Lawrence USD 497 school board

A group of students from Lawrence High School last week presented the school board and district with a list of demands intended to improve racial equity in Lawrence’s public schools. Among them was the request that all teachers undergo mandatory equity training — a goal, district leaders have said, that is shared by administration and already well on its way toward completion.

Since 2009, the district has provided Beyond Diversity training to more than 1,500 employees, school board members and community partners. At the onset of the school year last fall, the Lawrence school board aimed to have 95 percent of the district’s teachers trained before the 2017-2018 school year. And, as of last week, they’re nearly there, with 90 percent of teachers having now partaken in the two-day seminar that proponents say builds a foundation for deinstitutionalizing racism and eliminating racial achievement gaps.

“That’s just the first step of what we do ongoing to support our equity initiative,” said Anna Stubblefield, the district’s assistant superintendent of educational support. “That is an expectation, and if that’s not clear, that’s something we need to make sure is clear.”

What has been made clear in recent months, school board members have noted, is that some in the community may not be aware of the district’s efforts in this area. Calls for expediting or expanding Beyond Diversity training — as well as a public list of teachers who have yet to attend the workshops — were issued at a school board meeting in November, echoing similar demands from the LHS Intertribal Club during last week’s Community Conversation on racial equity.

At that November meeting, Lawrence High School science teacher Andy Bricker alleged that several “veteran” educators in the district had yet to undergo the training, and he demanded to know why.

The “why” isn’t so simple, though, Stubblefield said. She stressed that all teachers — along with every district employee, from the cooks and custodians to the school nurses and librarians — are required to attend Beyond Diversity training.

“People don’t have the option. It’s not a matter of if you will go, it’s a matter of when you will go,” Stubblefield said.

One of the many challenges faced by the district in providing training to all employees, teachers included, has been the limited number of slots available during each two-day training session.

“Each building is given a certain number of slots,” Stubblefield explained. “So when we look at the number of people who are left in different buildings, based off their slots, it’s feasible that when there are only five people left and I have five slots, it’s your turn.”

Except much of that scheduling depends on principals at individual buildings, she said, notwithstanding extenuating circumstances such as maternity leave or family emergencies. Some schools with smaller populations, including several of the district’s elementary schools, have already trained 100 percent of their certified staff (teachers, nurses, counselors and other certified professionals) in Beyond Diversity. Schools with larger populations, such as the district’s two high schools, “may take a little longer” to reach that number, Stubblefield said.

To help speed up the process, the district has added two additional training sessions during summer break, and is also considering a date in April. Three sessions have already taken place since last fall, with another scheduled for next month. Workshops in June and August have been added to better accommodate positions for which securing substitutes would be difficult during the school year. Lawrence, like other districts across the country, is grappling with a shortage of substitute teachers and paraeducators. Other workers, such as those in food service or building maintenance, also face a limited pool of subs, Stubblefield said.

Adding those two sessions, though, costs the district. Teachers who opt to attend Beyond Diversity workshops during the summer must be paid for their time, as per the district’s “mandatorily negotiable” contract with the Lawrence Education Association, the local teachers’ union. The option of simply tacking professional development days onto the beginning or end of a school year in order to move more teachers through Beyond Diversity is, due to LEA contract terms, essentially a non-option, Stubblefield said.

Still, with a handful of training sessions to go before the start of the 2017-2018 school year, Stubblefield and others in the district have said they feel confident about achieving that “nearly all” goal. The idea, she said, isn’t to reach 100 percent. With new hires joining throughout the school year, and only one Beyond Diversity seminar scheduled each year specifically for these new hires, the number will always be in flux, Stubblefield stressed.

“I think it’s important to note that just because you attend this training, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to come in with all the answers,” she said. “This training is the foundation to having our staff being exposed to becoming racially conscious and entering into those conversations.”

There’s been a lot of talk about race in Lawrence lately. Last fall’s controversy over alleged racist remarks made by a South Middle School teacher dominated the Journal-World’s education coverage for much of the semester. Other concerns included the lack of nonwhite teachers in Lawrence classrooms, or, more recently, the district’s findings last month that students of color are more likely to be identified as learning disabled in comparison with their white counterparts, among other inequities.

These elements are at once connected, “in the big scheme of things,” and also not, Stubblefield said. Racial achievement disparities, for example, play into a larger, centuries-old narrative of institutionalized racism in this country, she added. And these issues likely won’t be undone by Beyond Diversity training, but at least, Stubblefield said, it’s a start.

“There’s no single answer. There’s no quick fix,” she said. “And we — the district, the administration, the school board — have made this commitment, and we will continue to press forward and continue to improve to ensure that all our students have the same opportunities afforded to them regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation and economic background.”