SBDM Meeting Notes: March 2022
Hello LPAS Families and Friends! Below are my notes from March 15 2022 meeting.
My notes here are brief as we are back to being in-person. See the agendas and official minutes for more details.
Note: I’m one of two parent reprensentatives, so my notes are slanted towards parent/family topics. As far as notes go, they are probably incomplete, and are definitely not “official”. Official agendas and approved minutes are posted on the LPAS SBDM page and JCPS SBDM Council and Standing Committee Minutes site.
March 15, 2022
We covered a lot today, but the main focus of conversation were the Equity & Diversity policy reading and the IMPACT Survey Results
LGBTQ-inclusive Equity & Diversity Policy: First Reading
We did a first reading of the LGBTQ-inclusive Equity & Diversity Policy that I helped put together. Ms. Case kindly acknowledged my work here - and I am humbled by it! We did not have much discussion, but the SBDM and the LGBTQ committee at LPAS have been asked to provide feedback ahead of our second reading in April.
IMPACT Survey
We reviewed LPAS’ 2022 IMPACT Survey results. IMPACT is a Kentucky Department of Education survey focused on “working conditions” for teachers and administrators.
There’s a lot of data in there, and I encourage you to flip through the easy-to-read results. If you see what I see, you’ll see LPAS:
- has improved considerably when it comes to staff-leadership support, relationships, trust
- has been considerably affected by social unrest and the pandemic
- has benefitted from pandemic-driven technology upgrades
- needs help, but is improving on “Feedback and Coaching” and “Resources”
- but overall is well beyond state and JCPS averages for most metrics
How to Handle Conversations on Race and Gender
Relevant to the survey-indicated effects of social issues:
We spent a bit of time discussing the question “In response to events that might be occurring in the world, how comfortable whould you be in having conversation about race with your students?”. The “favorable” rating here saw a -17% drop from the prior survey (Dec 2019, prior to Louisville’s civil unrest, 2020 election, Jan 6th, etc).
Conversations around race, gender are happening in class, and it’s impossible to ignore. The feeling is that if we are to be educating “global citizens” we should have instructive responses to situations, questions and conversations around race, gender and sexuality. Ms. Haverstick shared an instructive anecodate, as did Ms. St. John. Ms. St. John mentioned that she thinks that LPAS as a whole could do better here, to help teachers be prepared. “Teachers don’t know how to respond.” Ms. Dearinger felt the same way and shared specifics around her own “mixed” family.
The question I’m left with here is “How do we empower teachers to confidently respond to the questions and conversations happening in their classrooms?”. My hope is that the current drive within JCPS to train teachers, coupled with rising visiblity and policy around racial and gender equity will pave the way. We have a Racial Equity committee. We will shortly have an SBDM-mandated LGBTQ committee, if the policy passes reading.
See you next time!
We covered a bit more in this meeting, but nothing I managed to take notes on. Next meeting we’ll be doing a second reading of our inclusive Equity & Diversity policy.
See you in April!