Assingment

Culturally Conscious and Competent Equity Plan

Culture embodies the sentiment of belonging to a specific group of people. Humans define, and are defined by, asking who, what, where, when, and why. They seek what they know and who can comprehensively share that understanding. The above reasons are exactly why embracing diverse identities is essential to creating a culturally responsive team of educators in schools. Columbia Heights Public Schools (CHPS) will be adopting a culturally responsive action plan to create a more equitable system for behavior referrals. Specifically, Valley View Elementary will be the school within CHPS piloting the action plan. By implementing this plan, educators will be provided with the knowledge, training and tools to approach behavior referrals under a multicultural and equitable lens.

Columbia Heights Public School district is a grade Pre K-12 system that consists of five main school buildings, one administrative building, and one family center. CHPS has an overall annual enrollment of approximately 3,200 students. There are three elementary schools with an approximate annual enrollment of 540 students per school, one middle school with an approximate annual enrollment of 750 students per school, and one high school with an approximate annual enrollment of 900 students. In the district there are over forty different recorded home languages. During the 2016-2017 school year, an average of 78.9% of Columbia Heights students qualified for free and reduced lunch. District wide the diversity during the 2016-2017 year was recorded as 35.7% black, 34% Hispanic, 21.2% White, 5.4% Asian (Pacific Islander), and 3.7% American Indian, which are reflective of Valley View’s demographics as well, (“Columbia Heights Public Schools,” n.d.). Valley View is a Title 1 school with an average of 85% of Valley View students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Cultural diversity is a norm among staff and students alike at CHPS.

While Columbia Heights Public Schools has a high degree of diversity, the behavior referrals by teachers do not reflect the demographics. African American students have a significantly higher referral rate than any other demographic in the school. During the 2016-2017 school year, the following behavior referrals were made in respect to student demographics throughout the district as a whole. The following is a breakdown of referrals based on a total 723 referrals; 6 American Indian student referrals, 6 Asian/Pacific Islander student referrals, 76 Hispanic student referrals, 90 White student referrals, 75 multiracial referrals, and 470 African American referrals (Data Reports and Analytics., n.d.). Data shows that 65% of behavior referrals were African American students despite the fact that African American students made up less than 36% of the population. Because of this overwhelmingly skewed behavior referral statistic, it is essential for change to be made in order to ensure an equitable education for all students. Valley View Elementary will pilot an action plan to create awareness and launch change within the foundation of the district.

In order to initiate and apply change within a system, Kurt Lewin created a three step change management model. In this model Lewin proposes three phases called unfreeze, change, and refreeze.

Figure 1. An Adaptation from Lewin, K., Lewin's Change Management Model: Understanding the Three Stages of Change. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_94.htm

During the three phases educators will be presented with the idea of change and given rationale for the need for change, shown a comprehensive plan for the change given time to accept and begin implementation, and given time to adequately implement the plan with fidelity across the organization. This follows the specifics detailed in Lewin’s aforementioned unfreeze, change, refreeze concept (Lewin's Change Management Model: Understanding the Three Stages of Change., n.d.). This process will be utilized to create change leading to an equitable and culturally responsive behavior management and referral plan.

Valley View Elementary currently has a behavior plan in place where teachers can send students down to a Time to Think (TTT) room. This room is for students who cannot remain in class because of various behaviors or lack of self-control. Currently, students are sent to the same room for minor behaviors as well as major behaviors. Minor behaviors can range from defiant actions to lack of self-control and being a distraction. Major behaviors are categorized as physical altercations, offensive actions, damage to property, and/or inappropriate behavior. Students are sent to the TTT room with a written referral from the teacher and a behavioral educational assistant takes over at that point in monitoring the referred student in the TTT room. The principal may or may not be notified of the behavior and the student is sent back to class at the discretion of the educational assistant. There are no formal guidelines for which behaviors merit a TTT referral in turn allowing the teacher to subjectively make the decision. The plan for change will be to create a referral process establishing a dichotomy between behavior and self-control referrals while also working with professional development to receive culturally responsive pedagogical training. The first phase of the change model would be to dissolve the current protocol and create a more effective plan, phase two will consist of designing a referral plan that is equitable for all students, followed by phase three which is implementation and assessment.

The first phase of change, Lewin’s unfreeze stage, will take place during in-service professional development at the beginning of the year in order to roll out the behavior referral plan with fidelity from day one with students. To initiate change, the unfreeze phase will consist of examining the current referral plan and inventory which practices are effective and which need improvement. Educators will be presented with data showing the high rate of African American student referrals supporting the need for change. As a staff, teachers and administrators will be given the opportunity to examine the data of 2016-2017 referrals, both overall as a district and specific to Valley View Elementary. This will also include details specifying the reason for the referral sans teacher and student names. This data will show concrete evidence of a need for change and will prove to resistant educators that the change is an essential movement. The data will show that referrals are subjective, inconsistent, and inequitable which should resonate a sentiment of concurrence towards the need for change. Teachers will examine past referrals and also ask themselves if the behavior is linked to culture or is actually a behavior infraction. This will begin the conversation surrounding the difficult topic of the reasons teachers are sending students to TTT and examining if the behavior truly merits a punitive measure.

The second phase of the change plan is to work with staff the establish a comprehensive change to the foundation of referrals, identify and examine preexisting prejudices in staff, and provide staff with culturally responsive training. In order initiate a shift towards a cognizant change in cultural competence, teachers will be asked to complete the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The IDI is a cultural competency assessment which allows users to become aware of where they are on the intercultural development continuum and how they can shift from where they are towards adaptation which is defined as, “Shifting cultural perspective and changing behavior in culturally appropriate and authentic ways,” (The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), 2018).

Figure 2. Intercultural Development Continuum scale as cited in The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). (2018, February 26). Retrieved June 17, 2018, from https://idiinventory.com/products/the-intercultural-development-inventory-idi/

The assessment provides individual results as well as group results by school. The assessment also provides information and strategies on how to shift towards culturally competent. By recognizing where educators are individually, as well as comprehensively as an entire staff, institutions can begin the essential move in the direction of a more culturally competent ideology. This mindset will help to create a firm set of circumstances for student referrals and develop a clearer understanding of student behavior. It will also help support the need for examining past referrals and sorting them into those which may be seen as disruptions but may just be cultural responses to stimulus. In order to combat these negative referrals, educators will be provided with culturally responsive pedagogy training from an outside source. This will help create a framework for not only incorporating culture and improving instruction by integrating multicultural approaches, but also assisting in educating instructors on what behaviors justify referrals and what behaviors are cultural. Knowing and accepting this, teachers can begin to create a flowchart of behaviors which constitute punitive intervention and which behaviors warrant other interventions such as sensory breaks, quiet reflection rooms, and various non-punitive strategies. This will be consistent among all staff eliminating subjective referrals and establishing which behaviors are truly deserving of the TTT room. Teachers will be held accountable in implementing this flowchart with fidelity as they need to fill out the rationale for sending students to TTT with a description of behavior. These referrals will then be reexamined quarterly with the administrator to ensure the appropriate use of referrals, TTT, and the flowchart.

The final phase, the refreeze stage, will consist of implementing the flowchart with fidelity to the point that it is embedded in classroom management in all classes consistently. At this stage, the staff will have accepted the change in the referral process as well as implementing a multicultural education approach as part of the institution. At the end of the year, staff will examine the number of referrals to see if the flowchart has created more equitable referral data. The plan will be revised annually to continually strive towards an increasingly equitable school for all students. Teachers will also be given the IDI again to show movement towards adapting on culturally competent scale.

By implementing this action plan, educators will understand the need for change by strategically examining previous year’s data, be aware individually and institutionally where they lie on the Intercultural Development Continuum. This awareness will also help set how educators can grow towards culturally competent as well as provide teachers with given strategies to incorporate multicultural strategies in the classroom. All of these developments lead to the overarching goal of becoming a more equitable institution in all areas.