Community Conversations

History

In 2020, Puget Sound Educational Services District invited local leaders to join a Wisdom Council to elevate voices, expertise, and partnership opportunities for our Communities of Color across school districts in South King County (‘the Road Map region’). In Spring and Summer 2021, the council launched an ongoing process of community conversations with Youth, Community Leaders, Parents, and Educators of Color. The first round of conversations focused on learning during a pandemic and returning to school in-person. Forty-four community members representing all 7 Road Map school districts engaged in over 35 hours of conversations with trusted peers. Community members engaged in collaborative meaning-making, developed recommendations, and shaped reporting and communication strategies.

Click Here to View 2021 Report

Our Current Work

In 2022, twelve Youth Wisdom Council (YWC) leaders engaged in a total of 120 conversations with their 6th - 12th grade peers in schools across the Road Map region (school districts of Auburn, Federal Way, Kent, Highline, Renton, Seattle, and Tukwila). YWC leaders also reached out to five local Educators of Color for review and discussion, additional insights, and calls to action. Conversation participants engaged in collaborative meaning-making, developed recommendations, and shaped reporting and communication strategies.

We are excited for you to hear what Youth of Color in our schools have to say. We encourage you to ask follow-up questions of your Youth, Educators, and Communities of Color and engage them in next step decision-making to cultivate thriving cultures and support systems for a workforce that our youth believe can and will radically transform our schools.

Full Video

Written Report

Community Conversations 2022 AT A GLANCE

Community Conversations 2022

Conversatorios Comunitarios 2022 De un vistazo

Conversatorios Comunitarios 2022 (Spanish version)

Community Conversations 2022 Text Only

Snapshots

Our conversations about Educators of Color lifted up unique connections, life-changing experiences, powerful learning environments, and real possibilities for change. Many of our first significant experiences with an Educator of Color were about shared cultural and racial identity and experience.

"They just know what these students are going through on a personal level because they went through the things that these students are going through."

Ashley Lopez Mora, Auburn School District

We see our Educators of Color shining when they feel comfortable and welcome, when they are appreciated for all of their full selves, when they are recognized and celebrated for their unique and brilliant contributions.

"By being comfortable, I would think they would want you to recognize them for who they are, their experiences, like them being a particular race, or if they're an immigrant, etc., their past life experiences."

Hannah Park, Auburn School District

Our conversations illustrate that we see high turnover of Educators of Color due to unwelcoming cultures, lack of leadership and school support, racial harm, microaggressions, and tokenization.

"In my school I see a lot of microaggressions not only from the students to the teacher, it's from the teacher to teacher."

Vislee Roman, Kent School District

We want our schools to set up support systems. This includes listening to the experiences of Educators of Color in our schools, resources for self-care, and creation of dedicated communities for Educators of Color. We also want schools to focus on eliminating racial harm and microaggressions while cultivating system-wide leadership and accountability in support of Educators of Color.

"...one of the most important things is the resources that they need, especially for mental health, especially for even just to talk about it, because they don't have that space or even a network of other EOC that they can relate to..."

Kaley Duong, Edmonds School District

We can lead change by amplifying our voices on these issues, by sharing our voices in different decision-making spaces and by holding our leaders accountable to change. And we can go further, by taking on leadership roles that contribute to policy, decision-making & action, and being on hiring panels.

"...having Students of Color on interview teams would be really huge because we can see who will be impacting us."

Anya Souza Ponce, Seattle Public Schools

Additional Resources & Materials

Calls to Action

In the Community Conversations 2022 report, we share the themes and voices that came from our conversations about cultivating a racially diverse and thriving educator community in South King County. Below are the seven calls to action that emerged. We ask our school and district leaders to listen and act on our behalf.

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We ask you to recognize and uplift the conditions that our Educators of Color already bring to our experiences. These should include:

Increasing opportunities for connecting with our ethnic, cultural, and racial identities.
Creating more spaces and support systems for teacher-student relationships like those that our Educators of Color provide.
More belonging-rich and welcoming school environments.
Centering diversity as an asset for ALL students, including increasing culturally responsive curricula and decreasing white-centered and Eurocentric curricula across ALL subject areas.
Amplifying your commitments to racial equity through increasing conversations about race and racial justice, reducing racial harm, and providing curricular and career representations of people who look like us.

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We need leadership and accountability policies and practices in place, especially for our white colleagues and supervisors, to support Educators of Color so that they:

Don’t have to navigate and address ongoing racial harm alone.
Are placed in higher-level teacher and leadership positions.
Are recognized for the extra work they do through compensation and accommodations.

7 Educators of Color Reflections

As you can see, we are passionate about the benefits of Educators of Color, the supports required to ensure they thrive, and our leadership opportunities to help schools prioritize and create this reality. AND in the spirit of ‘nothing about us, without us,’ we connected with some of our region’s Educators of Color and want to highlight their experiences, insights, and needs that should underpin this work going forward.

Three themes emerged:

Racial Harm & Self Care

Educators of color confirmed and expanded on the harms that we see and feel them endure. All called out that microaggressions happen daily, multiple times a day.

“I laugh to keep from crying and remind myself I am providing incredible value and visibility for all the students who see me in their buildings.”

“Every day—I get ‘I thought you were the janitor, not the principal.’”

In terms of what brings them back to joy, boundaries, strategies for self-care, and working with students of color to change the system keeps them going and brings them joy.

“Working with and learning from young folks on how to interrupt and stop those things. Empowering students to help find the solution.”

“Reflecting, music is my therapy. I separate it out. I believe there’s maintenance, self-care and community care. For Maintenance: I go to therapy, massage, chiropractor. Self-care: saying no and not feeling guilty, not overbooking. Community care: being with like-minded people who genuinely like me and want to spend time with me and don't require me to code switch.”

Diverse Educator Pathways

Diverse Educator Pathways in PSESD are committed to an educator workforce that represents the diverse community we serve. To achieve these goals, we must work together to transform the systems that prepare, identify and retain our Black, Indigenous and Educators of Color.

Click the button below to access
Educators of Color resources.

Educators of Color Leadership Community

Click the button below to learn more
about the Grow Your Own Initiative.

Grow Your Own Initiative

Calls to Action

Educators of Color we spoke to have clear ideas about what can be done to better support them. The responses range from the personal (i.e., White colleagues developing better skill sets to interrupt microaggressions) to systemic (i.e., institutional support for programs like Educators of Color Leadership Communities (ECLC) or affinity groups).

“I wish people were a little more curious. It’s easy to think things are fine if you’re not asking questions. Being teachable and curious goes a long way. Ask questions (not in a typecasting way, but with true curiosity). That would help open lines of conversation, where someone could learn a lot.”

“The courage to take on White Supremacy system in their most egregious and subtle forms.”

“I’m in an admin position, so I feel like I AM the call to action.”

Reimagining our schools

Educators of Color talked about barriers in teacher prep/college, and how we already lose potential teachers at that stage of the career journey; they also talked about the need to change curriculum and pedagogy.

“History for Native indigenous people and Black people taught by and for Indigenous and Black people. Chinese, Japanese, Latinx history too! Education needs to be more diverse from the curriculum to the people teaching it."

"Curriculum is hugely important. if we’re not able to purchase curriculum that has BIPOC representation and themes, at least provide training in Culturally Responsive Education. As a BIPOC classroom teacher, training for how to be culturally responsive is hugely important [for me AND especially for white colleagues]...give us the tools to be successful in centering our students, especially our BIPOC students.”

Data

HOW MANY CLASSROOM TEACHERS OF COLOR HAVE YOU HAD IN YOUR EDUCATION SO FAR?

WHAT DID CONVERSATIONS LOOK LIKE & HOW DID THEY HAPPEN?

120 conversations across all 7 South King County 'Road Map' Districts.

Ethnic/Racial Representation

District Representation

Questions

What would it sound like, look like or feel like for a teacher or educator of Color at your school to shine and be successful?
What would be a right number of ‘successful’ teachers and other educators of color in your school? Why this?
What do you think would change about your school and your experience if you were to have more Teachers and Staff of Color?
What roles might Youth of Color play in helping to keep and bring in more Teachers and Staff of Color into your school?
How many Teachers of Color have you had as classroom teachers in your education so far?
- How do you think your school career would have been different if you had more classroom Teachers of Color?
- Think about a time or a specific experience when a teacher of Color impacted you in ways that you’d never felt before.
Would you be interested in teaching or working at your school? Why or why not?
- What would have to change in order for you to reconsider?
Name a person of color that is a role model or that inspires you that you would love to have as a teacher or staff member in this school. What are the qualities that would make them so appealing?

Community Conversations Archive

Community Conversations: Pandemic Learning & Returning to School in South King County

Community Conversations: Pandemic Learning & Returning to School in South King County

In Community Conversations: Pandemic Learning & Returning to School in South King County, we center Youth of Color voices (23 conversations), and then share perspectives of parents (9 conversations), community leaders (7 conversations) and educators (5 conversations). We are excited for you to hear what we have to say and ask that our perspectives inform school and classroom decisions for the coming year. We also encourage you to ask questions of your own students, families, and communities impacted by the pandemic AND systemic racial inequities and adapt your responsive decisions in partnership. Together we can return to school in ways that value and cultivate the well-being of our Youth, Families, and Educators of Color.

Click on image to read report.

Community Conversations

Contact Us

Adam Kay
Director
Collaborative Improvement Networks
akay@psesd.org

Angelica Alvarez
Manager
Student, Family & Community Engagement
aalvarez@psesd.org

Leila Crist
Program Coordinator
Collaborative Improvement Networks
lcrist@psesd.org