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ICS for Equity in Action - Katy Thompson

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Atwater Elementary School third grade teacher Katy Thompson shares her thoughts on and experiences with the ICS for Equity framework so far this school year.

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what is your name I'm Katie Thompson what I currently he's at Atwater Elementary third grade first question is please discuss how ICS has impacted you personally and professionally so I see is it's definitely given me a chance to reevaluate myself both as a professional and personally you know I am not given the opportunity to do reflection on both myself as a professional and as an individual so throughout the experience it's giving me you know some discomfort some awkward conversations really diving into who I am as well as a person and as a teacher and I think teaching is such a personal profession we bring so much of ourselves into our profession so it's almost like that question is just as who I am right professionally and personally I also think that it's giving me the opportunity to evaluate myself as an advocate and Ally a member of society and then how I bring that in to Dodge acacian World ICS is also given the sense of urgency and obligation to really do some change right there's like there's so many things within our current location to some that are just not right there just not fair they're just not like with a ball you know so I yes has kind of showed us all those cracks within our current systems and it's given us the tools to really make some change venue biggest takeaway from the ICS. what has been your biggest takeaway from the ICS process the process the take away from it is the who are we doing this for withdrawal the conversations are all the discussions for all the slideshows and breakout rooms in Zoom you know who is this and that's our students both current and future I think you know throughout the discomfort throughout the throughout the tough conversations thinking it's all going to be worth it because we make the changes within our system within our profession within our teaching to give our students about her education that is more I could roll that is more relevant that is more just better for each and every one of them from your perspective how has ICS been used to create more Equitable systems within our schools are so I guess we're currently I think just within our first year we committed this journey of equity and we know that it's a lifelong journey it's not something that you know we can just do a couple of PD sessions for and then boom like we're good to go instead you know committing to the process is I think part of the beauty of icy eyes the currently in year 1 it was a lot of self-reflection so a lot of thinking okay who am I what how do I identify myself what are my practices within the education world and what are my beliefs you know both inside and outside application from there you know a lot of those cracks were shown So within our current education system we've found that it's not built for every student and it's not built for the students that are coming in our doors so how are we going to fix that and there's no easy answer but here we are in your wine making improvements the best way we can weather that you know taking an extra look at the resources and materials were using in our classroom duties author do these individuals that were showing that were putting on a pedestal do they just every student identified with that does every student see themselves in the learning that were doing so from my perspective I think that's how ICS is starting to make those changes because it's forcing us to REI stop and think okay what are we doing what have we doing and how can we make it better how is this work with ICS different from other initiatives you may have been involved in that's an interesting question so different initiatives from my perspective I am newer to the teaching world I'm not too far into my journey as a teacher so I've done a lot of like research and learning and writing about the different initiatives within the education world and to be honest none of them ever seem to truly stick so you have like an initiative you have like a trial. And then you know the staff for the team in charge of choosing the initiative kind of reflects on it to see okay as it's working or is it not work it's not working they pick a new one if it is working then they keep with it but then in a couple of years it's not going to work just because the changes that schools are making are not true changes to the system there changes to what we expect of students there. what curriculum we're doing it's not a change to the actual system that students are walking into every single day so I think ICS is a different because it's starting from the ground up or first dismantling the current systems because we know that they're not beneficial for all students from there we can then rebuild to create systems that are Equitable for all students cuz we want students to come into our schools feeling as though they are valued and appreciated our current system don't do that are purses make it easy for some students and put a lot of other students at a disadvantage what is a glow and or a grow with the ICS work I would say a glow for ICS work is the amount of time we take reflecting so every time something new with introduce world we are given time to really reflect on the information and then discuss it with one another and that makes feel much more effective much more real and bra even because we're it's the same thing we do in our classroom we don't just like a video and you're like all right now we expect students to learn and discuss and apply and then reflect so that's exactly what we're doing with a nice yes I do like other professional development opportunities have kind of just given us some books to read are some slides to look you know and then it's kind of like all right are you go what would I see I every single step of the way we're given something to learn something to apply and then when we come back in 2 weeks cuz usually are and every two weeks we then 10 reflect on it and see if you know the changes necessary it's almost like there's Improvement every step of the way rather than just at the end what work have you staff done to begin to eliminate inequities within our district so with the work that we've done in this year one of a lot of self-reflection up on our identity is our biases our own practices we had a lot of discussions surrounding how to make the learning that our students do real and relevant how can we make sure that everything is coming to a class or not feeling like like when am I going to use this or why is it so far cuz I think everyone can say they've had an experience like that in the classroom and that's not the goal that's not effective teaching us not affordable learning you know so some specific examples that we are trying to implement as a staff are y'all having those type of conversations with students about current events you know also implementing anti-racism practices really diving in to diversifying the materials were using in the classroom I know I can say for my first lunch if you shine a lot of the materials used to put people on a pedestal that should not be not have been put on a pedestal you're hearing from one perspective rather than all the perspectives so those are all different initiatives were trying to take to ensure that I could have learning is happening in our classroom along with how we talked about students right we want to have an asset-based language were talking about students who want to have an inclusive language when we're talking about students so it's really important that we're practicing that all the time to ensure our students aren't trying to be who they think they need to be there. They're just who they are and we can value and welcome and love them for that and this is the last question please share with us what else do they want people to know about ICS if there is something sure so if there's one thing that out of all of this that I want people it's that I see what is holding us accountable to the promise we make to students the second they walk into our schools we promised them that they will be appreciated they will be valued and they will be welcome for who they are as individuals so ICS is Trumbull for that because our current systems don't welcome every single type of individual not every identity not every race not every socioeconomic status our current systems were built for one specific type of person or what type of individual that there are so many different aspects of a person that are current systems or take into consideration you know so I think the people would I hope people understand why is yes it says hello animals that promise we make we promise that you are welcome here no matter what or who you are and we will teach you to the best of our abilities with Ed with an education that you needed and that will benefit you so we got to stay to that promise oh wow this is really good

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