Equity In Action
Scott Brown, Molly Norris, Jennifer Radcliffe & Tanisha Schowalter, SHS Student Support Services

As members of the student support team, we are often able to see the full picture of the high school, including the impacts that ICS has on both students and teaching practices. In particular, we have witnessed departments working hard to ensure all students are exposed to challenging, rigorous curriculum, curriculum that can help them achieve their goals. We’ve advocated for departments to eliminate less rigorous courses, in order to accelerate achievement for all students. In addition, we advocated to eliminate prerequisite requirements for Advanced Placement courses, requirements that did not make sense for the content. We also encourage grading practices that do not penalize students disproportionately for not turning in assignments, recognizing that essential learning targets are a more important showcase of learning; these are only a few ways in which we advocate for equitable support for all students. All of these actions have helped level the playing field, providing more opportunities to students who may have experienced barriers to accessing curriculum. Student voice has also been prioritized, with more students seeing themselves in the curriculum, along with more opportunities to speak up. As student support professionals, we continue to advocate for tier one training that can help teachers differentiate instruction for all learners, including those with individualized education plans and 504 plans.
2) How has your specific work aligned with our equity work?
As student support professionals, our role is to advocate for students. ICS has helped all of us focus our attention on educational barriers that impact the whole child, finding ways in which we can provide flexibility and support for all. In other words, this means we encourage individual solutions to problems, solutions that vary for each child. ICS has helped focus our vision, recognizing that some students have experienced systemic and institutional discrimination, and as such, need more support. By advocating for students with other stakeholders, we are able to support students’ mental and physical health, as well as help them pursue their unique goals. We recognize that trauma and mental health disorders impact different populations in disproportionate ways, which helps us determine who might need further support. Destigmatizing mental health through classroom lessons, club meetings, and individual and group counseling sessions is also an important part of our work. Psychoeducation, through our comprehensive 504 and IEP process, along with parent seminars coordinated with our partners at Children’s WI, and classroom lessons focused on stress and mental health, reach more students and families, ensuring that access to knowledge about mental health is widespread and available to all.
3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
A really important step our department has taken in examining inequities is to focus on data–primarily failures and attendance. We utilize a team approach in our weekly problem solving team meetings, wherein the counselors, the school psychologist, and our associate principal look at trends in grades, attendance, and behavior, attempting to choose appropriate interventions. We often try to work with families to help mitigate barriers, including bussing, transportation issues, and other impediments to student success. Interventions include referral to outside resources (therapy, funding, etc.), in-house individual counseling, and group counseling focused on academic success and attendance as well as collaborating through the EMLSS process to provide students with the necessary tools to access classroom curriculum. We utilize research based curricula, like School Connect and Student Success Skills, to guide these interventions. We also meet as a district student support team to address issues that arise across schools, often focusing on ways we can be more equitable in our practices. This has included looking at disproportionality in special education, examining which students take different courses, ensuring wording in the Curriculum Handbook is equitable, and so on. Some of our team work to promote mental health resources for all through a local REDgen chapter, a group focused on destigmatizing mental health disorders. We also create our school’s weekly advisory slides, which focus on positive messages, coping skills, and adult check-ins. We also help develop department specific and whole group professional development. All of these activities assist in helping students feel a sense of belonging at school. We provide comprehensive postsecondary planning conferences to all juniors, focused on an individualized plan for the future. Finally, we continually work to learn more about our own biases and blind spots, through training, collaboration and professional development.
As student support professionals, we work with virtually everyone at the high school–teachers, administrators, pupil services staff, special education teachers, administrative assistants, and others. We also work with parents, students, and community partners, like Children’s WI. The way in which we influence change is largely through advocacy. We often advocate, on behalf of our students, for changes–changes in grading practices, flexibility for students struggling with trauma or mental health, and changes in policies. For instance, we have advocated for grade changes during COVID, to acknowledge that our kids were struggling with isolation, recognizing that mental and physical health were more important than academic grades. We also advocated for an advisory period, a place where students can get valuable information and also have time to decompress from their daily stressors. We advocated to remove barriers of entry to certain classes, ensuring that more students were able to take advantage of our many offerings. Ultimately, our goal is to help students, to provide them with opportunities in an equitable way.
Mike Joynt, Director of Teaching and Learning
1) From your perspective, what impact has the ICS planning/work had on students and/or the community so far?
In my former role as SIS principal and current role as Director of Teaching and Learning, the equity work that our district has engaged in has guided conversations around how we as educators impact outcomes for all learners. We have been more intentional about looking at data across multiple learner categories to determine if our vision of “equity, growth, and excellence for all” is working for all learners. The ICS work provides a framework through which we can self-reflect and examine our systems to identify where we are making progress and where we need to improve to better serve our learners. The framework also allows staff to collaborate with one another to share ideas and perspectives in order to create a system that ultimately produces more equitable outcomes for all learners.
2) How has your specific work aligned with our equity work?
A big focus for this school year has been to improve our Equitable Multi-Level System of Supports (EMLSS) process to be more proactive and responsive to student and teacher needs. This work is supported by our state’s Department of Public Instruction and is focused on creating equitable outcomes for learners by focusing on high-quality instruction, using data strategically, and providing opportunities for staff to collaborate around this work. The EMLSS process starts with teams meeting three times a year to look at the FastBridge screening data in Reading and Math in grades K-8. This data tells us how learners are making progress toward grade-level academic standards. The team that looks at the data includes teachers, principals, the school psychologist, along with math and reading specialists to identify specific skills with which students may need extra support. Each member of the team shares their expertise in how best to meet learners’ needs and the team develops strategies to support learners using high-quality instructional strategies. For learners, this means that their needs can be supported in the classroom instead of having to leave the classroom to work on these skills in a space that is segregated from their classmates. The time, commitment, and expertise that our staff put into this process has benefited many learners this year.
3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
Part of my role is to share data that we collect as a district with the School Board. This data includes state test results, progress monitoring data, and student engagement data. It is important for me to be able to communicate to our community what is working and where we need to grow in order to better meet learner needs. When reporting out on this data, we look for inequities across race, gender, disability, and socioeconomic status when possible. We address these inequities by creating a District Strategic Plan that communicates where we are working to grow. At the building level, we create Growth Goals that are aligned with the goals of the Strategic Plan and use the same data to measure progress. Finally, at the classroom level, teachers create student growth goals and professional practice goals based on the data they collect on a daily basis. Aligning our work in this way allows us to look at data and inequities from a district to classroom level and support one another in making progress toward our goals.
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
Last month, our School Board adopted Shorewood’s Collaborative Commitments for Equity (CCE) at the March 14th Board Meeting. This is an important milestone for our district as the CCE will drive our work moving forward. The process included Leadership Teams at all schools working with staff to communicate their CCE. Our district administrative team then collaborated to write the Shorewood School District’s CCE using the feedback from staff. Our CCE will also serve as District standards for operationalizing our work ensuring that our equity goals become realities for everyone in our learning communities.
Alexis McDowell, SIS Dean of Students

Emily Berry, Shorewood School Board Vice President

I think maybe the most powerful impact has been the consistency of taking a systemic approach rather than trying to resolve inequities and improve outcomes one at a time. Even if there's still trepidation and questions about specific implementation steps, I think we've moved past the idea that we can just take a one-and-done training and be done talking about educational equity. Inequities aren't weeds in an otherwise perfect garden - they are planted there and thrive because we continue to re-seed and fertilize them. That's the system we have to re-engineer if we want to see different results.
That's a long list, from talking about the ways we engage with community members (i.e. do we make it easy for everyone to reach us), to what I mentioned above about revising our policies and operating expectations. We never stop that self-examination around how we are moving the needle forward equity. In fact, we added that to our usual debrief questions, so if you're still awake at the end of our meetings, you can hear us talk about how we spent our meeting time and whether we missed any opportunities to promote equity and eliminate barriers to excellence and growth for all students.
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
Our board is very collaborative with each other and with our Superintendent, along with her cabinet. All of our work begins with asking how we are using our resources - our money, our people, our expertise and our time - to support high-quality teaching and learning for all students, and to what extent we're seeing the outcomes we expect. I think back to pre-pandemic times for one of the most powerful examples: In 2019/early 2020, we recalibrated our strategic plan to embed equity rather than making it a standalone element. We were lucky to have many staff and faculty join us along with community members and students, and we were able to set goals that still anchor our work today.
Sarah Kopplin, SIS World Geography Teacher

2) How has your specific work aligned with our equity work?
- 6th Grade: World Geography & Cultures "Then & Now": Drawing connections between ancient and modern worlds
- 7th Grade: Civics & Contemporary Issues
- 8th Grade: US & Wisconsin Studies/Civics 1924-1981
3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
Emma Zuehlke, EMLSS Implementer/Program Support & Cate Sebastian, Atwater Reading Specialist
1) From your perspective, what impact has the ICS planning/work had on students and/or the community so far?
Through our ICS work, the staff has committed to creating more inclusive environments for all students. We have been working collectively to meet the needs of all students academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally through instruction in the general education setting. As part of this work, we have examined our personal identities and how these identities impact our interactions with others and the decisions we make as educators. We have also looked at the systems within the district that have contributed to inequities and looked for opportunities to proactively address and transform these systems to create more equitable outcomes for all students. As a staff, we have challenged each other to reflect on our practices within our classrooms and larger school community in an effort to provide individual students with opportunities for support within their classroom setting before seeking support outside of the classroom.
2) How has your specific work aligned with our equity work?
The Equitable Multi-Level Systems of Support (EMLSS) process drives our work. At the center of the EMLSS framework are the strategic use of data, collaboration, and high quality instruction. In order to create equitable outcomes for all students, all layers of the support system framework must work in tandem. Using this framework has helped us make some impactful changes in our approach to literacy instruction in the primary grades. For example, as a result of our data team meetings, we noticed that many of the students identified for reading intervention support had gaps in their phonics skills and knowledge. We recognized the need for a universal approach for teaching these skills in a systematic and explicit way, so we implemented a phonics pilot for grades K-3 in the Fall of 2021. The pilot became the impetus for us to reexamine our literacy instruction as a whole; last summer, a group of teachers from Atwater, Lake Bluff, and SIS met to identify priority standards in English Language Arts and begin the process of developing common assessments for reading and writing units. By developing clear visions for teaching and learning, we are better prepared as a system to meet our goal of providing equitable outcomes for all students.
3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
Several years ago, a district Response to Intervention team was gathered to address the disproportionality and overrepresentation of Black students within special education. This team looked at root causes and possible solutions to create a more equitable learning experience for all students. In order to create a more objective process for identifying students in need of additional support, the team recognized the need for a data-driven approach through the EMLSS process. One of the outcomes of this work was the implementation of a universal screening tool (FastBridge) for reading and math K-8, which is administered three times per year. The FastBridge data provides grade-level teams with information that can be used in connection with other data gathered to design instruction for all students in their classrooms. We were also able to use the data to look at overall trends in student achievement and identify opportunities for our district to shift instructional practices, such as the implementation of a phonics program to systematically address the development of foundational skills in the early grades.
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
One of the strengths of Shorewood’s staff is their willingness to collaborate on a range of topics to the benefit of all students. Collaboration occurs in formal and informal ways throughout the school year and over the summer. For the past two years, classroom teachers and support staff specialists have been meeting as grade level teams to analyze data from multiple sources at regular intervals throughout the school year. At these data meetings, staff identify strengths and areas for growth for students. Using asset-based language, grade level teams develop plans for whole group instruction as well as opportunities to support small groups or individual students working towards specific learning outcomes. In our supporting roles, we are in constant collaboration with teachers to ensure the best possible outcomes for our students. This can range from something as simple as identifying common language for introducing a phonics skill to spending weeks together in the summer to develop units of study for reading and writing that align with our vision for student learning outcomes at each grade level.
Kelly Steiner, SIS Science Teacher

Sometimes it's hard to see the incredible progress that we've made, but this year when SIS was doing our review and revisit of ICS work so far, we celebrated the growth that has come from each step. We revisited our model of school that we created when we first embarked on ICS work, and saw all of the ways we have changed. We still have a lot of work to do, but it's also important to celebrate our growth. I am proud of us as a district for wrestling with the work that is so hard, but the right thing to do. We have made a lot of mistakes, but those are also learning opportunities and we can't make mistakes if we're not trying to move forward.
One of my roles in the district is a co-program lead for the induction program. We work with new teaching staff to support their growth as educators. Equity is a centerpiece of this work. Since working with Dr. Capper and Fratura, we have worked to improve our job postings to make sure that we're making it very clear that we're seeking people who are serious about doing the work of unpacking our systems and building a more equitable world. Our interview questions have changed to challenge potential hires to reflect on inequities and wrestle with the difficult work we're engaging in. As a result, our new hires have been absolutely amazing.
At SIS, we have been moving toward having collaborative planning time to co-plan to co-serve to co-learn. The Induction program works with the building lead mentor, the trained mentors, and district leaders to continually reflect on our program and improve it. Equity has become a centerpiece of all conversations at all levels, which is an incredible step and will help us to continue to move toward our vision.
Samantha Pietenpol, Lake Bluff Sixth Grade Teacher

3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
Jody Brooks, Recreation Department Director

The ICS work is in year three of implementation, so we are working on how we continue to inform the public about the work our staff is doing. The work continues to build our capacity to support students moving forward. The Rec Department sees how our equity work can give more accessibility to our students, our families, our community members, and our staff.
We pursue accommodations to make participation possible as much as possible. We do this on a case-by-case basis. Each situation is different based on the needs of the participant we are accommodating. We do our best to get everyone in the room, on the court, in the pool, etc. that would like to be there.
Katherine Myszewski, Elementary Band Teacher
1) From your perspective, what impact has the ICS planning/work had on students and/or the community so far?
The ICS work that Shorewood School District has been engaging in has had an impact on staff, as they have started to examine their identities, privilege, and systems that they are a part of. Although this work has started, equity is a lifelong journey where school staff are continuously reflecting on their practices and systems. I have seen many courageous and uncomfortable conversations happen amongst staff through ICS. The ICS work has had an impact on students because conversations around social justice, related to race, ethnicity, and gender are being held and welcomed within the classroom.
2) How has your specific work aligned with our equity work?
My work with Rainbow Crew has aligned with the ICS work because Rainbow Crew supports LGBTQ+ students. Members in the LGBTQ+ community are historically marginalized; thus examining systems and restructuring them to affirm LGBTQ+ identities is a necessary part of the ICS work. I chose to start Rainbow Crew because I saw a need for additional support for LGBTQ+ students at the elementary level. Shorewood High School and Shorewood Middle School both have student clubs that support LGBTQ+ students. When I started at Shorewood, this type of support did not exist at the elementary level. Through establishing Rainbow Crew, I wanted to create a safe place for students to feel comfortable talking about gender and sexual orientation. Rainbow Crew is an affinity group for LGBTQ+ students and allies at both Lake Bluff Elementary School and Atwater Elementary School. Rainbow Crew meets once a month to discuss various topics related to gender and sexual orientation. Students participated in activities, conversations, and even designed Pride Month posters which were sold at the Lake Bluff Student Market to raise funds for UNICEF. Between both schools, there are over 180 students involved in Rainbow Crew.
3) What steps have you taken to look at inequities within your systems? How have you tried to address these?
In my role as the Shorewood Elementary School Band Teacher, I have noticed the lack of a culturally responsive curriculum written for elementary band. This past summer, I wrote out the Shorewood Elementary Band curriculum in the form of a guaranteed viable curriculum. Marzano (2003) says that “a guaranteed and viable curriculum (GVC) ensures that all students have an equal opportunity to learn (OTL). Each student will have access to an effective or highly effective teacher, and access to the same content, knowledge and skills in each section or class.” The Elementary Band GVC is standards based and will create opportunities for all students to show their mastery in the music standards.
Part of having an equitable curriculum is having culturally responsive curriculum resources to support learning the standards. After reviewing past band method books used in Shorewood (a curriculum resource), I have also adopted a new curriculum resource for fourth grade band that is more culturally responsive. Many elementary band method books contain popular songs that are also minstrel songs (“Camptown Races” and “Jingle Bells” are a few examples). Minstrel songs were used in minstrel shows. Minstrel shows were composed of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that characterized people of African descent in a racist way through the use of blackface. Although these tunes are well known and are easy for beginner band students to learn, I wanted to eliminate these songs from the elementary band resources because their roots are steeped in racism. Thus, I have adopted “Habits of a Successful Beginner Band Musician” as a resource where all songs are screened for cultural responsiveness.
4) What collaboration has taken place within your sphere of influence to create different outcomes for the District?
Many staff members have collaborated with me to support Rainbow Crew at the monthly meetings. Additionally, with each lesson, I have created a caregiver guide that educates adults on the monthly Rainbow Crew topic. These documents were intentionally made to provide care and support to caregivers who in turn can provide care and support at home to the scholars in Rainbow Crew. The caregiver guides were designed by myself in relation to the monthly Rainbow Crew topic. The staff members that help with Rainbow Crew also review these guides and provide feedback. The Rainbow Crew caregiver guides highlight learning targets, new information learned, question prompts, and activities to extend learning. In the process of creating the caregiver guides, I learned the importance of supporting initiatives that are happening within the school building at home. In order for change to truly work, it needs to be a community effort. Thus, caregivers need to be educated about the initiative topics and how they support their scholars in the school’s work.
Outside of Rainbow Crew, I have collaborated with the previous Shorewood High School Band teacher, Bryan Kujawa, to discuss and review our band literature to work on programming more culturally responsive music.
Links to Rainbow Crew Resources:
Rainbow Crew Caregiver Letter
Rainbow Crew Meeting #2
Rainbow Crew February Caregiver Information
Rainbow Crew March Caregiver Information