Rachel Wegner

At my school, we needed to talk about race. We had danced around race talk, inviting in one guest speaker or another for the past few years, listening but not producing any knowledge of our own.

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We were struggling with attrition, attendance and engagement. Our student achievement data showed racial discrepancies in achievement. With 80% students of color and 60% white staff, it was time to address race. 

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Learning to Talk About Race: The Story of One School's Journey tells the story of what we did and the success we achieved over the course of a year. Over a dozen hours of carefully planned, intentional professional development led by a committed equity team allowed us to do honest self-work, share revelations and develop genuine engagement from staff. Relationships within our school have improved and teachers' awareness of race and bias in their interactions with students has increased.

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With a strong professional development structure in place, improvement science helped to fine tune four key systems to support this work:

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This work culminated in a workshop proposal and video pitch to present at Courageous Conversations About Race National Summit, in collaboration with Chris Millow from High Tech High Media Arts.

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