In response to the ways COVID-19 highlighted inequities in their schools, a small team of district leaders at Austin Independent School District embarked on a process to redesign elements of their teaching and learning to make school work better for more kids as part of the Always Ready for Learning Strategy Lab. Despite the daily challenges and competing priorities of the pandemic — including a historic cold snap that shuttered schools for a week and left many in their community without electricity, food, or water — these efforts at Austin ISD have marshalled on.

The desire to make teaching and learning more equitable is not unique; however, Austin’s persistence in the face of continual disruption provides important lessons for others embarking on equity work amidst distractions, competing priorities, and urgent needs. So how are they doing it?

The Learning Accelerator teamed up with Epoch Education Partners to support Strategy Lab districts in their quest to make equity work stick. Here are four lessons we learned to help leaders like yourself live up to your ambitious desires for using an inclusive, equitable process to redesign your schools to be more equitable and resilient.

  1. Understanding why your team has come together will help provide a guiding vision and will serve as a focusing anchor for your equity work. 
  2. Collecting enough data from the right people is essential for understanding stakeholder needs.
  3. Engaging stakeholders and prioritizing their perspectives creates an opportunity to build trust and develop relationships beyond initial empathy interviews, surveys, or community forums.
  4. Assessing your environment for existing equity leaders, equity-centered programs and practices, and systemic equity initiatives will help you avoid recreating the wheel.

Read the full article about committing to equity in schools by Kelly Cole, Deraan Washington, and Nate Kellogg at The Learning Accelerator.