Equitable Access ensures that opportunities for support are clearly identified and aligned with the school’s holistic vision for readiness. Decisions prioritize student strengths, interests, aspirations, and needs, promoting fairness and inclusivity. A transparent and widely known process identifies students requiring support consistently. Decision-rules for placement, progress, and exit are firmly established and consistently applied, fostering equal opportunities for all students.
Statements Depicting the Ideal Pursuit of a School
- Opportunities for support are clearly identified and aligned with the school’s holistic vision for readiness.
- Decisions prioritize student strengths, interests, aspirations, and needs.
- A clear and consistent process to identify students requiring support is well-defined and widely known.
- Decision-rules for placement, progress, and exit are firmly established, widely known, and consistently applied.
Key Resources
Quotes
“That’s what equity is about. It’s about having what you need, in the way that you need it so that you can become successful in whatever it is that you’re trying to do.”- Tara Cooper
“The right to have access to opportunities and resources- a fair and equitable society provides equal opportunity for all.”- Dr. Palto Datta
“In my travels all over the world, I have come to realize that what distinguishes one child from another is not ability, but access. Access to education, access to opportunity, access to love.”- Lauryn Hill
“Our society cannot afford a two-tiered system in which the affluent have access to superior education, while everyone else is subjected to a dull and incoherent classroom experience. Academic excellence, educational equity, and fairness demand a strong foundation of knowledge for all learners.”- E.D. Hirsch Jr.
Reflection Prompts
- How do you create an environment where students enjoy learning because it feels purposeful and valuable to them?
- Write down thoughts on how your team is engaging students to share their experiences and what they need from school.
All Toolkit Resources
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5 Ways to Support Your School Community: Integrating Trauma Responsiveness Into Your MTSS Framework
During a Crowdsource Coffee on May 10, 2023, Portico coaches and school leaders discussed strategies for rethinking systems with a trauma responsive mindset. Through their combined experience, they shared examples of challenges and best practices regarding integrating trauma responsiveness into their MTSS frameworks.
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Student Surveys: Evaluate and Elevate Your School’s Tiers of Support
In this segment, he shares examples of how focused and meaningful student surveys can help keep MTSS efforts, programs, and vision on-track to ensure ALL students are thriving and successful.
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Expansive Opportunities: Evaluate and Elevate Your School’s Tiers of Support
In this segment, he explains the concept and provides examples of how expansive opportunities—in addition to traditional MTSS tiers of support—ensure ALL students are thriving and successful.
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Develop Leaders of Today and Tomorrow: Create Student Leadership Opportunities
Create leadership courses and set up structures for students to take on meaningful leadership roles, empower their voices, and engage them in decision-making processes that impact the students, families, and staff.
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Purposeful, Valuable Learning: Foster Learners With Autonomy and Drive
This activity will assist your team in learning how to foster students with autonomy, drive, and endurance through instructional routines and school rituals.
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Exceptional Situations, Exceptional Students: Networks to Support Students in Intensive Circumstances
The academic and behavioral needs of most students are met through a continuum of support within a school. Some students, however, require out-of-system support due to extreme or intensive circumstances, such as long-term hospitalization. This January 27, 2023, Crowdsource Coffee focused on the proactive building of relationships between schools, districts, and other organizations to provide…