St. Paul Public Schools will start holding monthly public meetings to examine racial inequities in the district and make recommendations for eliminating them.

Superintendent Joe Gothard will lead the standing committee, along with a school board member and the district’s assistant director for equity. Fifteen additional members will be appointed, representing teachers and school leaders, students, parents and the larger community.

“It shows our community, it shows our staff … that we really are committed to equity in our district,” Gothard said.

The school board voted unanimously Tuesday evening to establish the committee.

“I’m excited about this committee because that is the driving issue in our district,” Mary Vanderwert said.

Board member Steve Marchese said he’s eager to hear actionable recommendations.

“The diagnosing of the issues is not going to be the hard part,” he said.

BIENNIAL GOALS

The superintendent said he hasn’t decided in advance what the committee will study or how it will go about its work. But he suggested one possible activity is an “equity audit.”

The committee, according to the school board’s resolution, will be tasked with:

Identifying and examining disparities.

Making “adaptive and actionable recommendations” for addressing inequities.

Identifying three to five goals and objectives every two years.

Outlining specific steps to meet those goals.

SILVA’S LEGACY

Efforts toward racial equity were a hallmark of Valeria Silva’s superintendency, which ended with a buyout agreement in 2016.

Related Articles St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff

2020 National Blue Ribbon Schools recognizes three in east metro

Athletes Helping Students event aims to collect school supplies for St. Paul kids

Some large MN school districts moving toward in-person classes after starting with distance learning

St. Paul schools superintendent gets high marks, but board wants progress on equity, enrollment, student achievement Silva required all employees to take equity training, closed programs that segregated special-education students from their peers, and pushed principals to stop suspending so many students of color. Her initiatives produced little in the way of measurable results, however.

Amid budget cuts the year she left, Silva folded the stand-alone equity office into the Office for Teaching and Learning in an effort to better connect the training to teachers’ daily practice.

Gothard said equity is too important to be left to a single staff member.

GAPS HAVE GROWN

A survey in advance of the 2017 superintendent search highlighted racial equity as the No. 1 priority among board members, non-school staff, district partners and the community at large.

Gothard said he continued to hear that message in a series of public listening sessions his first year on the job.

“Closing disparities in achievement has been the front line of nearly every community engagement session I’ve had,” he said.

Racial inequities are evident throughout the district:

In 2017-18, black students got 74 percent of all suspensions while accounting for just 31 percent of total enrollment.

Math scores are down significantly among all racial subgroups since 2011, but students of color have fallen farther than whites.

The overwhelming whiteness of the district’s teachers has been a long-standing concern. And last month, a group of African-American religious leaders complained that numerous departing black secondary principals were not replaced with new black administrators.

ETHNIC STUDIES

To some, the district’s curriculum is part of the problem.

In February, student leaders asked the school board for a mandatory ethnic studies course for all high schoolers.

But Gothard, who’s not convinced that’s the way to go, took criticism from board members earlier this month for his response.

Gothard said the district instead is working to get more students enrolled in elective ethnic studies courses; making instruction districtwide more culturally relevant; and gradually revising middle school social studies courses.

As an example, assistant director for strategic planning Karen Randall said, the district no longer teaches “manifest destiny.” Instead, seventh-graders learn that U.S. expansion to the West Coast in the 1800s was the result of “very deliberate actions on the part of those who have power.”

Board members Marny Xiong and Jeanelle Foster urged district leaders to adopt the students’ recommendation. Related Articles St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff

St. Paul schools superintendent gets high marks, but board wants progress on equity, enrollment, student achievement

St. Paul district reports enrollment drop as pandemic moves school online

Distance learning deal with St. Paul teachers calls for ‘regular’ — not necessarily daily — live teaching

St. Paul City Council debates halting charter school bond requests for six months

“I think that we’re not doing enough for our students and we are not hearing them, at all,” Xiong said at an Aug. 7 meeting.

Foster was frustrated that the district is updating its social studies curriculum just two courses at a time.

“I get angry and enflamed and incensed because there’s every excuse in the book to continue doing what (we’re doing), and that’s not what’s been working for kids in the St. Paul Public Schools — at least not the majority of them,” she said.