• OUR WORK 

     

    RACIAL EQUITY AUDIT 

     

    In Spring 2023, Pittsburgh Public Schools launched its first-ever independent equity audit of the district’s system of education for its African American students. An equity audit is a study of the fairness of an institution’s policies, programs, and practices. Our Racial Equity Audit will critically examine our policies, programs, and practices that directly and indirectly impact our students relative to their race. The equity audit will provide a starting point in evaluating our District’s current state concerning equity.  

    After the data collection and analysis, we will release The Current State of Racial Equity at Pittsburgh Public Schools final report early Winter 2023 with a comprehensive list of recommendations for prioritization of actions. 

     

    Source: MAEC, 2021 

     

  • PROFESSIONAL LEARNING 

     

    Courageous Conversations About Race

    Courageous Conversations About Race is a protocol for effectively engaging, sustaining and deepening interracial dialogue. Using the Framework for Systemic Racial Equity Transformation, our staff can begin to address persistent racial disparities intentionally, explicitly, and comprehensively.  

     

    Beyond Diversity Seminar

     Beyond Diversity Seminar aligns with Courageous Conversations About Race. District staff participate in two-day seminar designed to help participants understand the impact of race on student learning and investigate the role racism plays in institutionalizing academic achievement disparities. Through Beyond Diversity participants gain a foundational understanding of the impact of race on students of color and a common language, to engage, sustain and deepen Courageous Conversations about Race.  

     

    Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

    Culturally Responsive Pedagogy professional learning equips educators with the knowledge skills, and dispositions to meet the diverse learning needs of all students and create the conditions necessary for closing the achievement gap and improving the achievement of all students through a leveled continuum of professional learning experiences. These experiences are designed to move adult learners from foundational understandings of CRP (Culturally Relevant Pedagogy) to eventual multidisciplinary connections and community building, creating a clear through line that will build individual and collective teacher efficacy in their ability to provide all students with high quality opportunities for learning. Five levels of intellectual engagement for CRP learning have been identified for organization and delivery. 

     

    Implicit Bias

    Implicit Bias is attitudes, stereotypes, and beliefs that can affect how we treat others based on race, ability, gender, culture, or language. Implicit Bias training for central and school administrators, Board members, social workers, guidance counselors, school police and school security guards would ultimately lead to a decrease in the incidence of racial disproportionality in behavioral referrals, suspensions and arrests and an increase in culturally responsive interventions and supports. This professional learning is aligned to the Equity in Discipline Action Step.  

     

    Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi)

    Our partnership with ABPsi engaged the Office of Equity, school-based mental health practitioners, and Learning Environment Specialists in professional development that increased capacity to implement research-based culturally responsive, trauma-informed practices in their everyday responsibilities and interactions with students. Staff are equipped with positive behavior supports, de-escalation techniques and a set of appropriate responses to student behavior that may require immediate intervention. 
  • "As a school leader and participant in [the] Implicit Bias cohort I was able to renew my commitment to Equity in Education as well as share my knowledge. These engaging and thought-provoking sessions allowed me to be vulnerable, and speak my truth in a psychologically safe space, while catapulting me to respond to the call of interrupting implicit bias in an effort to improve teaching and learning environments for black and brown children."  Dr. Margaret J. Starkes, principal, Pittsburgh Public Schools