Letter: Locals Work to Mend Montclair's Achievement Gap

The following letter was submitted to Montclair Patch by Achievement Gap Panel Chair, Jonathan Simon. The letter was also sent to Montclair parents and caregivers.

To Montclair Public Schools Parents and Caregivers,

As we reflect on what was an incredibly busy 2014, we are excited about the opportunities ahead of us in 2015. The District’s Achievement Gap Panel (AGAP) first met as a volunteer-led panel in January 2014, as a recommendation from Dr. MacCormack to independently look at the achievement gap in Montclair.

About 35 volunteers have been working together to look at a number of outcomes in the K-12 pipeline, including but not limited to, student performance, suspension rates, tracking, and demographics of Advanced Placement (AP) and honors classes.

During this time, we have worked diligently to review, assess, and analyze some of the challenges and disparities that exist in the District. Over the course of 2014, we took stock of our analysis and hosted Community Sharing Forums in October to engage with parents, caregivers, and other concerned citizens on addressing these challenges. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with a brief update of the ongoing activities of the AGAP.

First, I want to thank those who attended our Community Sharing Forums. Our Committee walked away from those Forums with a clear understanding of the true texture and depth of the issues that exist within our academic community.

We had an open and direct conversation with parents, students, teachers and caregivers about their experiences in the District and it is very clear that inequities exist and are pervasive.

While we approached these sessions with quantitative data from the District, which highlight some of the performance gaps, especially between racial/ethnic student groups across grades K-12, among other trends, your voices amplified the urgency and passion to make some meaningful changes in our academic culture.

We are also appreciative to those who took the time to send us emails expressing concerns with the same thoughtfulness and urgency as those expressed in the Forums.

As we consolidated all of the feedback, we discovered that there are clear themes and patterns of behavior that require further discussion and understanding. To ensure that we have clarity on many of the issues discussed, we have either led/participated in or will participate in the following conversations:

1) Principal Sessions: We have held two sessions with the principals in our District and engaged in a conversation about the gaps that exist within the Early Grades (K-6 grades) and Secondary Grades (7-12 grades).
2) Special Needs Forum: We participated in the December 2nd, “Race and Special Education Forum”, hosted by the NAACP and SEPAC, and we will continue to participate in the ongoing convenings of this group.
3) Montclair High School Forum (MHS): We are currently working with the Administration at Montclair High School to organize a student-facilitated session focused on creating opportunities to improve the MHS experience. The intent of this session is to empower our students to be change agents within their own academic community and actively participate in the process.
4) Teacher Engagement (scheduled): We are planning to participate in a MEA Representatives meeting, under the leadership of Gayl Shepard, which will feature teachers and District staff.

Based on the current areas of focus, we are targeting a first quarter 2015 release of our recommendations. We understand that there is an urgency with this work and we are intensely focused on challenging the status quo and submitting recommendations that will change the arc of success for future generations of Montclair students.

In our assessment, we have observed that the issues are not isolated to socioeconomics, as some would believe. We have disparities that are impacting our children across several dimensions of diversity. This is a complex issue and one that requires our panel to challenge our own ‘blind spots’, as we undertake this work.

While we know that Montclair is a community that values diversity and seeks the best for all of its students, we are not disillusioned to the complexity and difficulty of discussing and addressing issues with racial undertones.

As a final step in the first phase of our work, the AGAP will present the recommendations to Dr. MacCormack and the Board of Education, as well as host a future Community Sharing Event, which will be focused on reviewing the recommendations with caregivers and parents.

We are very encouraged by the strong support and commitment that we have seen from Dr. MacCormack. The achievement gap is a priority issue within the District’s strategic plan and this plan values the importance of innovation, collaboration and partnership. As I have stated before, addressing the achievement gap benefits our entire District and we thank this community for its continued support, as we strive to ensure that we are living up to the promise of Montclair.

Regards,
Jonathan Simon
Chair, Achievement Gap Panel

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