Racial Equity Teams Gather at Saturday Institute
On January 19th, the SEA Center for Racial Equity (CRE) and the SPS Department of Racial Equity Advancement (DREA) held our January Saturday Institute for Racial Equity Teams (RETs), Cohort 5 (the newest cohort). The day was packed for over four hours with workshops, panels, discussions, action planning, and collaboration in hopes of helping our newest cohort redress racial inequities within their schools.
Some key moments included:
- The Black Lives Matter at Schools Panel discussed the history of Black Lives Matter at Schools and what schools could do to participate. The panel included:
- Wayne Au, UW Professor and Co-Editor of Teaching for Black Lives
- Cece Chan, NAACP-Youth Coalition Student and SPS High School Student
- Donte Felder, Educator at Orca K-8 and Activist for the Arts
- Marlon Brown, BLM Seattle Chapter Board Member, SPS ERAC Member, and Community Activist
- Jon Greenberg, Educator at the Center School and Social Justice Activist and Organizer
- A Black Lives Matter at Schools workshop was held and heavily attended. RETs were able to get more resources to plan out their schools' events for Feb. 4-8.
- The third installment for our CRE Racial Equity Literacy workshop series was presented. This workshop discussed redressing racial inequities and injustices and gave participants resources for Ethnic Studies, Restorative Justice, and Gatekeeping/Gate Opening.
- The Culturally Responsive Teaching Cadre did a workshop on Culturally Responsive Teaching and gave out an analysis tool for schools to use. One school is thinking about implementing it throughout the year to track the growth of their teachers.
- RETs received one-on-one coaching time with their CRE Racial Equity Coach! During this time, RETs were able to discuss their action plan or their plans for Black Lives Matter at School Week.
Thank you to everyone who attended our Saturday Institute! We hope that RETs and participants were able to grow in their own identities as being anti-racist educators and receive some valuable information/resources.
Submitted by Kaitlin Kamalei Jenkins
First Grade Teacher, West Seattle Elementary
Racial Equity Coach, SEA Center for Racial Equity
