Road Map Improvement Collaborative

The Road Map Improvement Collaborative (RMIC) serves as a space for collaboration, adaptive leadership, learning, & transformation to actualize, in the words of Renton Superintendent Dr. Damien Pattenaude, "a blood oath of regional commitment" to creating just and humanizing schools, together.

Our Journey, Shared Vision & Action Priorities

We analyzed strategic plans and racial equity policies across our seven Road Map districts and developed a shared regional vision organized around six 'buckets' of work:

The launch of the 2020 Road Map Improvement Collaborative (RMIC) occurred during an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. The collision of pivotal events - the 2020 police killings of African Americans, recognizing racism as a public health crisis in King County, and a pandemic that’s magnified long-standing inequities and mandated the redesign of teaching and learning as we know it - offer an opportunity for Road Map districts to further galvanize emotion and action to reimagine systems for students and families furthest from educational justice. In early 2021, we collectively identified three shared priorities as Cultivating a Racially Diverse & Thriving Educator Workforce, Elevating Youth of Color Voice & Leadership, and Seeing & Feeling Progress in Our Racial Equity Work.

Later that year, we launched year-long learning and action collaboratives organized around each of the first two priorities. These collaboratives were designed so that teams could pursue share problems of practice through discussion of regional and national bright spots, thought partnership, technical assistance and coaching from regional and national experts. Superintendents assembled cross-system teams to participate in the collaboratives. In the fall of 2023, we are continuing to offer our action collaboratives around these priorities.

RMIC Convenings 2023-2024

Cultivating a Racially Diverse & Thriving Educator Workforce
Elevating Youth of Color Voice & Leadership

Cultivating a Racially Diverse & Thriving Educator Workforce

This learning and action series builds from the foundational belief that in order to effectively diversify our workforce, we must first create lasting environments and professional pathways for Educators of Color to thrive.

Over the last year, participating teams worked on district priorities around retention and recruitment while learning from regional and national experts. This year we will dive more deeply into last year’s learnings by focusing our topic areas on the “Opportunities of Practice” named by our participating districts last year.

Additionally, our ongoing work as a regional convener for the LEADER initiative continues! LEADER is a multi-year, multi-system project to align our higher education and district systems around diversifying the educator workforce. This statewide initiative will support our regional work with resources, staff, and a leadership team of local experts who represent teachers and administrators of color, higher education partners, tribal, community and student voices, who will inform and support this work. We will keep you updated on our progress and our ongoing work with our higher education partners.

For More Information Click Here

Elevating Youth of Color Voice & Leadership

Last year, teams worked on district initiatives while participating in convenings co-designed with our Youth Wisdom Council. Sessions included panels with student & district leaders and exploration of bright-spot practices, along with team-time to integrate learning and plan forward. Collectively, teams expanded district capacity for Youth of Color leadership that directly supported districts' strategic plans.

Take a look at our end of year review for more information!

This year, we will continue to strengthen our coalition and co-design our sessions with Youth Wisdom Council members and district partners in order to responsively and directly support district initiatives. We will also wrap initiative work with supportive structures of expert learning sessions, coaching, cross-district thought partnership and continuous improvement.

For More Information Click Here

Community Conversations

In 2022, 120 Youth of Color engaged in conversations with other Youth of Color about supporting, retaining, and recruiting Teachers and other Educators of Color. Almost all youth attended middle schools or high schools in South King County school districts. Conversations focused on experiences with Educators of Color, what it looks like to them for Educators of Color to thrive, the importance of having a more diverse educator workforce, and youth's own interests in education and teaching careers. Click on the image to the left to access more information about Community Conversations.

Resources

RMIC Launch 2020

RMIC Overview 2021-2022 | RMIC Overview 2022-2023

Regional Bright Spot: Auburn School District's Youth Equity Stewardship (YES!) Initiative

Elevating Youth of Color Voice & Leadership Report 22-23

Questions? Contact:

Adam Kay
Director
Collaborative Improvement Networks
akay@psesd.org

Brad Brown
Executive Director
Learning, Teaching & Leadership Development
bbbrown@psesd.org