0130P - Exhibit A: Step-by-Step Guide

Step by Step Guide

Equity-Driven Decision-Making 

 

 

 

Summary

1. Ground yourself in the work (Center)

2. Assemble your diverse team based on your initial understanding of the work ahead (Connect)

3. Review the 5C Process and ask the Questions for Equity-Driven Decision-Making.  Within that process and questions, teams should explore the following sub-steps: (Center, Consider, and Create)

a) Identify the problem and understand the constraints

b) Develop predictable processes centered on co-design principles

c) Reassess who else might need to be engaged in the work

d) Develop a robust communication plan depending on the level of community engagement required (Use the EDDM Spectrum of Community Engagement)

e) Develop a high-level timeline with key milestones, decisions, and dates

4. Apply historic realities and current contexts towards fulfilling the district mission (Create and Commit)

5. Identify and describe support needed for successful implementation (Create and Commit)

6. Clearly define success and what it will look like (Create and Commit)

7. Review the 5C process and ask the Questions for Equity-Driven Decision-Making (Connect and Consider)

8. Re-engage with the broader community to member check and review data and conclusions. (Center and Commit)

9. Review the 5C process and ask the Questions for Equity-Driven Decision-Making (Connect and Consider)

10. Establish a process to reflect and review ongoing implementation with an eye towards success criteria. (Commit)

Details

Step 1: Take stock of your biases and ground yourself in the work (Center)

To “ground yourself” prior to doing the work means to take stock of your specific biases, to reflect on how those biases have revealed themselves in other similar settings and processes, and to take concrete steps to ensure you show up ready to be a generous contributing member of the group. Concrete steps may include journaling prior to engaging the team’s work or having a conversation with a critical friend to identify areas where power and privilege unintentionally show up in your interactions with others. Be prepared to share evidence of the grounding work you have done.

Prompts/Questions to Consider Prior to Meeting or Making a Decision:

When thinking about yourself and how you show up in teams, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Consider your own power and privilege.

2. Consider your personal racial journey, your lived experience(s), and personal biases.

3. What is your lived experience and your personal connection to the problem you are working to solve?  To what degree does a decision like this influence your own life?

4. If your own experience is limited, what are you doing to further your understanding of and connection to those who will be most impacted?

5. How do all of these parts of yourself show up in your work with other people (e.g. do you unintentionally take up too much air time or do you fail to invite others into the conversation or do you get defensive when confronted with personally challenging questions)? Make a plan for how you can mitigate how your power and privilege shows up in diverse spaces.

When thinking about your team, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Consider the power dynamics of the people you want to have at the table.

2. As the team working on this, what is the collective experience and understanding in the room?  If it is limited, who else should be invited or what will you do to expand your understanding?

3. Do you feel you have the right mix of people involved to understand the population, issue, and groups you wish to serve? 

4. What gaps are at your table?  What steps could you take to correct for that? 

Step 2:  Assemble your diverse team to ensure a diversity of perspectives are present (Connect)

Best practice has shown that when decision making is collaborative, those impacted and affected by the decision may have more buy-in and understanding of a final decision, because if structured well, those impacted were involved in decision-making.

Things to consider as you build your team:

• How many people are present who have direct experience with being impacted by the issue you’re trying to resolve?
• Which students been invited to join the team? Have you selected them?  If students were not included,  why not?
• Who, from the district, is on the team? Do they have the expertise and experience to speak to the district’s history with this issue?
• Who, from the community, is on the team? Do they represent both the impacted members of the community and the over-arching racial, socio-economic, ethnic, and linguistic demographics of the district? If not, why not?
• Have you lowered the barriers to community members to attend meetings, access central documents, and participate in the ongoing discussion?

Step 3: With your team, work through the “EDDM questions” (Center, Consider, Create)

Reminders for facilitators as they work through the process:

• Realize that power and status are always the uninvited guests sitting at the table, especially when there’s a diversity of perspectives and identities present at the table. How will you norm expectations around what an equitable conversation looks like to flatten hierarchies that may prove problematic to the work of the team.
• Equitable group work involves more than ensuring the content is seen through a prism of equity. Group dynamics, and the extent to which a group functions and interacts equitably is also important. Be mindful of the following as you consider how the team will work through the questions over time: 
  • Who is documenting the work and is it always the same person? How is the work of the team shared equitably? What predictable roles are needed to ensure the team runs smoothly?
  • What processes have you built in to ensure people have an opportunity to check in with each other prior to discussing the content of the meeting?
  • What feedback loops have been established so members of the team have the opportunity to raise concerns about the way the process is progressing?

As teams work through the EDDM questions, they should embrace the complexity that comes with that work. The following topics and questions below are meant as reminders to teams to keep an eye on these parallel concerns and complexities that can sometimes surface in the process.

Identify the problem and understand the constraints.

Getting clear on the core of the problem is crucial to the development of elegant and durable solutions. Make sure all members of the team come to an agreement on the issue or problem the team is trying to solve. Time should be built into the process for identifying and articulating the constraints and limitations prior to identifying the levels of stakeholder involvement. Constraints may include legal or contractual parameters and timelines, quantity of available funding or funding mechanisms, and other logistical information that should be known when identifying a problem. When these constraints are known upfront, stakeholders and those impacted by decision making may have a better understanding of why decisions make include the levels of involvement presented.

Questions to Discuss and Document:

1. What is the intent of the policy/plan/budget/curriculum (the work?)? 

2. What problem/opportunity does it address/solve? 

3. What are the objectives?

4. What are the limitations (e.g. timing, budget, legal and contractual requirements?)

5. What are the dependencies and interdependencies)

6. What considerations for alignment with other work will be needed to ensure successful implementation? 

Develop predictable processes centered on co-design principles.

During the data gathering process, there may be an opportunity for co-design with stakeholders.  Co-design is the practice and process of actively working with preexisting relationships between district staff and communities/families for the purpose of creating shared values and designing a process to make decisions.  Co-design communities can be a valuable source for gathering understanding of proposed district discussions.  

Elements of co-design include:

1. Build relationships & theorize around shared values.

2. Design and develop tools, practices, processes, and other solutions that push beyond the status quo.

3. Enact or pilot these solutions and collect data on what happens.

4. Analyze & reflect on what was learned, in order to revise theories and designs.

Reassess who else might need to be engaged, at what level, and for what purpose.

If needed, identify perspectives, experiences, or expertise that needs to be recruited to the team. If additional people are needed, develop a system to onboard them to the work and a process for bringing them into the community of the team. The more stakeholders are involved, the more time should be intentionally carved out to include meaningful stakeholder involvement.

Questions to Discuss and Document:

1. Who are all the stakeholders impacted (directly and indirectly) by the work?

2. Which student groups (e.g., racial/ethnic, students with disabilities, English language learners) are most affected by this?

3. Consider the level of decision being made as well as the constraints (or limitations) of the project, and match levels of engagement accordingly.  The higher the level of decision, the higher the level of engagement should be for impacted groups.  When in doubt, default to a higher degree of engagement (consult or partner) (see the EDDM Spectrum of Community Engagment)

Develop a robust communication plan depending on the level of community engagement is involved.

Refer to the “EDDM Spectrum of Community Engagement in District and School Decision Making” document to establish a plan for how those in the broader community (e.g. students, teachers, families, community members) will be kept abreast of the progress the team makes and the extent to which the broader community will be engaged throughout the process.

Questions to discuss and document:

1. How can you successfully communicate to the public reasonable expectations for how they will be engaged as it relates to this project and/or process?

2. Who has the final decision making power and how will that impact what engagement with the broader community look like?

3. In what ways can you (or should you) use the district’s existing communications infrastructure to inform the broader public on what’s happening?

Develop a High-Level Timeline with Key Milestones, Decisions, and Dates.

Collaboratively develop a high-level timeline with key milestones, decisions, and dates. Distribute the workload equitably keeping in mind that for some people, in particular the community members, homework assigned outside of meeting times constitutes free labor.

Questions to Discuss and Document:

1. What are the key phases, milestones, actions, and decision points of the work?

2. Who will lead the key phases, milestones, actions, and decision?

3. Complete the High-Level Timeline 

4. Communicate to stakeholders

Step 4: Apply historic realities and current contexts towards fulfilling the district mission (Create and Commit)

Central to putting forth a plan for change should be an argument for how the plan aligns with the core values present in the district’s vision and mission statement and the district’s strategic plan. A strong argument will speak to the history unearthed by the EDDM questions, will speak specifically to the concerns of those most impacted by the issue or problem, and, at best, will be co-written by members of the team. Return to the key terms document as a resource.

Questions to Discuss and Document:

1. What were the guiding values or principles used to create this policy/program/initiative/curriculum/budget/proposal?

2. How does this align with the District’s mission, vision, values, and current strategic and annual plan?

3. How does this account for the history and current realities relevant to race, racism, disabilities, poverty, English language learners, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and learning opportunities and outcomes?

4. How does this result in preventing, reducing, or removing barriers (e.g., emotional, financial, programmatic or managerial concerns, or unnecessary mandates) to more equitable outcomes?

Step 5:  Identify and Describe Support Needed for Successful Implementation (Create and Commit)

Including training, support, measurable outcomes and realistic timelines.  Remember to consult with the people who will be doing the work, including educators and support staff.

Consider and Discuss:

1. What are our available resources to help with this process?

2. Consider the level of employee skill and will.

3. Strategize with leaders and supporters of the implementation; When an influential user supports (presents) the process publicly and describes how it benefits them, it can inspire other team members to adopt the process on the strength of their testimony.

4. What do trainings (PD) look like (webinars, workshops, presentations), and who will provide those? What is the expected timeline for implementation from training to use?

5. Define objectives, then revisit them to ensure they were accomplished.

6. What does support look like for those beginning to understand how to apply Equity-Driven Decision-Making?

7. Show users the benefits and rationale for adopting a new process. Showing how the process ties into BSD goals

8. BSD should establish a systematic approach and supporting protocols and techniques to provide comprehensive documentation of activities, including the development and maintenance of relevant policies, procedures, and practices. 

9. Consider areas of challenge such as legalities

10. Enact all relevant policies and procedures for specified tasks and functions, document all practices

11. Establish monitoring/data mechanisms/outcome indicators

12. Record and justify preservation strategies

13. Set up feedback mechanisms or performance indicators to support problem resolution and negotiate evolving requirements between developers of critical criteria and those using it in practice

14. Is Equity-Driven Decision-Making use mandatory or encouraged for all staff? Does it include BSD volunteers and/or others who are overseeing projects?

Document:

15. Assign specific roles that users will play in process

16. Clearly explain the steps

17. Complete Support for Implementation

Step 6: Clearly define success within the team and to the broader community (Create and Commit)

Co-develop a definition for success with members of the team with an imagined timeline for when success can be achieved. Be specific.

Questions to Discuss and Document:

1. What would a successful process look like for this policy/program/initiative/budget/proposal?

2. What would a successful product look like? (outcomes, implementation)

Step 7:  Review the “5C Process and ask the EDDM questions (Connect and Consider)

Step 8:  Re-engage the broader community to check and review data and conclusions (Center and Commit)

Step 9:  Review the “5C Process and ask the EDDM questions (Connect and Consider)

Step 10:  Establish a process to reflect and review ongoing implementation with an eye towards success criteria (Commit)

District leaders/facilitators will establish a process for keeping the team and broader community informed on the progress of the project and process. This process should include robust feedback loops, periodic meetings to get feedback and input, and a predictable way to share data with the team over time. Ongoing tweaking and adjustments should be expected and accounted as well as a clear communication plan to keep team members updated.

Discuss and Document:

1. Would someone be able to identify outdated procedures, where and to whom would that information be sent?

2. What is the process for reviewing any suggested updates, and what is the timeline for those reviews and updates?