards Black, Indigenous, and People of Color has grown, it doesn't erase the reality marginalized communities continue to face. The truth of living and working in spaces where one's own culture and overall existence are diminished, appropriated, and erased is all too common.

I'm a woman of color, and after reading a job description presented in that way I was taken aback. Yet, I was quickly reminded that alleviating centuries of structural and institutionalized racism, especially within spaces like museums, will take a lot more than finding the "right person" to spearhead change and increase diversity. Social media's architecture community continued to expand on Sink's post as they shared their thoughts on the matter.

LA-based designer, educator, and LA Forum Architecture and Design Co-PresidentNina Briggs poignantlyshared in a tweet, "believing that attracting a diverse audience and maintaining a white audience are mutually exclusive, they broadcast both their disbelief it can be done and the palatable unicorn candidate they seek." Transdisciplinary designer, urbanist, and design advocate Justin Garrett Moore added additional context to Newsfield's "core, white art audience." In his tweet, he included a map illustrating the museum's site and its location within an area of Indianapolis with a large Black population.

On February 17, Newfields' president Charles L. Venable announced he is stepping down from his position. While his decision may have also been influenced by the2,000+ calls and direct responses insisting on his removal, the museum released an open letter expressing their apologies and failures.Venable's interview with the New York Timesadded context to his decision and use of the word "white" in the job description.

"The decision to use 'white' in the employment listing had been intentional and explained that it was meant to indicate that the museum would not abandon its existing audience as it moved toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion,"he shared with Sarah Bahr of the Times. Adding, "I deeply regret that the choice of language clearly has not worked out to mirror our overall intention of building our core art audience by welcoming more people in the door. We were trying to be transparent about the fact that anybody who is going to apply for this job really needs to be committed to (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) D.E.I. efforts in all parts of the museum." However, at this point Venable makes me shake my head in dismay. "This is a six-page job description, not a single bullet point, he shared with the Times. We talk a lot about our commitment to diversity in all kinds of ways, from the collections to programming to hiring. I can certainly say that if we were writing this again, with all the feedback weve gotten, we wouldnt write it that way.

His response made me think of architecture and its own employment trends. How does this example of "what not to do" reflect firms who are seeking to hire their "ideal applicant"? Besides finding highly skilled architects and designers, do employers secretly try to hit their D.E.I. checkboxes or do they present a level of transparency to potential applicants?

I gather, like most social blunders that have faced public ridicule, Newfields will continue to make amends. Yet, in the end, their efforts are examples of a community whose obtuse awareness towards providing jobs and spaces that reflect more than a colonizer's view of the world is merely a reflection of how deep racism lies within institutions tasked with recording and preserving history and culture.

To read the full letterNewfields Board of Trustees and Board of Governors shared on February 17, 2021click here.

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More Than 'Insensitive': The architecture community responds to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields' job post - Archinect

In mid-January, Oklahoma City announced the hiring of its first diversity and inclusion officer, Shalynne Jackson, to lead the execution of the citys strategy for diversity, equity and inclusion, including providing training, implementing best practices, and providing coaching, guidance and education.

Few official details have been released about the new office, which OKC Mayor David Holt has said he asked City Manager Craig Freeman to create when Freeman was first hired.Freeman toldNews 5 that Jackson will be helping to examine the city government and promote equity internally.

We need to make sure that were looking into our organization, and being honest with ourselves about areas where we may have disadvantages for employees or have an environment where people dont have the same level of opportunity to advance or to seek promotional opportunities, Freeman said.

Jackson, who is from Oklahoma but spent the past couple of years in Arkansas, studied criminology and human relations as an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma and went on to earn a masters degree in human relations from OU as well.

She previously worked as an inclusion strategist for Walmart and the natural gas company OneOK. She also runs her own consulting firm, working with companies to increase inclusion in the workplace.

NonDoc caught up with Jackson shortly after she started her new job for a conversation about the new office she is running and her vision for diversity and inclusion within OKCs municipal government.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and style.

The concept of diversity can be hard to pin down. What does diversity mean to you?

Diversity refers to the characteristics that make us all different. Its hard for me to talk about diversity without inclusion, because focusing on diversity alone wont help us make the difference were seeking to achieve. Inclusion is action. Its about being intentional with our behaviors to ensure that all people feel valued, recognized and respected.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. Where did you grow up, and how did you get into the kind of work youll be doing as OKCs diversity and inclusion officer?

I grew up in Tulsa and was raised by a single mother and my maternal grandparents. My father was incarcerated most of my life. Im a first generation college graduate (Boomer!), and I was diagnosed with Alopecia at age 6. Additionally, I am a wife, mother and a woman of faith.

I name all of these aspects of my diversity dimensions because theyre important to why I do this work. I know what its like to cover and assimilate. I also know what it feels like to overcome obstacles and achieve what society told you was impossible. I do this work because I want everyone to have equitable opportunity to attain success while remaining true to their diversity dimensions. This work is not only my passion but my purpose.

Youre the first person to hold this role in OKC. What can you tell us about how the office will be set up and what the city hopes the office will accomplish? Who are you reporting to, and what kinds of things will you be doing?

I report to City Manager Craig Freeman. While I will work with all departments, I will work closely with human resources to promote employee development and engagement. Ultimately, our goal is to create an environment that promotes authenticity, access and advancement. Well take leaders on an inclusive leadership journey to equip them with tools to equitably lead their teams and empower employees to bring their best selves to the workplace. As for the community, our goal is to ensure OKC is a safe place of residence for all to live, work and play.

How do you go about starting this office from scratch? What are the first steps and what will your first projects be?

You do lots of listening and relationship building. Its important to me and city leadership that our efforts meet the specific needs of our employees and residents. In the beginning, I will spend my time connecting with employees throughout the organization, at all levels, in all departments and of all backgrounds. From there, I will work with leadership to determine our priorities and what success will look like. The same approach goes for residents. To ensure OKC is the most inclusive city for all people, its important to hear from all communities. While building relationships, I will be working with HR to explore policies and procedures we can update to ensure inclusivity. Well also begin to educate employees about diversity and inclusion fundamentals and create a common language for everyone to understand.

Your work so far has been in the private sector. Do you anticipate any challenges as youmove to working in city government?

I anticipate the same challenges as the private sector individuals may resist because they dont understand diversity and inclusion is for everyone. And thats OK, because were all in different places on our diversity and inclusion journey. Its important to me that we meet people where they are, extending grace and patience.

To overcome this challenge, we will spend time educating individuals on what diversity and inclusion truly means and how we all benefit from inclusion. What Im most encouraged about is that city leadership and everyone Ive met thus far are excited and ready to lean into the work.

Whats your favorite guilty pleasure?

I am a foodie and will try anything at least once, with the exception of peanut butter. I am not a fan of anything that contains peanut butter. I also love true crime podcasts and TV shows, and my favorite hobby is biking.

Read more here:

Meet Shalynne Jackson: 'Diversity and inclusion is for everyone' - NonDoc

RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield High School is working on becoming one of the states first No Place for Hate high schools, joining more than 1,600 schools nationwide.

No Place for Hate is a program under the Anti-Defamation League. It provides schools with an organizing framework for students, administrators, teachers and family members to develop long-term solutions to create and maintain an inclusive and equitable climate, according to the high school.

The student councils executive board signed on to the program in the fall. Since its arrival, many students and high school community members have signed the NPFH pledge.

Assistant Principal Jennifer Phostole, who serves as the programs coordinator in Ridgefield, said the initiative is gaining momentum, largely due to the students.

Theyre the student ambassadors, theyre the ones sharing with their peers and organizing the events, she said. I am supporting them, but Im taking their lead. They really are doing such a great job.

The students determine the activities, selecting ones that were important to them, Phostole said.

The student body executive board is the student group who really spearheaded the pledge signing at the beginning of the year, she said. They made a video, they made stickers, they got students, family and faculty to sign the pledge.

Those who sign the pledge look to understand people who are different than themselves, speak out against prejudice, help foster a prejudice-free school and acknowledge that one person can make a difference.

No Place for Hate schools receive their designation by building inclusive and safe communities. The goal is to foster respect and equity and create a school where all students can thrive. It also looks to empower students, faculty, the administration and family members to take a stand against bias and bullying by incorporating new and existing programs under one powerful message. It sends a clear, unified message that all students have a place where they belong.

Trumbull High School is also working to become a No Place for Hate school and Amity Regional School district has participated in some of the campaigns.

The RHSs Social and Emotional Learning Committee has combined with No Place for Hate into one committee with teacher Eileen Stewart as the chair.

About 60 student ambassadors from all grade levels have created programs and acted as role models. The programs include 2021 Acts of Intentional Respect, a speaker series and the Humans of Ridgefield initiative, which gathers and posts written submissions about the six parts of the pledge.

Senior ambassador Riley Courtney initiated a conversation about the pitfalls of social media, inspired by the movie, The Social Dilemma.

If every member of my generation sits back and does nothing to combat the issues we face, no positive change will occur, he said. We all must choose to act.

Lauren Kim, another student, is working on a podcast about microaggressions and Kaylie Perhamus is working with the Unity Club on the 2021 Intentional Acts of Respect, Phostole said.

The Anti-Defamation League Names Day program will happen in March for 10th graders.

Visit the high schools No Place for Hate website to find out more.

Read more:

Ridgefield joins hundreds of U.S. high schools saying 'no' to hate - The Ridgefield Press