Boulder Valley School District: Building A Culture Of Respect And Safety

Press release from the Boulder Valley School District:

December 13, 2021

Addressing disproportionate discipline and school safety with a holistic approach

Addressing inequities within the district is one of the cornerstones of All Together for All Students, BVSD’s strategic plan. All parts of the plan, and in particular the equity piece, were developed from hours of conversations with staff and families and a deep dive into student data. Those investigations showed that inequities exist not only in BVSD’s persistent achievement gap, but also in how student behavior is addressed.

“We are reacting to feedback we’ve heard directly from our families,” Superintendent Rob Anderson explained when talking about BVSD’s equity work. “They tell us that their kids are being treated differently. When we look at the data, it backs up what they’ve said.”

Dr. Anderson added, “As we looked at our data during the development of the strategic plan, it became apparent that there were inequities in the way we were administering discipline. Our students of color were being given different consequences than our white students for the same behavior, and that’s not right.”

What is Disproportionate Discipline?

This quantified and documented difference in how students of color and white students are disciplined is what we refer to as “disproportionate discipline” in the Boulder Valley School District.

How BVSD is Responding

Dr. Anderson explained that after hearing from families, BVSD staff began to dig in to figure out what needs to be done to be culturally responsive in how students are disciplined–in how staff work with them to reduce disruptive behaviors and keep kids in school. Keeping kids in class is most important for reducing achievement and opportunity gaps.

“We are moving forward with purpose and intention when we think about how we change our practices to best serve all kids,” Anderson said.

What does it mean to be culturally responsive?

According to the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCREST), “cultural responsiveness is the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of your own culture as well as those from other cultures.”

Building Capacity in Staff to Improve Discipline Practices

To support teachers and administrators in correcting inappropriate student behavior fairly and consistently, BVSD has developed a discipline matrix to identify appropriate interventions and consequences for improper student conduct. The matrix applies to minor issues such as disruptions in class, up to more significant behaviors that would call for more serious consequences such as suspension or expulsion. Teachers and administrators have been receiving training on how to use the matrix as well as in effective classroom management practices, implicit bias and culturally responsive practices. This work is supported at the district level with revised discipline policies and increased transparency and standardization in discipline data collection and reporting.

Building a Culture of Respect and Safety

To be culturally responsive as a district BVSD needs to hold respect and safety as the cornerstones of school cultures. BVSD is working in a number of ways to make this happen.

Resilience Training | Over the past few years, many BVSD educators have received training in RISE, a whole-school social-emotional learning program that builds trauma-responsive school climates and promotes resilience in staff and students. The RISE approach includes a set of practices and strategies that build social-emotional and academic competencies. Learn more about the RISE program.

New Restorative Practices Coordinator | BVSD’s new restorative practices coordinator, Janelle King, hit the ground running when she arrived at the district in October. She has been out speaking with principals and their teams to understand what restorative practices are already happening in BVSD, and she’s finding that many BVSD schools already employ some of the elements of restorative practices daily. For instance, intentional efforts by school leadership and staff to not only welcome students and parents at the start of the school day, but to identify kids that might need extra support through those interactions can be a restorative practice. Similarly, many BVSD teachers start off class with a daily “check-in” or “huddle.”

King explains that restorative practices are a simple way that adults can show students that someone cares for them – on a daily basis. She describes it as a framework, a way of being and connecting with others. By investing more time in relationships initially, less time is spent on conflict and behavior issues later on. Over time, the aim is to build trust within the group and a normal structure for sharing feelings, so that everyone can be open and honest.

The goal of using restorative practices is to build a warm and welcoming culture within the classroom that is built to handle the occasional disagreement. In some cases, however, the situation is more serious and can call for a more formal process – restorative justice. In a restorative justice process, the person who caused harm and the person who was harmed sit together. The person who was harmed expresses what happened and why they feel hurt and what they need to be able to grow from this process. The person who caused the harm is allowed to express their thoughts about the incident. Both parties come away with agreement items so that everyone can grow, learn and gain something from the process.

Read more about Janelle King here.

WATCH VIDEO: New Vista High School students share their experience with Restorative Justice

Title IX Coordinator | BVSD is strengthening its support for students when it comes to sexual harassment, including sexual violence prevention, following some high profile criminal investigations into alleged off-campus sexual assaults and a series of Title IX complaints.

The district hired a new Title IX Coordinator, Elizabeth Francis, in addition to taking a stand and several actions against sexual violence:

• Updated policies
  BVSD has been working to strengthen sexual harassment policies (GBAA-English/ GBAA-Spanish and JBB) and investigation procedures (AC, AC-R, AC-E2 English). (AC, AC-R, AC-E2 Spanish).
  
• Improved reporting system
  BVSD has continued to improve training for staff, and to clarify the district’s systems and supports for students impacted by sexual violence. Students are encouraged to report sexual violence to an adult they trust, whether it is a school counselor, administrator or law enforcement. Reports can be made verbally or in writing. Written reports can be made using the Board's complaint form, AC-E2(English)/ AC-E2 (Spanish) or by email to TitleIX@bvsd.org.
  
• Links to resources
  BVSD has worked to make information readily available on the district and school websites, including through the Sexual Violence and Harassment Prevention and Help for Students webpages.

Francis, who joined the district this fall, says her goal is pure and simple.

“My hope for the work is that students feel supported at school, teachers and administrators feel like they’re supporting students, and that conversations around what that means happen with a growth mindset .”

She says that BVSD has taken the first steps on a long road, by acknowledging that there is an issue.

“School districts should talk about it, name it, identify it, give it power and give it a space,” Francis said. “It is a partnership. There has to be a partnership between the students and the school so that the school knows what students need and the students feel supported.”

A big part of her role is serving as BVSD’s Title IX Compliance Officer, which means that she is responsible for guiding educators through the process of investigating reports of sex-based harassment and discrimination, as well as educating everyone about Title IX, including statutory limitations it imposes on schools and the school district’s purview in this area.

Read more about Elizabeth Francis

Bullying Prevention

BVSD has been working in a variety of ways to prevent bullying for a number of years. Since the adoption of All Together for All Students in 2019, the district has taken some significant steps to educate staff and students about preventing bullying and have made it easier for parents, particularly parents of color, to report it. In June 2020, the Board revised its bullying policy to include a process for investigating and responding to bullying complaints. At the start of the 2020-21 school year, teachers and staff received professional development for bullying prevention. In addition, units on bullying prevention have been incorporated into BVSD’s curriculum and were rolled out in the fall of 2020. Learn more about bullying prevention in BVSD.

New School Safety Advocates | Over the past year, BVSD worked with the community to develop a new position to provide another layer of safety for students. This fall, 10 School Safety Advocates (SSA) joined the administrative teams at all district schools. Bringing on the advocates is one step the district is taking to prepare for ending the School Resource Officer program in January 2022.

According to BVSD’s director of safety, security and emergency services, Brendan Sullivan, this will be a very student-focused position, working directly with students to build relationships of trust with the goal of helping kids be safe and feel safe at school, As such, SSAs will work closely with school counselors and mental health professionals and Student Services staff along with community partners to provide full wraparound services where needed.

The advocates will also be interacting daily with the administrative team to understand what concerns or issues there are at the school that are impacting safety or the feeling of safety. When there are concerns, they will work with the school staff to resolve the issues engaging in available resources to do so.Although they are part of the administrative team, they will not be responsible for disciplinary actions.

The SSAs will also play an important role in the school's emergency preparedness planning and have strong emergency management backgrounds. Helping with emergency preparedness functions and making sure school emergency response teams are well trained, know the plan and their roles. They will be a liaison with law enforcement when necessary, but will not handle criminal issues.

To prepare for working with students on a range of concerns, the SSAs participated in an extensive, 3-week training program. The program was developed, in part, based on suggestions from BVSD stakeholder groups and included topics such as:

• Mandatory Reporting & Safety Vortex
• Claire Davis School Safety Act
• Anti-bias/Cultural Competence
• Affirming Gender and Sexual Diversity
• CPR/AED/First Aid
• Crisis Prevention Institute training
• Title IX
• Standard Response Protocol/Reunification/Drills/Emergency Management
• Mental Health First Aid
• Restorative Practices
• RISE
• Bullying Investigations
• Safe 2 Tell

“We are continuing to work to transform the culture of safety in our schools,” Sullivan explained. “I do think this will make a huge impact. We have a lot of talented people who are dedicated to our students and making sure that we are correcting the problems.”

Read more about the School Safety Advocates in the Daily Camera.

Taking Care of Kids’ Mental Health

BVSD has long recognized the need for mental health support for students in schools, even at the elementary level. In 2017, BVSD began the elementary counseling program and expanded the number of mental health advocates in the district. This year, more mental health advocates were hired, bringing the total to 11, and joining a team of 29 counselors at elementary schools. These student support team members work directly with students and collaborate with

teachers and administrators to determine how best to support students. They also collaborate closely with parents and provide resources as well as direct support.

Learn more about what BVSD is doing to support students’ mental health.

More resources are available on the BVSD website.

Rethinking Law Enforcement in Our Schools

In November 2020, the Board of Education acted on the recommendations of the District Accountability Committee and the Equity Council and voted to end the School Resource Program. The recommendations came after months of discussion among parents, students, community members and staff in response to concerns shared by families of color that their students do not feel safe with police officers in schools.

Since then, BVSD has been working to revise emergency operations protocols and plans to ensure continued safety. Discussions with local law enforcement agencies to revise Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to define what the district’s relationship with the agencies will look like going forward are on-going.

Moving Forward

BVSD’s work on disproportionate discipline and school safety has been a holistic approach and it will continue to be flexible until all students feel comfortable and safe coming to school.

“We will continue to work on this until we are not getting the feedback we have been receiving and the data tells a different story than it has,” Dr. Anderson said of the district’s efforts. “The work we are doing is groundbreaking. We are just getting started, and we have a lot of work yet to do.”

Listen to district staff discuss disproportionate discipline on Let’s Talk Education.

This press release was produced by the Boulder Valley School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.