Equity in the Yakima School District
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The Yakima School District promise is to ensure a safe, equitable, inclusive and quality learning environment so that every student thrives and succeeds. Our vision is for a school system that focuses on every student, every day: strengthening community through education. Delivery on these objectives requires us to name, confront and disrupt the inequitable systems and practices that contribute to predictable disparate outcomes on the basis of group memberships including race, class, language, culture, ability, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. The Yakima school district passed a district Equity Policy that articulates our commitment to collective action to transform systems that have historically privileged a few, towards educational justice for all in partnership with students, families, communities, and staff.
YSD Equity Definition
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The condition that would be achieved if one’s group membership, no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fares. Equity is the outcome, not just access to opportunity.
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Equity Work in Yakima
A comprehensive report of the districts' current work towards ensuring that all students receive the support they need and access the outcomes desired from those supports was compiled in the Spring of 2023. Staff and students are currently working on Equity Policy Measures to guide future reports.
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Equity through Voice
In Yakima we believe that a core part of equity is giving voice to all students, staff, and families. As such we have focused on student voice structures (student voice circles, student voice councils, and more), teacher voice structures (teacher equity groups), and a focus on family engagement (investing in family engagement specialists and bilingual staff). We believe that if our communities voices are heard and they are empowered to create the change they wish to see, outcomes will become more equitable. For more info on our voice structures you can head over to our Voice page.
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Equity in Academics
The Yakima school district knows that the goal of our entire district is to ensure that all students achieve at grade level or above. With this focus, we have invested in PLC work to drive the professional development of our educators, a guaranteed and viable curriculum to ensure all students receive the same high quality instruction, and focusing all central office work around teaching and learning and our three levers of change:
1. Professional learning communities2. Induction, mentoring, and coaching staff
3. Principal supervision