Newsletter
Racial equity work has moved into a new phase at the Early Learning Division (ELD).
In March 2015, the equity subcommittee of the Early Learning Council finished their work of developing recommendations and a toolkit in order to guide the Council’s actions on implementing the Oregon Equity Lens. The resulting report was approved by the Council, and the Division launched a process to act on those recommendations.
Leadership members at the Division recognized that racial equity work is complex at any scope, and particularly so when addressed at the system’s level. To structure this work, the Division hired a consulting firm called Mass Ingenuity that specializes in large organizations wishing to either a) create non-existent but necessary capacity (capability breakthrough) or b) perform at a higher level in existing responsibilities (performance breakthrough). The equity breakthrough has been defined as a capability breakthrough for the Division.
To get a baseline snapshot and track progress toward greater equity and inclusion, the Division decided to use two tools created by the Coalition of Communities of Color and the Center to Advance Racial Equity at Portland State University: The Tool for Organizational Self-Assessment Related to Racial Equity and The Protocol for Culturally Responsive Organizations (for the baseline and progress tracking, respectively).
An equity breakthrough team was then convened with staff from across the Division to create a breakthrough plan (see image).
The team developed the ultimate objective (box 1 of Breakthrough Plan image) of becoming an equity driven early learning system, and then generated a list of issues that they saw as barriers to that outcome or opportunities to be leveraged, with data to support their selections (box 2). The team then used the selected four barriers and opportunities as springboards to define what would exist if those barriers weren’t there or the opportunities were leveraged (box 3 of Breakthrough Plan image), and officially agreed on The Protocol as the foundation for measuring targets (box 4, 5 of Breakthrough Plan image).
The four opportunities became four strategies for becoming an equity driven early learning system. Each strategy now has a dedicated team of staff and ELD partners. These four teams are the equity action sub-teams, which were launched June 10, 2015.
The sub-teams are now in the process of drafting one-year work plans, using the equity subcommittee report and the domains in The Protocol as a guide. These plans will be done by August 10 and go to the validation team for review. This team will also consist of Division staff and external partners.
We hope to provide more updates on the progress of this sub-team in the near future. If you would like to contribute your time or expertise to this work, please email Peter Blume (peter.h.blume@ode.state.or.us) for more information.