GOAL:
Bainbridge Island School District will ensure our students feel honored, welcomed, respected, and connected. We are committed to embracing and honoring our island's diversity and creating a vibrant and inclusive community. We will engage our community in becoming an anti-racist organization ensuring equitable access to learning, opportunities, and resources for all students.

To reach this goal, we will:

1. Lead with equity in our district's budget, policies and practices. 

1. Adopt a school board equity policy. 

2. Work to ensure that district-level decisions include and honor the voices of our stakeholder groups. 

100. Allocate funds to support equity goals. 

500. Conduct an independent equity audit of school district policies, practices and curriculum.

2. Create an inclusive community where all students feel safe, are honored and see their identities represented. 

1. Ensure that staff are aware of and addressing implicit bias and are able to respond to discriminatory comments in class (e.g., race, ability, gender, identity, orientation, socioeconomic status). 

2. Implement initiatives that appreciate and honor all students in books, curriculum, projects and activities starting in elementary school (e.g., books representing disability, race, LGBTQ, neurodiversity, etc.; LGBTQ alliances, allyship programs).

100. Provide facilities that are welcoming and accessible to all (e.g. consider gender-neutral bathrooms).

3. Eliminate institutional barriers to maximize human potential, ensuring equitable access to learning, opportunities, and resources for all students. 

1. Use proportionality indicators to measure student access to curriculum and resources (e.g., higher education, Special Education referrals, Highly Capable Program, discipline). 

2. Eliminate institutional barriers that lead to disproportionality in course enrollment and program participation (e.g., ensure advanced-level classes reflect the diversity of our student population). 

4. Implement representative curriculum across all classrooms with fidelity to a district-wide vision. 

1. Use an equity framework to evaluate our curriculum. 

2. Use curriculum materials and resources that are representative of a diverse community and create connections between and within groups. 

100. Include equity, antiracism, diversity, inclusion and justice curricula throughout K-12. 

500. Evaluate the feasibility of introducing an American Ethnic Studies course to the curriculum.

5. Ensure that the BISD professional community has a diverse workforce of committed professionals who are passionate about student learning, innovative, equitable and collaborative in their practice, and who are fully supported.

1. Use an equity lens when making hiring decisions.

2. Develop recruitment and retention plans to create a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community.

100. Provide opportunities to increase workforce diversity among people who live in Bainbridge and/or already work within BISD.

500. Require staff training related to topics promoting inclusion such as anti-racism, white privilege, culturally responsive practices, socioeconomic status, disability, and LGBTQ.

6. Promote student, family and community engagement.

1. Ensure student, family and community voice through real influence, decision-making, ownership and partnerships.

2. Coordinate and communicate with families on an ongoing basis.

Equity, Anti-Racism, Inclusion, Diversity & Justice is one of the three focus areas of our District Improvement Plan. To learn more, click here to read the complete plan.