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Policies

Purpose

 

Manassas City Public Schools value its rich, diverse schools and communities and is committed to our mission “in collaboration with families, employees, and community members, will provide a safe and innovative learning environment that inspires, engages, and challenges all students.” To achieve this, Manassas City Public Schools will identify and correct practices and policies that perpetuate both the achievement and opportunity gaps as well as institutional bias. The MCPS Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy and MCPS Anti-Racism policy are designed to dismantle the individual, institutional, and structural racism that exists in the division.

 

In the United States, there has been a long history of legal and de facto discrimination, which has led to institutional, structural and individual bias inconsistent with the mission of the Manassas City Public Schools. For every year that the Manassas City Public Schools has data, White students have clearly outperformed Black, Hispanic, Native American, and other historically underrepresented students on state assessments in every subject, at every grade level. White students consistently graduate at higher percentages than students of color, students with disabilities and students who receive English Language Learner services. Students of color are disciplined more frequently than white students. Students of color are identified for Special Education programs at a higher rate than white students and are identified at lower rates for highly capable and gifted programming. These disparities are unacceptable and contradict the Manassas City Public Schools’ belief that all students can achieve.

 

We have a diverse, urban school system and take pride in our economic, ethnic, and racial diversity. Many of our students are economically disadvantaged; eligible for free or reduced lunches, and English is not their native language. Manassas City Public Schools honor and value the many customs and traditions present in our community, and we are proud to partner with all stakeholders to support mutually beneficial goals.

 

Manassas City Public Schools are committed to the success of every student, family and staff in each of its schools. Learning and work environments are enriched and improved by the contributions, perspectives and presence of its diverse student body, community, and staff. Every student, family and staff member deserve a respectful, welcoming and inclusive learning environment in which their diversity is valued and contributes to their success.

 

Manassas City Public Schools shall provide all students, families, and staff with the opportunity to succeed and implement practices fostering the growth of all students, so they can achieve academically, regardless of their dimensions of diversity. It is the right of all students to receive a high quality, equitable education and have a safe social experience in school.

 

A diverse, inclusive, and culturally responsive workforce is built by eliminating barriers to growth and opportunity and allowing each employee to contribute to their full measure. In doing so, the District’s goal is to cultivate talent and build its capacity to deliver innovative, effective and culturally relevant services to its students and families.

With the implementation of this policy, all the members of the Manassas City Public Schools shall:

  • Empower our structural systems that eliminate barriers and improve access for students.
  • Raise the achievement of all students while attempting to eliminate gaps between the highest and lowest performing students.
  • Increase students of color in inclusive educational settings.
  • Decrease the disproportionality in school discipline, specifically Out-of- School suspensions and expulsions.
  • Increase the representation of students of color, students who receive inclusive education, and students who receive English Language Learner (ELL) services in programs such as gifted, Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment.
  • Increase the support of the LGBTQ+ community through the use of preferred pronouns and awareness of the challenges they may have to overcome

Agreements

 

To accomplish its mission of successfully preparing all students for their futures and its vision to produce graduates who are globally competitive learners, the Division will:

  • Recruit, hire, develop, and retain racially, linguistically and culturally responsive personnel who will more accurately reflect the student population we serve.
  • Provide annual and ongoing anti-bias multicultural professional development to strengthen employees' knowledge and skills to eliminate disparities in achievement, course and program placement, and discipline.
  • Promote the use of diverse vendors and suppliers in accordance with law and district policies.
  • Create an inclusive environment where all students, families, staff, and community members know they are safe, respected and valued for their diverse life experiences, language, culture, values and beliefs.
  • Develop and maintain culturally responsive curriculum and courses for students and staff that are both flexible and incorporate the contributions of diverse cultural groups.
  • Provide every student universal access to high-quality culturally responsive curriculum by targeting the needs of each individual student to ensure learning outcomes are within the reach of all learners.
  • Welcome and empower families of all races, economic status, ethnicities, religions, cultures and/or languages as essential partners in their student's education, school planning, and the Division's decision-making.
  • Create welcoming school and facility environments that reflect and support the diversity of the student population and community.
  • Identify and implement support needed to address cultural, economic and/or racial disparities to provide all students a successful education experience. Commit to whole student development by including social emotional development for all students equitably. Encourage, support and expect high achievement leading to multiple opportunities and options for College and Career readiness.
  • Track and report disaggregated data sets in determining student representation and success.
  • The Division shall review existing policies, programs, professional development and procedures to ensure the promotion of racial equity, and that all new policies, programs and procedures will be developed using a racial equity analysis tool.

Definitions

 

Achievement Gap: Any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students. (www.greatschoolspartnership.org)

 

Anti-Racism: The practice of identifying, challenging, and changing the values, structures, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism. (Government Alliance on Race and Equity)

 

Cultural Competency: Cultural competence is having an awareness of one’s own cultural identity and views about difference, and the ability to learn and build on the varying cultural and community norms of students and their families. It is the ability to understand the within-group differences that make each student unique, while celebrating the between-group variations that make our country a tapestry. (www.NEA.org) OR It is the integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the quality of services, thereby producing better outcomes (VDOE 2009)

 

Culturally Responsive:  Culture is centered as a vehicle for learning. School climate fosters affirmation of ALL students. Challenges racial and cultural stereotypes, prejudices, racism, and other forms of intolerance, injustice, and oppression. Validates the inequities impacting student’s lives. (Navigating EdEquityVA - Equity Audit Tool)

 

Disaggregated Data: Disaggregating data means breaking down information into smaller groups. For instance, breaking data down into grade level within school aged students, country of origin within racial/ethnic categories, or gender among student populations are all ways of disaggregating data.

 

Disaggregating student data into smaller groups can help schools and communities plan appropriate programs, decide which evidence-based interventions to select (i.e. have they been evaluated with the target population), use limited resources where they are needed most, and see important trends in behavior and achievement. (National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, April 2012).

 

Discrimination: The denial of justice and fair treatment by both individuals and institutions in many arenas, including employment, education, housing, banking and political rights. Discrimination is an action that can follow prejudicial thinking. (Anti-Defamation League ADL.org)

 

Disproportionality: The “overrepresentation” and “under-representation” of a particular population or demographic group relative to the overall student population (National Association for Bilingual Education, 2002).

 

Diversity: the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious or ethical values system, national origin, language accessibility and political beliefs. (Ferris State University)

 

Educational Equity: Public schools should provide equitable access and ensure that all students have the knowledge and skills to succeed as contributing members of a rapidly changing, global society, regardless of factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, English proficiency, immigration status, socioeconomic status, or disability. (NSBA Beliefs and Policies, www.nsba.org)

 

Equality: Equality in education is achieved when students are all treated the same and have access to similar resources. (www.CENTERFORPUBLICEDUCATION.org)

 

Equity: Equity in education is achieved when all students regardless of sex, gender, race, color, national origin, disability, religion, ancestry, age, marital or veteran’s status, physical or mental genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, political affiliation or any classification protected by applicable law receive the resources they need so they graduate prepared for success after high school. (www.CENTERFORPUBLICEDUCATION.org)

 

Growth Mindset: “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” (Dweck, 2015)

 

Implicit Bias: The unconscious attitudes, stereotypes and unintentional actions (positive or negative) towards members of a group merely because of their membership in that group. These associations develop over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages. When people are acting out of their implicit bias, they are not even aware that their actions are biased. In fact, those biases may be in direct conflict with a person’s explicit beliefs and values. (Anti-Defamation League, www.ADL.org )

 

Inclusion: Involvement and empowerment, where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized. (Ferris State University)

 

Individual Racism: Pre-judgment, bias, or discrimination by an individual based on race. Individual racism includes both privately held beliefs, conscious and unconscious, and external behaviors and actions towards others. (Government Alliance on Race and Equity)

 

 

Institutional Racism: Occurs within institutions and organizations, such as schools, that adopt and maintain policies, practices, and procedures that often unintentionally produce inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people. (Government Alliance on Race and Equity)

 

Opportunity Gap: Opportunity gaps occur because students of color and low-income children often have fewer opportunities to prepare and develop as young learners, due to reduced access to high-quality child care, Pre-K, afterschool, and extracurricular activities. These gaps generally persist into their K-12 education, creating achievement gaps, a decades-old issue facing every state. (National Conference of State Legislatures, http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/equity-and-the-opportunity-gap.aspx).

 

Privilege/Advantage: A set of advantages and/or immunities that allow people to benefit on a daily basis beyond those common to others. Advantages can exist without a person’s conscious knowledge of their presence and helps to maintain racial and other hierarchies.

 

Race: A social construct that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly color), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification, and the social, economic, and political needs of a society at a given period of time. Racial categories subsume ethnic groups.

(Source: Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell and Pat Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge.)

 

Structural (or Systemic) Racism: Encompasses the history and current reality of institutional racism across all institutions and society. It refers to the history, culture, ideology, and interactions of institutions and policies that perpetuate a system of inequity that is detrimental to communities of color. (Government Alliance on Race and Equity)

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