Equitable Practices

The School District of Springfield Township is very excited to partner with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium in order to conduct the 2nd Equitable Practices audit. This fall, the MAEC will engage with students, families and staff members, review data and documents, and create a comprehensive audit and recommended next steps for the district. In preparation, we have developmed an Equity Action Plan in Review document that will help guide our upcoming audit work and look forward to providing additional resources in the near future.

This summer, all district teachers had the opportunity to attend an optional half-day training on Equity. Outside experts presented on trauma-informed classrooms, discussing politics in today's charged climate, and microaggressions. These trainings provided our teachers with easy to implement strategies and expanded knowledge on topics of interest. We had a great turn out for the summer months and everyone left with new tools and information!

On Wednesday, September 11th, our clinical team, certified school nurses and health and PE team received a CHOP Gender Care Clinic training. This training shared best practices for working with students who identify on the LGBTQIA+ continuum. Our team was able to ask questions, learn new information, and build a relationship with CHOP representatives.

Our high school is a proud participant in the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit's Dreaming Forward program. High schoolers from around the region are working together to create new opportunties for equity, inclusion and belonging. In their monthly meetings, students will learn about leveraging leadership, making responsible and impactful decisions, and bulding relationships with peers and advisors. We are very excited for our students to have this opportunity and can't wait to hear their ideas.

On October 23, 2024, an Equity Action Plan update was provided at the Multicultural Parents Association meeting. Attendees heard about Year 3 EAP goals and how we are meeting and exceeding our goals. An overview of data shared at the October Academic Affairs committee was also presented and the district provided updates on the upcoming audit following our first three years in the current Equity Action Plan.

In mid-October, students in grades 3 through 12 participated in our Fall 2024 Belonging Survey. Students answered 19 multiple choice questions and 1 open-ended question about their sense of belonging in the district and the Springfield Township Community. Here are the comparative results shared recently in the MPA Equity Action Plan Updates.

The School District of Springfield Township is pleased to present the 2024-2025 family information series, "It's Tough to Be a Parent." Mark your calendars for our upcoming events!

• Microaggressions: November 13th at 6:30pm (Registration Link)

• Have You Had the Conversation?: December 4th at 6:30pm (Registration Link Coming Soon)

• LGBTQIA+ Allyship: January 29th at 6:30pm (Registration Link)

• 21st Century Teens: February 19th at 6:30pm (Registration Link Coming Soon)

• Social Awakening with Max Stossel: April 1st at 6:30pm (Registration Link)

• Cannabis, Kids, and Solutions for Anxiety: May 21st at 6:30pm (Registration Link Coming Soon)

All events will be held via Zoom. Please register to receive the link.

Recognizing the diversity of our community, The School District of Springfield Township is committed to and accountable for advancing equity and excellence for all of our students. We, in the School District of Springfield Township, endeavor to provide equitable opportunities for high level, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences for each and every student, regardless of racial/ethnic background, economic condition or other dimension of identity or difference.

We recognize that in order to achieve Educational Equity we must apply principles of fairness and justice in the allocation of resources and work toward the elimination of institutional barriers to access and opportunity. We aim to ensure that funding, policies, practices, and initiatives will enable every student to receive what they need to maximize their success. In order to foster growth toward equity, we must engage in continuous reflection and ongoing measurement of our efforts.

Our district is a proud member of the DVCEE, Delaware Valley Consortium for Excellence and Equity, an organization sponsored by the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Springfield Township is proud to continue our membership and work collaboratively with the 37 other districts in the Greater Philadelphia region to enhance equitable educational practices for all students.

For more information on DVCEE, please visit their website.

Year 3 of our Equity Action Plan has started with a flourish! As we near the finish line for the district's first EAP, we continue to put best practices into place, learn about student needs, and delve into data to make actionable plans for progress.

One of our major projects has been the building review of student acheivement data. Data sets have been broken down to better understand how underperforming groups score on assessments and how to close achievement gaps. Our team has reviewed various data sets paying close attention to students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Further work in the Equitable Practices committee has helped buildings delve into various data sets to explore student belonging and acheivement and how they intersect.

Additional administrative work has focused on helping new students and staff members feel at home in Springfield Township. New students now benefit from a defined checklist that provides for tours, ice breaking activities, and introductions to key staff and support. Staff who join our team outside of the summer will not benefit from a half day workshop that will help them acclimate and learn more about Springfield Township.

One of our greatest points of pride is our student voices! Across all buildings and dimensions of identity, our students come together to share their feedback. Our superintendent and assistant superindent meet with their building student advisories monthly. In our middle and high school, our students have joined together to create affinity groups, attended DVCEE student workshops, and held multiple events to share their culture with others. Our students are the future and their are starting to shape it through their work in our schools.

As we flow through our final year in the first Equity Action Plan, we have already started the planning for our next three years. Springfield Township will be working with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium (MAEC) to start our audit process that will help develop our equity goals for 2025-2028.

We are extremely proud of our work here in Springfield Township and we hope that you are too!

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, Superintendent, Dr. MaryJo Yannacone, presented a comprehensive review of Year 2 of the Equity Action Plan goals and how our cumulative work has positively impacted the district.

If you were not able to attend the Board presentation, you can view the video HERE or check out the slideshow HERE.

Overall data from Year 2 Student Belonging Surveys

• Ensure that access and opportunity yield measurable outcomes (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Collaborate with parent organizations to develop a roadmap for decision-making K-12 (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Explore scholarships/reduced fees, and sibling childcare to improve access to extracurriculars (Complete)
• Create systems of support so that families, students and staff members new to the district learn and understand how to navigate systems (Complete)
• Identify, review, and report on primary indicators of growth/achievement (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Provide enrichment opportunities at the elementary level after school (On-going)

• Create a system for the collection, review and dissemination of relevant data (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Elicit feedback from students, staff, and families (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Create a K-12 course overview with language accessibility (Complete)
• Simplify and focus our communication to families (Complete)
• Improve our website's accessibility and ease of use/clarity (Complete)
• Train our MTSS teams to utilize the MTSS process to improve our systems of identification/readiness (Complete and embedded in practices)
• Utilize an online platform for feedback from students and families (Complete and embedded in practices)
• Continue to communicate and implement recommended strategies for recruitment and retention of a diverse, representative workforce across the district (On-going and embedded in practices)

• Adopt and enforce an Educational Equity Policy (Complete)
• Identify administrator responsible for conducting review and analysis of data and leadership of EAP (Complete)
• Communicate the purpose and goals of the EAP broadly and consistently (Complete)
• Support conversations in the classroom that help students to be prepared for difficult topics and conversations around equity (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Improve safety for marginalized students, including students of color and LGBTQ+ students (On-going)
• Utilize analytics to assess the impact our communication has on students and families (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Create feedback/communication system for parent teacher conferences (On-going and embedded in practices)
• Provide training for ALL district staff on equitable practices that are able to be implemented in the classroom and across district offices (On-going and embedded in practices)

The following information is shared with families to help strengthen equity conversations in the home. Please note that these resources are not shared in the schools. However, we encourage families to use these resources to engage your children in conversations around equity in the home.

In an era when the battle for equity is as fierce as ever, the voices that advocate for the dismantling or dilution of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work are growing louder. On August 30, 2024, The New York Times added to this chorus with an essay questioning the efficacy of DEI initiatives on college campuses, proposing instead a “new pluralism” that seeks to broaden the conversation while sidestepping the productive discomfort that often accompanies DEI work. Yet, this proposal, while seemingly progressive, is emblematic of a deeper resistance to the very confrontations necessary for actual progress.

As Ibram X. Kendi reminds us, “The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it” (Kendi, 2019). DEI work, thus, requires courageous confrontations—the bold and necessary engagements with uncomfortable truths and systemic injustices, undertaken to foster meaningful change and promote equity. This work is not just about diversity for diversity’s sake but about justice, accountability, and transformation. To retreat into a safe, sanitized version of inclusivity is to abandon the courage required to confront the entrenched systems of inequity that still define our institutions. We cannot afford to revert to a comfortable silence, for it is in silence that injustice festers and inequities are allowed to endure.