On Tuesday afternoon, October 13, 2020, Jeffrey A. Pirozzolo, Superintendent of Schools and Assistant Superintendent for Personnel, Jeffrey Evener (Auburn Enlarged City School District -AECSD) met with and briefed social justice leaders, Dr. Eli Hernandez and Dr. Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson (Auburn/Cayuga branch of the NAACP) Robert Ellison (City of Auburn Human Rights Commission) and Dr. Lucien Lombardo and bill berry (Harriet Tubman Center for Justice and Peace {HTCJP}) as to the district’s current endeavors to tackle and implement diversity and equity issues throughout the school system.
Using Zoom for some participants supplemented by in person physically distanced and masked participants, school officials articulated strategies developed by the AECSD to implement and further its initiatives to embed equity and inclusion throughout all phases of school operations. This strategic, long range effort will encompass curriculum enhancements, personnel recruitment and retention efforts, diversity-driven and systemic institutional changes, and better and more focused community outreach via a planned Equity/Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.
AECSD looks to enhance its efforts to engage the community to be mentors and participants in, and supporters of a written and measurable strategic plan to enhance student learning; to instill a greater appreciation of all racial groups and cultures that will better prepare students for a global society, future employment and a more comprehensive understanding of human dignity values. These core efforts will also recognize the vibrancy of student/teacher backgrounds in the learning process. Furthermore, the district has developed a “scorecard” to assess and evaluate specific objectives to reach its inclusion objectives, the creation of diversity task force that will engage all stakeholders in the education arena including community members, and a greater transparency so the overall community is informed of district initiatives.
The overall Mission of the school district may be furthered reviewed. There are recommended adjustments that can empower the district to fully capture the challenges and more importantly, vibrant opportunities to create a better and more encompassing learning environment driven by an organizational culture that embraces the dignity of all AECSD stakeholders.
Some of these points for further review and discussion centered on a basic point that the district’s mission should fully recognize and support the dignity of all members of the educational community: students, parents, teachers, administrators, and support staff. Other recommendations center on addressing problem identification and problem solving as integral components of maintaining a high-quality curriculum and instruction; recognizing the diversity of life experiences that students and educators bring to the educational process as critical components for institutional and meaningful change. And these recommendations should be grounded in and permeate all phases of primary, and secondary learning that enables all students to develop a sensibility as to what effective citizenship is while recognizing the intrinsic value of life-long learning.
Social justice leaders and school administrators understand that planned change is a long-range objective fueled by open communication and a cooperative spirit. And everyone understands and recognizes that while some objectives may be challenging in terms of implementation, budgetary constraints, and possibly long-standing inbred organizational culture issues, there is a willingness that effective partnerships can continue the over-arching goal to reach the goal of enabling the community to better understand and embrace differences while finding commonality versus difference as an unifying force to better the life of all residents.
The AECSD Power Point slide show featured below may give you a preliminary sense of these efforts and we recognize there may be gaps in understanding the metrics without a detailed explanation. However, as with other HTCJP efforts to present practices and protocols of law enforcement, we hope to coordinate a public (via social media and live stream) event when the school district is ready to rollout the full plan to the community. (There are currently small group meetings to flush out objectives and finalize doable initiatives.) At this point, it is premature to try to present the overall district plan before it is fully ready to be operational. But that will happen.
Remember, planned change is not an immediate situation. It is an evolving process that temporarily rests at the stage of action when it is ready for public presentation. And then the community will be informed and invited to be fully engaged in a variety of AECSD objectives that will help make the education of our children better. And with these planned initiatives. Our children, our future will be better equipped to be global citizens, leaders, and influencers.
