News Stories, School News

School Committee Hears Update on District’s Work for DEI

The Burlington School Committee was given an update on the district’s drive to further diversity, equity and inclusion in the schools during Tuesday night’s meeting. 

To start things off, Burlington Public School DEI Director Raymond Porch brought in four students by video chat to share a recent experience they had, as members of the high school’s DEI Club, visiting with eighth graders at Marshall Simonds Middle School. 

The students said that in their view there is still a lot of work to be done in the district. They pointed to gaps in education they noticed, such as some of the middle schoolers believing that slavery in the United States extended into the 1900s, which they highlighted as problematic. 

“Here at Burlington High School we want to send off our students to succeed and live their best lives and if we’re lacking in that area of education then we can’t do that as a community,” one of the students said. 

Another concern they had was that some of the middle school students reported the use of racial slurs used against them.

The group also talked about what they see as issues with diversity, equity and inclusion in the high school. They say some teachers don’t seem to take the concerns of minority students seriously. They also talked about a lack of diversity in the curriculum and in the school administration and faculty. 

“Our mission statement says we strive to be lifelong learners in an increasingly diverse society and based on what’s been going on it does not seem like that’s happening,” one of the students said.

It was a wide-ranging discussion and you can find the full video here

Porch also said the district has been doing a pilot program to introduce restorative justice practices in all of the schools. 

According to Edutopia, an education blog run by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, “Restorative justice empowers students to resolve conflicts on their own and in small groups, and it’s a growing practice at schools around the country. Essentially, the idea is to bring students together in peer-mediated small groups to talk, ask questions, and air their grievances.”

Porch said this approach has shown to be more effective in many cases than traditional forms of discipline. 

“We need to think about unexpected behavior through the lens of a learning opportunity,” he said. “Research shows that when discipline is handled in a restorative justice way, what happens is young people have an opportunity to learn.”

Porch said the initiative has been well received by school principals and other school leaders in the district and the next step is training. They hope to start implementation during the next school year though they can do so in an organic way. 

“Another nice benefit of restorative justice is that implementation can be scaffolded and differentiated depending on your district’s needs in terms of timing,” he said.