Akron Schools diversity, equity and inclusion ‘portrait’ program gains traction

APS leaders discuss ways to implement DEI across district.

Diversity, equity and inclusion training and understanding for Akron Public Schools’ staff dominated the discussion during the Akron Board of Education’s Equity Committee meeting March 4. 

Chief Diversity Officer Carla Chapman led the 40-minute discussion of “A Portrait of a Culturally Responsive Educator, Staff and Leaders.” The board first heard about this developing framework at a committee meeting in February.

Chapman worked with the APS DEI Advisory Committee, which met Feb. 21, to come up with recommendations to implement the framework across the district. Thirty-nine APS employees are on the committee. This includes educators, administrators, learning specialists, secretaries, and others. 

The “Portrait,” as it is known, is designed to support two key “cornerstones” in the APS strategic plan, the “Akron Blueprint for Success.” Specifically, the “Portrait” focuses on the blueprint’s objective to “increase the percentage of Akron Public Schools staff experiencing a positive and affirming culture.”

Divided into four “mindsets,” this plan offers a DEI roadmap for educators, staff and administrators. This works “in conjunction with some critical thinking, critical conversations and dialogue,” Chapman said. 

The four “mindsets” focus on skills in these areas:

• Social interactions
• The real world 
• Teaching, learning and development
• Personal life

Each area focuses on concepts including resilience, collaboration, technology proficiency, and use of culturally relevant resources.

Committee recommends ways to integrate diversity, equity an inclusion concepts

Members of the advisory committee worked from this roadmap in teams “to really dissect what it would mean in practice to realize these skills and to operate with the mindsets you see,” Chapman said. 

The committee’s recommendations for integrating the “Portrait” into existing situations include:

1. Working with students to make connections to existing scholars’ and graduates’ “portraits.”
2. Embedding the “mindsets” into social-emotional learning lessons.
3. Principals hosting small-group sessions to continue finding ways to integrate the plan into the classroom and lessons.
4. Using the “Portrait” program to open and close staff meetings and with other existing training. 
5. Sharing with students in existing experiences like Freshman Seminar.
6. Ensuring year-round implementation and training. 

“Folks don’t have a very clear understanding of how to operationalize the skills and the mindset,” Chapman said as she shared other training suggestions to support APS staff. 

Board Member Summer Hall asked if there would be DEI-specific training using the “portraits” within Vector, APS’ formal training program. 

“We only want to introduce the portrait,” said Chapman. This system, she said, has a series of required training modules for APS staff and educators around topics such as child protection and mental health.

Chapman does not want to “create full DEI modules” because DEI training doesn’t work as well with somebody sitting at a computer. “We can introduce the portrait in the Vector training and then proceed with face-to-face sessions, like what we’re doing now,” she said. 

Not all APS staff required to do diversity, equity and inclusion training

DEI training is not required of current APS employees.

“I don’t know today how we could incorporate [DEI training] as a requirement. We have to think more intentionally about it,” Chapman said. 

“What we have required in the past around DEI is 100% of our new hires going through … six hours of training. We have not gotten to requirements for other staff at this point in time.”

Hall agreed that training incoming educators is beneficial but said “some of our senior staff need to be enlightened on what DEI is and what it means to our school [system].”   

Chapman said that a first round of DEI sessions have been rolled out to staff in 31 buildings. She and another staff member are “systematically” working on the remaining nine.

Training is one part, Chapman said. Coaching, support, evaluations and system changes are other key elements. 

“Awareness is one level of understanding,” Chapman said. “Application is another, and being critically reflective on your work is the highest level where people are saying, ‘This is what I’m not doing well.’”  

The district also has to be ready to provide that help, she said.  

“There is a lot of learning associated with equity work,” Chapman said. “It’s evidence-based, it’s research-based, and it’s ongoing learning.”