COLUMBUS, Ohio — This summer many central Ohio schools made promises or efforts to change the way they address equity, diversity and inclusion following Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
Dublin City Schools is now searching for a Director of Diversity.
Pickerington City Schools is launching a Citizens Advisory Committee which will review policies, programs, and curriculum to suit all students.
Columbus City Schools hired the district’s first Chief Equity Officer Dr. Dionne Blue who said they are now working to assess the district on a bigger picture.
“The Academic Department had an audit done. The Human Resources Department had an audit done and what those things do is show the gaps and usually, those gaps have to do with equity,” Blue said.
From there the district will look at where inequities are and within the next few months ask focus groups to provide feedback on inequities they’ve experienced and how they feel those should be fixed.
Parents from Kenwood French Immersion School within the Columbus City School district told 10TV this was a good start but wondered if more should be done now to create lasting change.
“I believe that we can also have a multi-pronged approach to identifying and collecting data for figuring out inequities and I think one of those approaches should include working with grassroots movements like ourselves,” said Racial Equity Parent Advocate leader Bertha Obayuwana.
Obayuwana started Racial Equity Parent Advocates or REPA in 2019 with the help of few other parents after noticing inequities in her children’s school.
Now she’s one of seven parents who lead the organization with 20 to 30 other parents attending virtual meetings on a regular basis.
She and fellow leader Martha Ruggles both said they were happy to see more be done by CCS to address inequities but feel communication from the district could be stronger with parents who are willing to work with school leaders to make those goals a reality.
“Hopefully we can partner and be a supportive partner with her [Dr. Blue] on that…we’re ready and we feel like we have a model that has been successful at this school in that we have grown community and language together,” Ruggles said.
The group has held monthly meetings to discuss racial language, history, and conduct bystander training. In September, the group had a hand in placing “classroom connectors” in the classrooms to help students and teachers.
“It would be a caregiver who would be supportive of teachers, so they would have a positive relationship with the teachers as support, but then also have eyes out for who’s not coming to classes,” Ruggles said.
The group also wants to have curriculum changes to create a basis for racial literacy and history in K-12 classrooms and create an environment that encourages those conversations.
Their group is one of many in central Ohio working to make changes in the classrooms.
In Westerville, the Westerville Student Education Foundation was formed. It’s an extension of the Westerville Education Foundation and gives students access to funds and resources needed to organize programs for their peers about a variety of topics including equity, diversity and inclusion.
The district is also working to improve how they handle these issues.
“We have a professional developmental series. It’s a part five series that all of our staff is participating in. It’s intended to help us all be thoughtful and understanding of our own implicit biases and what is institutional racism,” said Superintendent Dr. John Kellogg.
Kellogg said those in the Westerville community have helped to push the conversation about diversity and inclusion within their school district. The district has worked for almost 10 years to make policy changes that will help all students.
“The challenge of equity didn’t arise in the time of COVID, it was magnified by COVID. It was a problem for school districts before, but it just got blown up,” Kellogg said.
10TV reached out to several schools about how they’re addressing diversity and inclusion and what measure they’re taking to change policies.
Upper Arlington school leaders said they recently created an Equity Advisory Board and hired an executive director to lead those conversations.
Newark City Schools spokespeople said they always attempt to be inclusive and address diverse topics using a Social-Emotional and Academic Success team.
Teays Valley leaders said they have not hired an equity officer and could not comment at this time.