LCPS Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021 by lcpspio

2 Message from the Interim Superintendent Dear Loudoun County Community, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) is proud to deliver this report on the progress and promise of our ongoing equity efforts. Early in this equity journey, in 2019, when research identified our diverse student body’s daily experiences of racially and culturally insensitive incidents, we knew we had to address them and equip our educators to help create an environment in which all students are safe, affirmed and can achieve their promise. Research showed that division leaders and teachers needed more understanding of how to address and deliver education to a more diverse population. Why? Loudoun County’s rapid growth from 1995 to 2020 had fundamentally changed the composition of our student body. During those 25 years, Loudoun County Public Schools grew by 61,246 students and 41 schools, and the percentage of White students decreased by half. During this rapid growth phase, this demographic shift went largely unrecognized. Now in 2021, 43.4% of LCPS students are White. Fully 62 of

Loudoun’s 95 schools are comprised of more than 50% students of color—with another seven schools within 1% of joining that group. When we started this initiative, we often referred to it as a “journey” and “together work” as we began, as a division, to address the needs of our racially and culturally diverse student body. It is for this reason we entitled our report to the community “A Path Forward Together.” We take this opportunity to celebrate our accomplishments to date and to acknowledge the steps we still need to take in order to fulfill our goal of providing all students with an inclusive, safe, caring and challenging learning environment. We hope you will join us on our journey as we take “A Path Forward Together.”

Best wishes,

Scott A. Ziegler, Ed.D. Interim Superintendent

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

Executive Summary Over the past few years, LCPS has taken several steps forward on the path toward equity. We have created a culturally responsive instructional framework and provided a list of equity resources on our website. We have prohibited racist flags, images and symbols on our campuses and re-branded the mascot of our oldest high school. We also issued an apology to the Black community of Loudoun County for operating segregated schools and resisting desegregation efforts. The next steps on our path are to finish some projects we have started but not quite brought to completion. These projects include revising the memorandum of understanding with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office and continuing to address discipline disproportionality. LCPS is committed to diversifying both the new hires to the school division’s professional staff and the applicant pool for the Academies of Loudoun. We will continue to meet with our staff members of color to learn more about their experiences and refine policies related to professional conduct and response to racial slurs and hate speech. And we have begun to work with community members to create an interpretive display or exhibit at the Douglass School. We know the journey on this path is a long one and that many of our actions must be ongoing. To ensure that we have an inclusive, safe, caring and challenging learning environment for all students, we will persist in delivering professional learning opportunities for staff and in collecting qualitative data to further understand the changing environment across our schools and workplaces. By taking this important journey together, we will make a difference in the lives of the diverse student body that calls Loudoun County home.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

4 Loudoun’s Changing Landscape LCPS Enrollment Growth During the 25 years from 1995 to 2020, Loudoun County Public Schools grew by 61,246 students and 41 schools. The percentage of White students decreased by half. During this unprecedented growth phase, the changing demographics of the composition of our student body went largely unrecognized. This population boom brought changes in opportunity, employment, housing development, business and economic development and education across the county. And classrooms around the county reflected this change. The school division’s equity efforts are not a top-down academic process, but a recognition of an organic and pervasive change in the students LCPS serves.

43.4% of LCPS students are White. 62 of Loudoun’s 95 schools are comprised of more than 50% students of color.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

5 Equity Journey

February 2019 Equity in the Center Training Begins April 2019 Equity Committee Formed June 2019 Systemic Equity Assessment July 2019 Director of Equity Position Created August 2019 Superintendent’s Equity Statement SEPTEMber 2019 School Board Adopts Resolution for Superintendent’s Division-wide Equity Statement December 2019 Protocol for Responding to Racial Slurs and Hate Speech in Schools June 2020 Culturally Responsive Framework July 2020 Detailed Action Plan to Combat Systemic Racism September 2020 Comprehensive Equity Plan September 2020 School Board Adopts Comprehensive Equity Plan

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

What is Equity? The Virginia Department of Education Office of Equity and Community Engagement says, “Education Equity is achieved when we eliminate the predictability of student outcomes based on race, gender, zip code, ability, socioeconomic status or languages spoken at home.”

What’s the Difference between Equity and Equality? The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019) explains: • Educational equity requires that educational opportunity be calibrated to need, which may include additional and tailored resources and supports to create conditions of true educational opportunity. • This idea of equity is different from equality, which connotes the idea that certain goods and services are distributed evenly, irrespective of individual needs or assets.

Division-wide Equity Statement LCPS is committed to providing a safe, empathetic, respectful and

supportive learning environment in order to empower every student to make meaningful contributions to the world. When students and staff experience racial insults, slurs, and/or other hate speech, we lack the positive culture and climate that supports students’ growth.

LCPS calls for all students, staff, families, and other members of our community to engage in the disruption and dismantling of white supremacy, systemic racism, and hateful language and actions based on race, religion, country of origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, and/or ability. LCPS rejects racist and other hateful behavior and language, recognizing that it encourages discrimination, hatred, oppression, and violence. Every individual is valued in Loudoun County Public Schools. Let’s celebrate the diversity that helps define us as a school division.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Kids are always getting on me about my skin color and my hair. They call me out by my name and call me the N-word and my teacher just turns the other cheek – because they are uncomfortable – but if I say the B-word or any other word – I’m in trouble. One of my teachers told me to go back to my country. I was in shock. I was born here. In middle school there was something in a book about Arabs and the teacher said – All Arabs are terrorists. I raised my hand and said “I am Arab and I am not a terrorist.” She just stared at me. Why is it that when a kid who is misbehaving and is Black – why do you hear “that kid’s going to end up in jail someday” – but you don’t hear that about the White kids who mess up.

Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

7 Comprehensive Equity Assessment Findings and Recommendations On June 6, 2019, the Equity Collaborative delivered the results of a comprehensive equity assessment they conducted for LCPS.

Their research surfaced five emergent themes: 1. Despite efforts from the division, school site staff, specifically principals and teachers, indicate a low level of racial consciousness and racial literacy. People are unclear and fearful on how to participate in conversations about race, let alone respond to racially charged incidents. 2. Educator focus groups indicated a desire to recruit and hire diverse school staff that reflect student racial and language backgrounds. 3. Economic diversity across the county/division complicates the discussions about race, leading many people to steer the conversation away from race to focus on poverty. 4. Discipline policies and practices disproportionately negatively impact students of color, particularly Black students. 5. Many English Learners, Black, Latinx, and Muslim students have experienced the sting of racial insults/ slurs or racially motivated violent actions.

The Equity Collaborative made four primary recommendations in response to the findings: 1. Produce and publish on the “Superintendent’s Message” page a new division-authored statement defining and condemning White supremacy, hate speech, hate crimes, and other racially motivated acts of violence. Require individual school sites include this message on their web page and in communications to parents twice a year (not only in response to an incident). 2. Review the current/establish a clear policy with built-in accountability for addressing racially motivated acts and create proactive leadership measures to address the student use of racial insults. Name that the N-word is not tolerated by anyone in LCPS. 3. Design additional opportunities for LCPS educators to engage in professional learning about color consciousness and implicit bias. Further establish a culturally-responsive framework to inform curricular and instructional efforts across the division. 4. Revise the current/establish a short- and long-range action plan to address challenges related to hiring for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

8 Comprehensive Equity Plan LCPS is committed to ensuring: • student growth and academic success for every child • culturally-responsive, supportive environment for inclusive, safe learning spaces for every student and adult • utilizing methodologies for eliminating opportunity gaps • there is improvement in programming to leverage greater access, opportunity and outcome data for students

LCPS Comprehensive Equity Plan Adopted September 2020

Equity Leads Equity Leads are LCPS teachers in each school who support equity activities within their respective school. Their responsibilities include: 1. Collaborate to develop school improvement goals to implement instruction in a culturally responsive manner in every classroom. 2. Collaborate with school-based administration, school counselors, etc. to implement strategies that advance educational equity and eliminate discipline disproportionality. 3. Assist in the facilitation of Professional Learning on racial consciousness, implicit bias and culturally responsive instruction in schools and its impact on student achievement. 4. May be asked to provide consultative support on affinity group formation in collaboration with affinity group staff advisor or school counselor.

Equity Ambassadors Equity Ambassadors are students from each middle and high school. Their responsibilities include: • Meet 4-5 times a year with the Equity Director, Equity Supervisor and additional adult leaders in the division. • Hear the concerns of their peers, represent their voice and provide input to the adult leaders to address their concerns.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

9 Action Plan to Combat Systemic Racism In July 2020, the School Board adopted the following action items in the Action Plan to Combat Systemic Racism. Some of these steps on the journey have been completed while progress on others continues.

Completed/Finalizing Actions: • Prohibiting the wearing/flying of flags, images, or symbols on LCPS property that represent racist or hateful ideology. • LCPS will develop and implement a culturally responsive instructional framework. • LCSB will consider the potential renaming of the Loudoun County High School mascot. • LCPS will maintain a list of resources on the LCPS Equity webpage. • LCPS will formally apologize for the history of operating segregated schools. • Finalize the Protocol for Responding to Racial Slurs and Hate Speech in Schools.

In-Progress Actions:

• LCPS will collaborate with the Black community to establish an interpretive display or exhibit. • The Superintendent, Cabinet and members of the LCSB who are on the Equity Committee will meet with LCPS staff members of color.

Ongoing Actions: • Finalize the comprehensive equity plan. • LCPS staff will complete mandatory professional learning related to equity. • The Superintendent’s Cabinet and LCSB will participate in their personal continued professional learning to build equity literacy and racial consciousness. • LCPS will collect qualitative data regarding racial incidents and use social media to amplify student voices.

• Finalize revisions to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between LCPS and law enforcement.

Continue our work collaboratively with our stakeholders.

• Revise Policy 7560 Professional Conduct. • LCPS will implement measures to reduce racial/ ethnicity discipline disproportionality. • Implement measures to increase the diversity of the applicant pool and the population of admitted students at the Academies of Loudoun. • LCPS will revise hiring protocols, practices and resources for hiring managers.

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Share regular updates with the School Board, community and staff. Remain flexible to support the needs of our students, staff and community.

Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

10 Multi-Tiered System of Supports Multi-Tiered System of Supports is an evidencebased instructional framework comprised of practices and interventions aimed at supporting the needs of all students. This holistic approach addresses academic, behavioral and social emotional needs through the approaches of Response to Intervention (RTI), Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and school mental health.

Welcoming, Inclusive & Affirming Environment Engagement & Challenge Through Deeper Learning

Culturally Responsive Instruction Culturally Responsive Instruction is: ■ a mindset that understands and respects students’ cultures, histories and experiences ■ a way to center student culture and experiences in the curriculum ■ a stance and disposition including:

• engaging in self-reflection

• valuing language and culture

• having high expectations

• honoring families

• focus on deeper learning and critical thinking

Inclusive Curriculum & Assessment

Supporting the Whole Child • Social emotional learning • Restorative and trauma-sensitive practices

• PBIS-Prevention and Intervention Behavioral Framework • Student leadership and affinity group • Parent partnerships and education • Unified mental health teams • Community partnerships

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

11 Professional Development Recruitment

Equity in the Center

Human Resources and Talent Development (HRTD) has undertaken a number of initiatives to diversify the LCPS workforce so that it more closely mirrors the diversity of our student population.

Equity in the Center is an ongoing series of trainings offered to teachers and administrative staff to help them:

These initiatives include: • Restructuring job fairs and interview teams • Holding diversity recruitment events • Establishing “Grow Your Own” programs • Conducting recruitment events at HBCUs • Training hiring managers

• understand how low levels of equity literacy and racial consciousness impact our students’ experience; •

apply best practices that close opportunity gaps and sustain welcoming, affirming, and inclusive environments; and,

• learn how to access and leverage countywide resources to be more responsive to our community.

• Creating a Diversity Champions Recruitment Network

LCPS has seen a 14.3% increase in the proportion of ethnically and racially diverse licensed staff members from 2017-18 to 2020-21.

LCPS has seen a 55% increase in the proportion of ethnically and racially diverse licensed new hires.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021

12 Commitment to Community LCPS is committed to

A Path Forward Together. We’ve come so far in the equity journey, but we have not yet reached the end. What we want to do is to share our commitment to the community with you. We commit that we will continue our work to make progress on the Detailed Action Plan to Combat Systemic Racism and the Comprehensive Equity Plan. We will continue to make sure our instruction methods and our staff reflect the stories, cultures and understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion that help make our students successful. We will regularly update you and the community on our progress even as we continue our professional development on the subject of equity. We’ll continue to do our best to attract diverse talent whose own experiences will relate to the shared experiences of our diverse student body. And, we make you this promise. We will continue to listen to our students on this subject. They are growing up in a much different Loudoun County, and a much different world, than we did. We want to equip them to succeed in the world of the future with an education that includes more than just the basics. Their successful futures demand more – and LCPS is here to help them on that journey.

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Loudoun County Public Schools

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Promise and Progress Report on Equity 2021