Equity Planning and Implementation 

The covid pandemic has impacted us in so many ways. Suffice it to say, we have all had to adapt quickly and adjust as the world has evolved. As much as anything, the past two years have clarified the equity challenges that our schools and many of our children and families face every day.

As fondly as we may recall our pre-pandemic life, there is no going back. Linda Darling-Hammond and her colleagues at the Learning Policy Institute noted as much recently,

Our current system took shape almost exactly a century ago, when school designs and funding were established to implement mass education on an assembly-line model organized to prepare students for their “places in life”—judgments that were enacted within contexts of deep-seated racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural prejudices. In a historical moment when we have more knowledge about human development and learning, when society and the economy demand a more challenging set of skills, and when—at least in our rhetoric—there is a greater social commitment to equitable education, it is time to use the huge disruptions caused by this pandemic to reinvent our systems of education. The question is: How can we harness these understandings as we necessarily redesign school? How can we transform what has not been working for children and for our society into a more equitable and empowering future?

Restarting and Reinventing School: Learning in the Time of COVID and Beyond (2020)

The New Jersey Consortia for Excellence through Equity (NJCEE) are here to assist us in addressing these realities. In 2017, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania collaborated with NJASA to continue to develop networks of school districts around the state, currently in the South, Cape May County, Central, Northwest and Northeast regions.  We are committed to working together to support and nurture a mission to transform the lives of each and every one of our students positively by preparing them for success in post-secondary education and in life, especially the diverse children who may have traditionally struggled in their systems.

We are partners and a strong collective voice who can help gather the resources, thought, and energy needed to create and sustain meaningful educational change to the benefit of each and every one of the children we serve locally and statewide. The Consortia offer the best of what we know of research and informed practice – the ideas and strategies that help district leaders effectively address their critical local challenges of securing and sustaining high level student achievement and ultimately equity in attainment and life success for all our youth.

The 2021-22 NJCEE program featured the following elements:

• Relevant session topics including achieving equity through family engagement, shaping and maintaining a culture of dignity, dismantling racial bias, engaging student voice, and using the power of language;
• Virtual half day sessions allowing for unlimited participants from each full member district right from their homes or offices; and
• Member fees that can be covered using federal funding.

We are planning another exciting and productive series of activities for the coming year. We hope you will contact NJASA staff to investigate this opportunity and take your equity planning and implementation to the next level!