Convening Agenda
Thursday, January 31st
12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Welcome Address
Sonia Park, Executive Director
Diverse Charter Schools Coalition
12:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
12:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
What is The Opportunity Myth, and How Can I Disrupt it?
THE NEW TEACHER PROJECT (TNTP)
Facilitators: Celena Siprajim, Director; Kit Tollerson, Director & Leadership Coach; Nick Denton-Brown, Director; Valerie Barron, Project Director
During our plenary session, all convening attendees will have the chance to learn more about TNTP’s recent report The Opportunity Myth: What Students Can Show Us About How School Is Letting Them Down – and How to Fix It. You’ll learn more about the report’s findings and recommendations, then consider how you can apply these learnings to your local school context.
3:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
3:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Breakout Sessions
Good to Great – Challenging Teacher Expectations and Supporting Their Growth
THE NEW TEACHER PROJECT (TNTP)
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Facilitator: Valerie Barron, Project Director
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TNTP’s Good to Great teacher development program has achieved promising results in raising teacher expectations for students and changing teacher practice in a short time. In this session, you’ll learn more about how the Good to Great approach works and consider applications to your own work.
This session is an extension of the High Expectations breakout session that is part of the plenary lead by TNTP.
School Diversity and Charter Policies: How Does Your State Stack Up?
THE CENTURY FOUNDATION
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Facilitators: Halley Potter, Senior Fellow and DCSC Board Member
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When designed with diversity in mind, charter schools can be a powerful tool to help turn the tide of school segregation and give more students access to racially and socioeconomically diverse classrooms. However, the policy landscape in a state can have a big impact on how easy or hard it is for charter schools to be vehicles for integration. For example, do charter schools have access to transportation funding? Can charter schools enroll students from multiple school districts? Are charter schools prohibited from using selective admissions requirements? In this session, Century Foundation senior fellow Halley Potter will present new research showing how charter policies across states can help or hurt intentionally diverse charter schools.
First Timers Session
DIVERSE CHARTER SCHOOLS COALITION
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Facilitators: Seon Britton, Program Coordinator
Dave Bryson, Deputy Director
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The First Timers Session is a conversation facilitated by DCSC to welcome new Convening attendees. This session is for (1) member schools attending the Convening for the first time; (2) member schools or partner organizations that have just joined the coalition; and (3) non-member schools and organizations that want to learn more about DCSC. New Members will be able to discuss specific needs they are trying to address in working with DCSC, and among the voices will be Larchmont Charter School, E.L. Haynes Charter School, and City Garden Montessori School - all returning member schools - who will shed light on their own successes and paths to continual improvement with the Coalition.
UnifiED Explorer Session
DIVERSE CHARTER SCHOOLS COALITION
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Facilitators: Ashley Heard, Managing Program Director
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Want to know more about DCSC’s UnifiED program? This session will give early-career teachers and the school leaders managing them more information on UnifiED, which trains aspiring school leaders to open and lead their own diverse-by-design charter schools. Participants will be walked through the recruitment process of UnifiED Fellows, program planning, and execution. With school integration and educational equity being the cornerstone of its mission, UnifiED places its Fellows within the coalition’s membership network.
5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Reception
"Our Diversity is Our Strength"
Friday, February 1st
8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
School Visits
Bricolage Academy
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Bricolage Academy is a K-6 school that centers problem-solving at the center of its curriculum, including rapid iteration and a ‘design thinking’ process, as well as classes focused on design, engineering and creativity.
Hoffman Early Learning Center
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The Hoffman Early Learning Center, a partner organization of DCSC, serves Early Head Start and Tuition-Paying Families’ students from 6 weeks through PK4. Hoffman seeks to be an innovative model by being a diverse by design early learning center in New Orleans offering affordable and accessible care for all families.
International High School of New Orleans
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IHSNO is located in the Central Business District. IHSNO is the only high school in New Orleans offering students the opportunity to participate in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), which encourages students to develop skills for a global economy.
Morris Jeff Community School
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Morris Jeff Community School currently serves students through Pre-K to the 10th grade as an International Baccalaureate World School. The vision of MJCS is to create a school that reflects the diversity of the city both in the children that will attend and in the education they will receive.
Morris Jeff High School
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Morris Jeff is expanding for the growth of its inaugural students and to welcome new students. MJHS provides multiple pathways to graduation such as the TOPS University diploma, Career & Tech Education (CTE), and the IB Diploma Programme.
For the 2018-19 school year, the MJHS campus is split across two facilities.
11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
Lunch
Keynote & Conversation
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Keynote Address
John White
Louisiana State Superintendent of Education
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Conversation with
John White
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Dr. Kelli Peterson
Senior Equity and Accountability Officer for Orleans Parish School Board
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Conversation facilitated by: Veronica Brooks-Uy
Director of Policy for National Association of Charter School Authorizers
and DCSC Board Member
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Breakout Sessions
Advancing Equity: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Standards and Indicators
BELOVED COMMUNITY
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Facilitators: Rhonda Broussard, Co-Founder & CEO
Maggie Pullen, Co-Founder
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This session introduces schools to a set of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Standards and Indicators to guide their next steps in advancing equity in their schools. The indicators apply to all stakeholders in your school community: students, parents and family, faculty and staff, community partners, administrators, and Board members. Whichever role(s) you play, this workshop will challenge your thinking about equity in your school.
This highly interactive session starts with participants developing their Equity Agenda, presents Beloved Community’s framework and gives everyone time to conduct a mini equity audit. Participants will leave with a way to diagnose their equity needs moving forward and resources to address needs from their mini equity audit.
Diverse Populations in a Progressive Environment: Recruitment and Retention Strategies
INSPIRED TEACHING DEMONSTRATION SCHOOL
Facilitators: Seth Biderman, Middle School Principal
Kelly Brown, Manager of Data and Assessment
Monisha Karnani, Director, Demonstration & Outreach
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This session on recruiting and retaining a diverse student population will explore the following essential questions:
Given that progressive education is seen by many as very Eurocentric, how can progressive schools better appeal to low-income families of color that may prefer a more no-excuses model?
How do schools build an inclusive school culture, enabling the retention of diverse populations?
Designing to the Edges
SPECIAL EDUCATION LEADERSHIP FELLOWSHIP (SELF)
Facilitator: Aqua Stovall, Executive Director
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This session will walk participants through SELF’s principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL helps educators address aspects of learning environments that are not designed for individual learners having multiple ways of learning, expressing themselves, and engaging in groups and activities. Under UDL, SELF’s Learner Profiles takes into consideration design for individual learners helping school staff build relationships with students and understand things from their perspective. Learner Profiles under UDL can help to inform planning, classroom layout, timetabling and supports to enable students to participate and contribute in all classroom learning.
Valor’s Compass Model: Diverse Identity Development
in the Context of Relationships
VALOR COLLEGIATE ACADEMIES
Facilitators: Travis Commons, PhD, Director of Sharing and Learning
Jackson Sprayberry, Founding Head of School
Thomas Branch, Chief Operations Officer
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This interactive session briefly tells the story of Valor and the Valor Compass, with an emphasis on our defining practice - Compass Circles. One of the most compelling outcomes of “working the Compass” within our community is that the relational experiences inherent in the model have proved to be a remarkable vehicle for crossing lines of difference.
In this session, participants will engage in some bite-size examples of how an embodied and relational approach takes courage, but results in meaningful connection.
2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Breakout Sessions
Understanding Your Equity Audit – What Now?
(CLOSED SESSION FOR INVITED PARTICIPANTS ONLY)
BELOVED COMMUNITY
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Facilitators: Rhonda Broussard, Co-Founder & CEO
Maggie Pullen, Co-Founder
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This is a closed session that provides specific supports to the schools/CMOs who have already completed Beloved Community’s free, online Equity Audit. All participants must have also attended Beloved Community’s 1pm breakout session “Advancing Equity.” If a team from your school is at the convening, we recommend that the full team attend the session.
This highly interactive session starts with a trend analysis of the participating schools’ completed Equity Audits. Participants will then workshop three common challenges in their diversity, equity, and inclusion implementation. At the conclusion, each school will receive their Equity Audit Detail Report with further guidance about strengths and needs for each stakeholder group.
Why are Schools so Afraid of Black Men and Boys?
BROTHERS EMPOWERED 2 TEACH
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Facilitators: Larry Irvin, Co-Founder & CEO
Kristyna Jones, Co-Founder & COO
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Schools say they need more diverse talent leading classrooms—especially men of color—yet they are challenged by attracting, training and retaining them. This session is timely given the growing conversation both locally and nationally as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion. Coalition members are committed to diversity but they must also be committed to doing the hard work of self-reflection on policies and ways of being that may be hindering the effective hiring and retention of black and brown educators.
Leveraging Diversity in School Design
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD CHARTER SCHOOLS (CWCS)
Facilitator: Vanessa Rodriguez, Chief Program Officer
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This session will focus on how we are leveraging diversity in our school design in order to prepare our students to truly be citizens of the world. The education DNA of our schools allows our students to realize their full potential by intertwining academic mastery with strands for social emotional development and difference and inclusion. We see it essential to measure success in our schools not just through tried and true measures tied to our core academics strand, but also in our other two strands of social emotional development and difference and inclusion. The CWC Graduate Dispositions are the foundation to our three strands.
Just like a DNA molecule, our learning model brings different strands together to support our students’ growth towards our Graduate Dispositions—the habits of character and mind that our students demonstrate upon graduation.
Building Our Skills to Lead Inclusive, Anti-Racist School Communities
E.L. HAYNES CHARTER SCHOOL AND CITY GARDEN MONTESSORI CHARTER SCHOOL
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Facilitators: Maria Conner, Senior Director of Student Support Services, E.L. Haynes
Hilary Darilek, Chief Executive Officer of E.L. Haynes Charter School
Christie Huck, Executive Director of City Garden Montessori School
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In this session, leaders from two diverse school communities will share their journeys towards building diverse, equitable, inclusive spaces for students, staff, and families. Attendees will walk away with examples of what it means to build a diverse, equitable and inclusive school community. The session will include concrete, practical tools and ideas for attendees to take back to their school communities to build diverse, equitable, inclusive spaces for students, staff and families.
4:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Closing Remarks
Sonia Park, Executive Director
Diverse Charter Schools Coalition
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