Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization

Welcome to Puget Sound ESD! We're so glad you've chosen to join our agency and our journey toward Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization. This page serves to introduce you to some foundational information regarding our End: Success For Each Child & Eliminate the Opportunity Gap by Leading with Racial Equity. Once you're officially a PSESD staff member, you will have access to so many resources and opportunities to learn about how our agency engages this work. One of these great resources is our internal "Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization" page. Below is a statement written by our Superintendent, John Welch, featured on the home page. Additionally, you will find a sampling of our tools and resources referenced and used in the agency. Please note many of these tools and resources become much more useful once you've been oriented to them personally. Please don't hesitate to ask your new team about them!

A Message from John Welch, Superintendent of PSESD

Since 2008, the Puget Sound ESD has made an intentional commitment to become an Antiracist, Multicultural Organization. The journey has not or will not be easy or linear; however, our End — Success for Each Child and Eliminate the Opportunity Gap by Leading with Racial Equity — has been our North Star. Our long-standing employees are going through their own journeys and are at different stages. If you are a new employee, some of this may be new to you but we ask that you start your own journey in being an antiracist leader. Some of our new employees have been on their personal journeys in being antiracist, and we hope that you join us on our organizational journey. We know it takes everyone to be on their journey to be an antiracist leader to actualize our End as an agency.

This site has tools and methods to support individual and organizational journeys in building capacity to lead with racial equity. These tools, such as agency-wide community building and competencies, will help our staff reach higher levels of cultural proficiency and increase engagement in antiracist leadership practices. The purpose of using these tools and resources are to create ways of being that will contribute to us becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization. We are accountable for supporting one another in our work, which also requires trust and relationships. We need to support each other by creating brave spaces to ask questions and be open and honest about learning proactively. We are a learning organization, rather than one that is focused on punishing those who do not make progress. That said, all employees, including all supervisors, are expected to make progress and all supervisors should be taking this into account when giving employee feedback.

All employees are responsible for learning, understanding, setting goals for and progressing toward our End. All supervisors are responsible for supporting those they supervise to collaboratively set goals, provide feedback, discuss how building capacity for leading with racial equity shows up in everyday work, reach higher levels of cultural proficiency, and increase engagement in antiracist practices. Ultimately, all supervisors are accountable to an Executive Leadership Team member, who is responsible for ensuring supervisors as well as their employees in their department(s) progress. Finally, all Executive Leadership Team members are ultimately accountable to me, and I am responsible for ensuring we progress toward becoming an Antiracist, Multicultural Organization and achieve our End, Success for Each Child and Eliminate the Opportunity Gap by Leading with Racial Equity.

Thank you for choosing to be a part of our agency!

John Welch

Tools and Resources

Operating Policy 1010
Our administrative policy codifying our End: Success for each child and eliminate the opportunity gap by leading with racial equity

Journey toward Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization
These are two PowerPoint slides briefly outlining our journey of Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization so far, at a high-level view

Principles and Practices that Form Our Culture
This document outlines a few ways we remain accountable to our End, and behaviors encouraged in our agency

Antiracist Leadership Competencies
This is a brief description of the four competencies PSESD staff strive to grow in and how it can look in your work

Community Practices
Agreements we hold in space with each other

Antiracist Transformational Values
The Antiracist Transformational Values document created by Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training

Antiracist Multicultural Organization Continuum
The Antiracist Multicultural Organization Continuum created by Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training

Racial Equity Tool
The Racial Equity Tool adapted by PSESD, outlining best practices for programs, policies and procedures