A County-Wide Commitment to Achieving Excellence through Equity

School administrators have always carried full plates of responsibilities. When the pandemic hit, we loaded even more on top, each addition coming with substantial weight knowing students, staff and community health were at risk. Balancing those plates became harder. Some things fell off, and some were pushed to the very edge. Those were difficult decisions, but even harder, perhaps, was deciding what to leave on. In Cape May County, we found ourselves making the tough choice to keep a brand-new equity initiative on our plates. We made the call as a county, and that cohesiveness is what has kept the initiative intact a year into one of the most challenging times in our careers as superintendents.
 

We began talking about our ambitions to improve equity within our individual districts during our Cape May County Association for School Administrators meetings. Each of our definitions of equity varied, as did our needs and ideas of success. However, we all agreed that we could – and needed to – do better as a county. One indicator was our high score – the third highest of all 21 counties – on the Adverse Childhood Experience and Scale. We also reached a consensus that we needed to call upon experts to help us move meaningfully toward improved equity.
 

Ocean City School District already had a relationship with the New Jersey Consortia For Excellence Through Equity (NJCEE). The primary challenge in bringing all 15 Cape May County districts into the consortia was budget. Resources varied greatly from one district to another. A secondary challenge was location. The southern arm of the NJCEE was housed at Rowan University, at least an hour’s drive, one way, from Cape May County.

We devised the solution to pool our resources and join as a county. This was a novel proposal for NJCEE, so we set out, together, to sketch the details of how this relationship would work. We settled on a fee with the NJCEE that provided us with two sessions – one at the beginning and one at the end of the school year – with all superintendents in the county, in addition to four training sessions for our districts to open to staff. These sessions focused on "Organizing for Equity: Building Our School Systems' Capacities to Nurture the Success of All Students."
 

To ensure access for all districts in our county, we created a fee structure requiring each district to pay a flat fee, and then an additional sum based on enrollment. Getting each district in Cape May County to participate was our first goal, and we met that before we even got started with the heart of our work. We then set out to define the goals we would focus on with NJCEE. These helped us move in the same direction, with shared understanding:

• Contextualize and operationalize our definition of equity
  
  
• Leverage our resources to benefit all students in the county
  
  
• Build connectivity between issues and data
  
  
• Create space for sharing collective knowledge
  
  

The pandemic hit right before we were scheduled to begin our partnership with the NJCEE. And, while we did consider putting the partnership on hold, we quickly realized the work couldn’t wait. As we began teaching in new formats, we relied on technology access and family support more than ever; the equity gaps grew wider. This was the time to devote more energy and resources to improving equity in our schools and across our county.

One year into our contract with the NJCEE, and we share significant outcomes:

• All districts have committed to continuing this initiative into the 21/22 school year.
  
  
• All districts have made equity a district goal and are working internally with their own Equity Committees to incorporate much of what they learned this past year into long-term planning to reach that goal.
  
  
• Teams from our districts have engaged in professional development with nationally recognized experts.
  
  
• Participants have met colleagues from other districts in training session breakout rooms, where we have shared ideas and built connections that will further strengthen our work.
  
  
• We have expanded our knowledge base and have begun developing a common vocabulary around equity.
  
  
• We have started to expand our circle and are now collaborating with groups outside of education, such as Coalition for Safe Communities, Cape May County School Boards Association, and the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, which will broaden our impact.

We are grateful to our colleagues across the county for not letting this work fall off their plates. We also appreciate the willingness of the NJCEE team, specifically Dr. Robert Jarvis, NJCEE Director, and Dr. Mark Stanwood, Director of NJASA Residency Program, to create a new membership option. In the year ahead, we aim to strike a balance between introducing new initiatives while keeping the focus on equity. By working together, we will have greater success with structural reforms and cultural shifts needed to truly achieve our shared vision for excellence through equity. We will realize that vision when we are supporting and elevating each of our young people in ways that lead to both school and life success.