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Part 1: Background and Rationale

Area of Focus

The demographics of my school community is not being represented in the school. Our school needs more representation. There is a big Latinx population and black population in our school and yet they are not entirely visible in the curriculum and environment. In the past I have used fundraising sites to get materials that have representation of my students. I believe that students need positive representation to have positive space. Currently there are a lot of ‘issues’ in our school building. Students are being disruptive in school. I think if we had representation students would like to learn more about that. There has been more participation schoolwide to participate in culturally specific events. Whereas before there was an international day. Now we have shifted to being a specific cultural group and incorporating it to our lessons in the school. I noticed that many students were eager to demonstrate their learning of these lessons.

Part 2: Proposal Details

Action Plan

I must start these conversations with my administration and colleagues that we must seek to do more for our students. We need funding to purchase books and materials that have student and people representation. Students need to see representation in other forms that also don’t cost money. Such as having student leaders in school. Opportunities for family community leaders. As a school we need to increase our family engagement and have school events where families can be given opportunities to participate and eventually support the transition to lead the events.

Allies and Alliances

As a teacher leader I would like to start by working closely with the Parent Teacher Association to increase their effort to recruit more BIPOC folks into their meetings. Currently there is little to no representation. In addition to that I would like to motion to the PTA to allocate their fundraising for BIPOC centered books for our classrooms if possible. In order to do this I need to attend meetings regularly and engage with other parents about how we can make the meetings a valuable use of their time. To work on this I would need many teachers to be working with me on this as well.

Part 3: Anti-Bias Design

Reflection

From my readings in week 3 about reading that we often don’t see leaders in our students because we don’t give them opportunities to. I was shocked when I started seeing more students leading assemblies and fun school wide events. This allowed students an opportunity to be seen as leaders in our school. I have seen those same students in the school but when they were leading or teaching the younger students my perspective changed. The power of opportunity is phenomenal. By having those students up there the younger students were able to see themselves up there later. My connection is that I want to provide opportunities for our BIPOC families to have opportunities to be in leadership roles to then influence others.

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Hello everyone,

I share the link to Google doc to access by PSU email account that has my reflection or the third part of my innovation proposal.
Thank you

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Designing my proposal was difficult as my district has not come out with an official announcement on their stance on CRT- so it was a challenge to one define what CRT is, and also prepare information for fellow staff members. I think this is a courageous approach as it takes something that has been highly polarized and brings it back down to a simple and clear level- we are not brainwashing children- we are encouraging them to think critically with multiple perspectives. Critical race theory leads into anti-bias education as it encourages students (and adults) to think critically and examine systemic racism within the classroom and the subjects being taught. This process taught me to take risks as a teacher educator and to lean into discomfort. Although it doesn't always feel "safe" to talk about polarized topics with others- it is still important to stand in that gap for our students. Moving forward I am excited to meet with my administrator and get a better idea of what our district's expectation and stance is on CRT- using that I will adjust my presentation and staff training as needed and finally work with a team of educators to provide resources to our community.

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Final Value-Based Behavior Management Proposal

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Final Value-Based Behavior Management Proposal

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Here are parts 1-3

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Hello everybody!
I want to share my wix blog that showcase my Teacher Leadership Innovation Proposal. The menu has the main areas please click on them where you can find, my rationale and background, the allies and alliances, as well as the action plan. In the Home page you will find three resources that constitute a framework of what I can call "my innovation project".
Thank you!

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Home | Leading beyond the classroom Juliana Flechas

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I have added some changes and refined my reflection for my TLIP proposal. I'm hopeful this is something I can offer to our department! Thank you for all the positive feedback and encouragement. :)
(The Smore link is the same as listed below)

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence Parts 1-3

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence Parts 1-3

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See Parts 1-3 of my TLIP attached here

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I had already included a rough outline of part II, but I think that the key is to have a data-driven approach to this behavior management system. I had initially said that the use of attendance data and behavior referrals would be a key source, but after doing more research on the panorama survey that we give each student every year, this would also be an excellent source.

I view this as a potential ongoing professional development that will have many different benefits. The key is to first establish a policy around bullying and harassment in classrooms in order to have a unified approach to this.  I believe that this will really get the ball rolling and improve the statistics around teachers and staff responding to these kinds of behaviors with zero indifference. In this professional development, it is important to define and call out these behaviors by name so that students have more awareness of them and are not simply told not to do something without any understanding. I have chosen to break this up into two subcategories: classroom management and school-wide discipline in order to differentiate between restorative justice that would require a team approach with admin, counseling, teachers, and other students for from the daily responses to behavior that disrupts student safety and the learning environment within the classroom.

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FINAL PRODUCT:

I have attached my Culture Share example (Madrid, Spain) through Google Slides. It can be complemented with a Screencast or other application. Every teacher is free to choose whatever they want to present their culture to the school.

REFLECTION:

Reflecting on my innovation, I wanted to focus on one of the critical practices for Anti-bias Education, specifically on Self-Awareness and Cultural Competency. From my standpoint, the first step to be able to build a strong community is by learning and getting to know each other, and respecting differences. Every member in the school community needs to understand that differences are what makes us unique. We need to learn how to celebrate and embrace our cultures and backgrounds and be proud of who we are. If we are able to accomplish all of this, we will create a more welcoming and safe learning environment that will invite us to succeed. Also, our school leadership capacity will expand and we will become stronger as a community. Consequently, we will learn how to take care and help each other, and we will work all together towards the same goals.

Last, something that I realized during this project is that we educators need to be proactive and pursue what we believe in. Our actions are what will determine transformation and achievement in our school community. We are in a powerful position where our beliefs and actions can change our students’ lives for the better, so let’s care about this amazing opportunity.

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence

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PART TWO: PROPOSAL DETAILS
See proposal details within the document.

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As I explained in my part 1, I would like to develop the teacher leadership innovation proposal in a leveled-grade teacher workshop or meeting. The approach is an invitation to have discussions about diverse families inclusion in the the curriculum, and to advocate for a more equal society from the children's literature area. Along with the teachers' books proposals and based-inquiry decisions the group of teachers could decide what LGBTQ-themed children books to include, as well as to train the learning community to  deconstruct stereotypes or assumptions based on the gender binary system. This professional learning community supports other teachers that do not know about strategies to facilitate critical conversations with kids to enact social justice in the elementary school curriculum.

#Inclusivity, #LGBTQ-themed books, #LGBTQ school rights

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Home | Leading beyond the classroom Juliana Flechas

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Growing up as a child in Karachi, Pakistan I went to a secular school and we had classmates and friends from similar ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds until my graduate studies. I was aware of only that particular pupil whom I can connect with. After studying Masters's of teaching at IOE, UCL (Institute of Education, University College London, I became aware of the shift of focus from an exclusive classroom to an inclusive classroom environment, when I got an opportunity to study with students from different countries. I understood the importance of learning with diverse students. There was too much to learn from them. Now in PSU, learning the courses of 'Multicultural curriculum design' and 'Teacher leadership' I learned more about anti-racial and anti-bias. Now I am eager to explore the benefits of teaching the idea of diversity and its appreciation and acknowledgment among students in an inclusive classroom environment.

The outcome I am hoping to achieve is that students of my class would be able to:
- accept, appreciate and embrace cultural and social differences
- try to learn from each other and create a beautiful diverse classroom
- build alliances among themselves to achieve a common goal of promoting best to the world.

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For this proposal, I would want to build a professional learning opportunity that would be beneficial for a school-wide and community growth.  I believe that for this proposal, I would want to focus on anti-racism in the schools.  I think that this could be a core factor to many biases that can not only happen with staff but towards other families that reflects through their students.  For this step, I would work towards creating a professional development that emphasizes the importance of unity and embracing the diversity of cultures that each person brings to the school.  By having teachers understand the importance of bringing the school-wide community together, we could then use our teachers as leaders towards the community outside of the school.  Encouraging teachers to focus on addressing anti-racial practices and normalizing talking about uncomfortable discussions with students will be highly encouraged through this professional development. We can also encourage teachers to implement a variety of culturally responsive and diverse texts in the classroom as mentor texts. This could be shared with teachers every month with a brief description of how to proceed with each book. I believe that the first step to this anti-biased innovation would be trying to get all of the teachers and staff on the same page, then using our numbers to reach out to families.

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence

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Antibias & Antiracist Professional Development Scope & Sequence

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PART ONE: BACKGROUND & RATIONALE
For my Teacher Leader Innovation Proposal, I plan to create a scope and sequence for our staff antibias and antiracist professional development for the first trimester of the school year. Thank you for taking the time to look through my proposal!

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Part 2: Proposal Details

Action Plan:

As I mentioned in my initial research, my first step would be to bring the idea to our culture and climate committee. The purpose of this committee is to make sure that we provide our students a safe and welcoming environment, so I think they will be pleased and will support this initiative. The following step would be to talk with our fantastic admin and decide when and where I could present this innovation to our staff. I am thinking maybe to present this information during one of our PD sessions.

In our school, we have a very diverse group of teachers from different cultures and backgrounds so I am hoping that they can see the potential of this opportunity. I truly believe that by sharing our cultures with our students and staff, we will have a better opportunity to connect and build meaningful relationships with our students and colleagues. Going into the details on how this innovation works, my idea is that every teacher creates a 5-8 minute screencast including all kinds of information about their cultures such as place of birth, traditional foods, most popular places to visit, different traditions, memories of how they grew up, etc. They are free to present whatever they want and they can use different computer programs and apps if they prefer.

Next, we staff will need to decide and choose a specific day of the week and dedicate our Advisory class to show students these presentations.

Last, once all the teacher’s presentations are done, students and families are invited to participate and will have the opportunity to do the same.

Allies and Alliances:

I have always believed that in order to achieve school transformation, it is necessary for the whole staff to “be on the same boat” by working towards the same goals as a community. With this being said, the first community partners that I need to collaborate in this innovation are my colleagues. By colleagues, I mean admin, licensed and classified teachers, office managers, custodians, etc. I would like to bring all the adults in the school first and start building a stronger sense of community. Once this is accomplished, the ultimate goal is to bring students and families on board.

Getting to know each member in the community will allow us to expand our leadership capacity and consequently we will have the opportunity to create a stronger school community.

Ideally and hoping that this innovation works, I would love to be able to present this idea district-wide. I think it would be wonderful if all the schools can implement these culture shares within their school communities.

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Part 2: The tools I intend on using for this training are Google Slides. Some materials and resources needed are clear information on CRT, and I need to know what expectations my district may have regarding conversations about CRT with our greater community. Since this is such a contested subject currently I am sure there will be some pushback from staff and families, however I think that only exemplifies the need to have a shared understanding and definition of CRT as a staff. As far as alliances go, I am hoping our Anti-Racism team will stand with me and help with further trainings and with creating the framework on how to talk to our families about their questions. To create and maintain professional working relationships I will ensure that as a staff we are aware that each of us is on our own equity journey, and whether or not we may be in the same place- we should be going in the same direction for our students, peers and community.

Part 1: As a public school teacher I am often the closest and most available government employee that my students' parents and families have access to- therefore I feel I am often bombarded with opposite beliefs at all times- specifically high profile debates. During this past school year I would hear from one parent about our district taking too many COVID precautions, and on the same day I would have a family member talking about our district not taking enough precautions. Although these debates around COVID and schools have most certainly not stopped, something I have begun to hear more about from parents is Critical Race Theory- or CRT.

I have received a few different emails from my students' parents this summer asking point blank whether or not I teach Critical Race Theory in my classroom. (I am a first grade teacher.) I, personally, find these emails extremely disappointing and upsetting but am often left not even knowing where to start with a response. This made me wonder if any other teachers at my school are receiving similar emails and if they, too, are wondering where to even start with that conversation.

My plan is multi-faceted as I believe the first step would be professional development as a staff on Critical Race Theory itself to develop a shared understanding and vocabulary on what CRT is, how long it has been around, and why it is a large conversation now. Then, as a staff I would like to create some district-approved talking points and a list of resources we can provide to our parents, families, and community when they ask about CRT. I say, "district approved" talking points mostly because there is a certain level of vulnerability and power dynamics at play when we are communicating with our students' families. That is to say, I would probably talk to my uncle about CRT in a very different way than I would to a parent of a student- mostly for fear of retribution, but also because there is a different level of emotional equity built.

I will be working on creating a Google Slide presentation for my peers with information on CRT. In my powerpoint there will be a sign up link where my peers can elect to become a focus group and work as a team with our admin to come up with some explanations, responses, and resources for families if and when we are asked about critical race theory.

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The demographics of my school community is not being represented in the school. Our school needs more representation. There is a big Latinx population and black population in our school and yet they are not entirely visible in the curriculum and environment. In the past I have used fundraising sites to get materials that have representation of my students. I believe that students need positive representation to have positive space. Currently there are a lot of ‘issues’ in our school building. Students are being disruptive in school. I think if we had representation students would like to learn more about that. There has been more participation schoolwide to participate in culturally specific events. Whereas before there was an international day. Now we have shifted to being a specific cultural group and incorporating it to our lessons in the school. I noticed that many students were eager to demonstrate their learning of these lessons.

I must start these conversations with my administration and colleagues that we must seek to do more for our students. I a, personally on a committee in my school where we are attempting to create lesson plans to teach about anti racist curriculum. Through my lesson planning I will also be searching for picture books as well about these topics. On top of that I would also like every library to have a collection of BIPOC centered literacy. Also of other people in the world. LGBTQ centered books as well.

As a teacher leader I would like to start by working closely with the Parent Teacher Association to increase their effort to recruit more BIPOC folks into their meetings. Currently there is little to no representation. In addition to that I would like to motion to the PTA to allocate their fundraising for BIPOC centered books for our classrooms if possible. In order to do this I need to attend meetings regularly and engage with other parents about how we can get them to attend the meetings.

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Concern: There is hardly any representation in our student council members. For the past six years, there have been no neurodiversity, little to none ethnic diversity, and no students who struggle with behaviors. This affects the students who complete the application process, as they see who is “typically” chosen and so many don’t even consider they might be a candidate.

In addition, the program itself ends up being more of a “work group” and does not actually help students hone in on their leadership skills. Most of the work these students do is help the counselor count food and clothing drive items, make posters, and a small amount of recess duty. There have been efforts in adding leadership training, but every year it gets put on the back burner and the group ends up falling back into the same routine they have had in years past.

Innovation: Shifting the focus of our student council. Putting an equity lens on the application process, I would like to see as much representation as possible. We should be putting together a program that teaches leadership skills and utilizes members to do equity work in the school. I also believe students should be more involved in decision making, when it is something that will affect them.

In order to gauge how others are feeling, I could put together a Google Form survey for staff and PTC members, asking specific questions regarding the student council’s role in the building/community. I think the best way to share this innovation, once complete, would be in a staff professional development scenario. This would allow adequate time to discuss, hear staff concerns/comments, and begin the process of bringing awareness to this potential change.

The outcomes I am hoping to achieve are receiving whole staff “by-in” or at least from intermediate teachers whose students will be applying, either purchasing or creating a leadership program to be implemented, and beginning the process of determining decisions with which students could be involved.

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My proposal is to focus on zero indifference rather than zero tolerance in the classroom as well as to incorporate restorative school-wide disciplinary practices. This plan is intended to give a person that disrupts the safety of the classroom a greater understanding of the context of their behavior as well as an opportunity to repair the harm done. Teaching tolerance articulated that only 14% of bullying episodes are intervened in by teachers. This needs to change and this mindset of zero indifference can help to do this.

In addition, I think that taking a restorative lens to schoolwide disciplinary practices can help to reaffirm this zero indifference mindset. Suspension is indifference. Mediation as a substitute for punitive discipline can correlate with better attendance, fewer behavioral referrals, and potentially better academic performance.

My work so far is still bare bones and needs more specificity on the implementation. I'm also not happy with using slides. I will be using a different format for the final.

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As a curriculum designer and educator I propose to have more LGTBQ children’s literature in K-5 grades, (rationale) I chose this topic because it can benefit the children that, in the future as adolescents, may identify themselves as LGTBQ. I think it is important to provide members of this community space in the curriculum. According to New Day Films’ reviews --a filmmaker of the social issue documentary That’s a Family , “This top notch production aimed at elementary and middle school aged kids may go a long way toward assuaging children’s fears of being ‘different’, while also hopefully encouraging tolerance in general”(2010).  I think the authors of this film have established the foundations to be a more responsive educator. The background I like to use are, the eye-opener information provided in Chapter 9 Seeing ourselves and our families through students’ eyes (Cowhey, 2006), as well as the United Nations Resolutions about Sexual Orientation and Gender --because the work of an educator is to break down intolerance and to honor all families, and the rethinking practices explained by Paul Emerich France in their second Way to Create an LGBTQ-Inclusive Classroom to be more proactive and responsive (2019).

I am hired in a Charter school compromised to domains of anti-bias education such as inclusion of diversity and justice. This shared vision is a good start point for me to encourage K-5 teachers in a leveled team workshop for selecting LGTBQ books in order to address and to discuss this progressive social issue in the classroom. This discussion invites teachers to do some extensions, for example word gendered problems in math, critical conversations with children in reading class, or any teachable moment that help us as a team to deconstruct the gender dichotomy to rebuild the Gender Identity Spectrum. Believe it or not young children may identify as LGTBQ at elementary grades (2006) and “it is our job to provide a safe space and role model for them as they age [...] to operate in accordance with justice (France, 2019).

Cowhey, M. (2006). Black ants and buddhists: thinking critically and teaching differently in the primary grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse .

New Day Films. (2010). That’s a Family! https://www.newday.com/film/thats-family

France, P. E. (2019, June 1). Supporting LGBTQ Students in Elementary School. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-lgbtq-students-elementary-school

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PART 1: BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

Area of Focus - Topic: Culture Share. I am currently working as a PE Teacher in a middle school where we have a very diverse student and teacher population, including myself being from Spain. Many countries and cultures are represented in my school and I see a great opportunity to share our backgrounds and embrace every culture within the school community promoting respect.

Initial Research:

My first thought is to bring this idea of sharing our cultures and backgrounds to our climate and culture committee and then decide if this is a good idea to execute in our school. In my opinion, it would be a great opportunity to build a stronger school community by getting to know each other more through sharing different cultures represented in our school. I am hoping that by implementing this innovation, students and staff become more aware of the importance of respecting every member in the school community and make them understand that we need to be proud of who we are, celebrate it and embrace it.

In regards to the format, my idea is to implement this innovation through an Advisory class. I will provide more details when I present my action plan in part 2.

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I decided to create my proposal on Smore (Part 1 and Part 2 rough drafts are listed there). My TLIP looks as discussing and identifying bias and anti-racism for the healthcare community. Most of it is focused from a dental perspective, but I feel that it translates to any healthcare provider or student. I believe this idea is imperative to how providers treat their patients and colleagues. Please let me know how I can better improve this, and thank you in advance for your advice! :)

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Teacher Leadership Innovation Proposal

Part 1: Background and Rationale

I feel that all of my colleagues are allies. Everyone is very supportive and encouraging to each other. I feel it is crucial to involved all of them during this opportunity. The tricky part is that majority of my colleagues are white, middle-aged females. We do have a handful of male instructors between the ages of 30's to 60's. Our institution also has an Associate Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which would be a helpful resource for this project. The college also has a Multicultural and Diversity Resource Center I would like to reach out for guidance. The city of Gresham had a contract with the Organizational Cultural Competence Assessment and Training, but as far as I know that contract has ended. It could be beneficial to reach out more, but I am unsure if the likelyhood of cost of this idea.

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Teacher Leadership Innovation Proposal Part 1: Background and Rationale I feel that all of my colleagues are allies. Everyone is very supportive and encouraging to each other. I feel it is crucial to involved all of them during this opportunity. The tricky part is that majority of my colleagues are white, middle-aged females.