Our students bring a variety of backgrounds and experiences to our classrooms, and we want our staff to do the same.  Our commitment to inclusion across race, gender, age, religion, identity, and experience inspires our work.  Our strength as a community is derived from each individual’s unique perspective, and we create environments where students and staff are encouraged and supported to be their whole selves.  

SSD Equity Statement

In Sunnyvale School District, we believe that equity leads to learning without limits.

We commit to:

• Working together with families, staff, students, and the community to address the individual support that each student requires in order to flourish. 
• Mitigating structural barriers and biases that hinder students’ ability to thrive and creating a system where success is not determined by identity factors.
• Engaging in reflective practices, including two-way communication with all community members, evaluation of resource allocation, and examination of policy and practice.
• Empowering all learners by recognizing the cultural assets that students and communities hold in order to provide a tailored education with support, access, and opportunities so they reach their full, unique potential. 

SSD Equity in Action

In SSD, we do not see equity as a stand-alone box to be “checked’,  but rather a lens through which we are constantly examining our beliefs and our work, and translating our findings into concrete actions embedded into our practices, policies, and systems.  

Frameworks we use in this work include:  

• The EASE Project - Equity and Access Studies in Education (UCLA) 
• Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (Zaretta Hammond)
• Social Justice Standards (Learning for Justice)
• Social, Emotional, and Cultural Anchor Competencies (Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child)
• CASEL

Some of our progress thus far include:

• An equity statement was written with input from all stakeholders to make explicit our commitment
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Training for all administrators and coaches in-process for site staff:
• My name, my identity
• Understanding culture - inside/out
• Understanding bias - inside/out
• Impact in the classroom - inside/out
• Moving dependent learners to independent learners
• Focus on English Learners
• District and Site Instructional Leadership trained and received yearlong coaching on anti-racist practices
• Site Leadership and Coaches engaged in collaborative walkthroughs using Zaretta Hammond's "Ready for Rigor" Framework
• Social-emotional cultural lessons in development for (K-2, 3-5, 6-8)
• All staff working with students trained in trauma-informed practices
• All training is reinforced and supported through leadership teams and through ongoing professional development and coaching.
• Policy reviews for LGBQTIA policies and practices, Recruitment and hiring, Curriculum pilots, EL progress monitoring, Assessment, Summer School/Extended Day