Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Clover Park School District is committed to creating and fostering learning environments that support student achievement and empowerment through equity, diversity and inclusion.

Superintendent Ron Banner works with a diverse group of students

Equity

As part of the district’s focus on equity, we discuss equity in terms of: 

  • Inquiring, affirming, and meeting diverse needs 
  • Identifying and removing barriers to equity that exist operationally and systemically 
  • Maintaining high standards, rigor and expectations 
  • A commitment to discover what works and for whom 

Inclusion

Inclusion is a result of equitable and inclusive practices: staff, students, families, and community members feeling seen, heard, welcomed, respected, valued, celebrated, and honored. 

In our pursuit of inclusion, it is essential that we foster environments for our diverse stakeholders (students, staff, families, community members) to define “seen, heard, welcomed, respected, valued, celebrated, and honored.” 

Diversity

In the Clover Park School District, we define diversity broadly and see it as an overarching term encompassing the many identities of our stakeholders: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, family background, body size, age, religion, and more.

We believe it is not enough to celebrate our diversities, but to fully embrace diversity by ensuring the diversity of our students are reflected in our hiring practices, curriculum, classroom environment, and leadership team. 


Strategic Equity Work | Equity in Action

Student participate in equity

District

District equity work is enabled specifically from the vision of the superintendent with full support of the Board of Directors to ensure equity permeates our policies, procedures and practice. Our efforts have resulted in intentional steps forward on our equity journey in every department through professional development and specific equity audits of systems and operations.

School Staff

School staff participate in professional development with an equity focus to ensure they are equipped to support the diverse needs of our students while maintaining high standards and high expectations. Administrators, teachers, paraeducators and secretaries have all participated in a progressive approach to working through the Deep Equity process.

Students

The work we are doing with students has been a monumental step in our district’s pursuit of equity. Our aim is to elevate student voice by facilitating multiple opportunities for students to share insight, perspective and feedback to administrators and staff. Subsequently, our goal is to empower student voice by collaborating with students on ways to reshape our practices, policies, procedures, teaching style and curriculum to foster a district community for each person to flourish.

Families & Community

Our equity and inclusion efforts with our families and communities has resulted in an exponential increase in new partnerships, reinvigorated relationships across our community and enhanced avenues of family support. We are learning that true equity is fostered within the context of genuine community. Our efforts to be equitable has resulted in community-wide collaboration that will ensure our students can succeed and contribute to their communities.

We emphasize our equity work is a journey, and we have not arrived at our end state. We know there are many barriers for our historically marginalized students and there are still inequities in our system. We affirm with great confidence that we are making progress. To achieve student success across the many diverse identities and backgrounds of our students, equity must be the core of everything that we do.