The mission of the Monona Grove School District is to enhance achievement for all students by cultivating a desire for learning and instilling social responsibility.
We will achieve this by:
- Building positive relationships among students, staff, parents, and community.
- Working together to inspire and engage students in meaningful learning opportunities by using research-based practices to address individual academic and social/emotional needs.
- Providing a safe and healthy environment that fosters respect and culturally responsive practices.
- Attracting, retaining, and developing a diverse, high-quality staff.
- Using resources efficiently and effectively.
Despite decades of educational reform and federal mandates, the United States continues to see growing inequities among students. The Monona Grove School District has been working for several years to disrupt the systems in place that allow these inequities to persist in our own schools. There is always more work to do--the job of creating equity for all students is never complete. The guarantee of equitable opportunity, access, and outcomes is a focus of our strategic plan: "Staff will recognize and effectively respond to personal, implicit, and systemic biases and barriers that limit access and opportunities in order to ensure an equitable learning environment and school community for all students and families."
When we talk about equity in Monona Grove School District, what do we mean? Equity doesn't mean everyone gets the same of something. In Monona Grove School District, equity means every students gets what he or she needs in order to be successful. Whether it's a higher level of challenge or extra support, each student in every classroom gets what is needed. And they get what they need in the classroom with their peers.
Over the last several years, the District has moved toward ICS for Equity (Integrated Comprehensive Systems). Developed by UW-Milwaukee professor Elise Frattura and UW-Madison professor Colleen Capper, ICS for Equity provides a framework and process for whole-systems change. ICS advances the learning of all students. Students currently succeeding not only continue to succeed but achieve more. ICS address racial inequities and the range of inequities across race, ethnicity, social class, ability, gender, sexual/gender identity and their intersections.
ICS Equity includes an accountability system via the Equity Audit that measures equity progress and serves as a continual improvement feedback loop to the ICS Equity work. ICS Equity is based on 45 years of equity research.
There are four cornerstones to ICS Equity:

Cornerstone 1: Focus on Equity A focus on equity guides all team decisions. To develop a focus on equity requires a through understanding of the educational history of marginalization, a shift from deficit vs assets thinking and practice, advance our own identity development across differences, apply the equity research, complete an equity audit, and develop Equity Non-negotiables.
The Monona Grove School District Non-negotiables are here.
Cornerstone 2: Align Staff and Students Staff and students are aligned guided by the Equity Non-Negotiable of proportional representation. All staff share expertise through co-planning and co-serving teams in support of all learners.
Cornerstone 3: Transform Teaching and Learning These teacher-based teams co-plan and co-serve™ through identity relevant™ teaching and learning practices that are grounded in the most current research.
Cornerstone 4: Leverage Policy and Funding All district policies, procedures, and funding are aligned with the Equity Non-Negotiables and federal and state legislation is leveraged to eliminate inequities.
If you want to learn more about how we view equity and the work we are striving to achieve, check out this webseries called Five Moore Minutes. The series creator, Shelley Moore, breaks down these concepts and puts them in easily understandable terms. In this video, Moore describes the continuum of learners and what transforming education means, here the evolution of inclusion, and here she describes "the end of average."
Cornerstone image and ICS Equity is © 2017 Elise M. Frattura and Colleen A. Capper. All rights reserved. You may not reproduce, modify, or distribute this work without written consent from the authors. Please email icsequity@gmail.com to obtain such permission.
|