School District Reports On Advances In Diversity And Equity Work

Amherst Regional Public Schools’ Assistant Superintendent Doreen Cunningham presented briefly on district diversity and equity work at the April 6 meeting of the Regional School Committee. In past years a more formal update would take place in November, but this year it was postponed in lieu of pandemic needs that took precedence. 

Cunningham described that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education data profile “shows that we’re doing a really good job at slowly increasing our number of staff who identify as a person of color in the region.” She added that retention has also improved.

Secondary level administrators are working on curriculum changes that prioritize diversity, accessibility, and telling “the real history”, according to Cunningham. 

Approximately 130 regional staff members have attended presentations by Joe Truss, a San Francisco-based principal who focuses on dismantling white supremacist culture in education. Other recent keynote speakers include Gholdy Muhammad, Dr. Bettina Love, and Kimmy Carlos. Muhammad continues to work at the high school, and Carlos plans to return to speak to families and caretakers on the intersectionality of trauma and race.

Two professional development days this year were dedicated to diversity and equity conversation. “This is the first time in a long time that [faculty] were able to stay either at grade level cohorts or content area cohorts,” said Cunningham. “So across the vertical alignment they were able to just have conversations, and find out what each person is doing in regards to racism and reviewing their own bias.” 

Cunningham also noted book group and community reading occurrences. Books have included This Book is Antiracist by Tiffany Jewell and and How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. 

Amherst Regional Middle School has partnered with Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) to promote parent involvement in and understanding of their child’s education. Human Resource investigations have decreased since its implementation, according to Cunningham. 

School committee member Peter Demling questioned the success of previous anti-bias training in the district’s hiring process, namely changes in the inclusion of screening and interviewing committees. The evident increase of staff who identify as people of color indicates success, said Cunningham. 

“It’s not as though we targeted people of color to say oh we’re gonna make sure to do x, y, and z with them,” she said. “We still have the screening process where there are no names and of course there’s no race listed.”

She also noted that some interviewees have expressed appreciation towards the district hiring process. “I had [a] gentleman who came in for an interview today, and he said he wished other places would revamp their hiring process to be similar to ours because our process shows our commitment to social justice and equity.” she said. 

The full recording can be found here.