PSESD Report to the Community 2020
Success For Each Child & Eliminate the Opportunity Gap by Leading with Racial Equity
Student Impact
Systems Impact
Agency Impact
Families feel empowered to partner with their child(ren)’s school.
PSESD wants to learn more about the experiences that families have with schools for their children who are in Kindergarten to 3rd-grade levels.
- A Letter to the Community
- About PSESD
- Outcomes-Focused Partners in Eliminating Opportunity Gaps
- Becoming an Anti Racist Multicultural Organization
A Letter to the Community
A LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY
Welcome to the 2020 Report to the Community! This year has been met with its share of challenges — and in this report we will learn about the resilience and determination of our staff, partners and students who rose beyond circumstances toward achieving our End: success for each child and eliminate the opportunity gap by leading with racial equity.
Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD) remains ready and equipped to partner with our transformational partners to provide crucial services for school communities. Throughout the report, you will be introduced to incredible partnerships between staff, students, educators, community partners and districts, all working in service of racially just and humanizing school systems. Achievements toward our End are sometimes seen in big broad strokes — and at other times, smaller steps. At PSESD, we are learning to see the potential in what may go unnoticed by some, taking those successes, and attempting to scale to positively impact students, families and educators who are counting on us to do so.
Since first sharing our Pathway to Change in 2018, we have consistently refined our strategies and Measures of Progress. When coupled with direct service, we’re able to use a comprehensive, data-informed approach to decision making. The new Measures of Progress are unique to that work. There are many people to thank for their tireless efforts this year:
- The entire PSESD staff, who bring their best selves to work each day and breathe life into our values
- Our Board of Directors and Transformation Team, who act as our stewards through the process of becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization
- The schools in this region, who work daily toward educating our students and serving families
- Countless community partners whose transformational relationships with collaboration, involvement, input and feedback we greatly value
Our collective work this year was never more important, as we faced the twin pandemics of ongoing systemic racism and COVID-19, which has disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous, and all People of Color. In addition to the services described in this report, PSESD partnered with local, state and federal government, community groups and philanthropy to support pandemic response and recovery. Our work is not over; children and families across the region are depending on all of us to continue leading bravely towards elimination of these inequities.
While this report showcases a number of exciting and important efforts, there is so much more going on at PSESD than can’t fit into a single report. I encourage you to visit psesd.org to learn more about all we offer, or to contact our staff about how we can best support your work.
About PSESD
ABOUT PSESD
PSESD is one of Washington’s nine educational service districts that share a common goal: to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of educational programs through partnerships with K–12 education, early learning, higher education and public and private organizations.
The PSESD region is comprised of students, families, educators, schools and communities in King County, Pierce County and Bainbridge Island. Our thirty-five school districts, seven charter schools and two tribal compact schools, serve more than 433,000 children, which represents almost 40 percent of Washington’s K–12 school population. The majority (55 percent) of the K–12 students we serve are students of color. Additionally, we serve 5,000 early learners and nearly three hundred private schools.
WHO WE ARE
We partner with school systems and communities to eliminate opportunity gaps in education to help create racially just and humanizing school systems. We coordinate more than 100 programs in King and Pierce counties and Bainbridge Island, through the following groups:
Learning, Teaching and Family Support (LTFS)
Staff deliver a variety of high-quality, antiracist professional development and direct services for prenatal to postsecondary educators, children and families. Services are designed to interrogate, disrupt and dismantle racist systems. Customized professional development services include: consulting and coaching, peer-group networking and learning and cooperatives. Specific direct services are provided across the infant, child, youth and young adult continuum. LTFS staff are committed to whole-child–whole-family approaches that are aimed at building racially just and humanizing school systems — all in service of the success for each child, and the elimination of opportunity gaps and racial inequities. Services include:
- Equitable Systems
- Accreditation
- Inclusionary Practices Project
- Puget Sound College and Career Network
- Leadership Mentoring
- Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) /Early Warning Systems
- Multilingual Services
- Native American Education Program
- Paraeducator Program
- PreK–Third-Grade Systems
- Special Services
- System and School Improvement
- Teacher Principal Evaluation Program (TPEP)
- Transformational Collaborative
- Social Emotional Practices
- Dropout Prevention and Re-Engagement
- Expanded Learning
- Safety and Threat Assessment Services
- Student Support
- Instruction in the Content Areas
- English Language Arts (ELA)
- Computer Science
- Mathematics
- Science
- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
- Online Resources
- DigitalEdge
- ProQuest
- Washington Learning Source
- Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- Regional Competitions
- Regional High School Art Show
- Knowledge Bowl
- Registration and Clock Hours
- PdEnroller
- Clock Hours
- Schools and Early Learning Services
- ReLife School
- Early Learning: Head Start, Early Head Start, ECEAP Services
- Educare of Greater Seattle
- Heritage Head Start
- Washington Correction Center for Women (WCCW)
- Early Head Start Home-Based Services: Prenatal to Three Years
- Parent Professional and Personal Development
Equity in Education
This team works collaboratively to enhance and support racially equitable and culturally responsive approaches among staff, students, parents and communities — building capacity to lead with racial equity. PSESD created the Equity in Education department to work collaboratively with our regional partners and those that we maintain transformational relationships with to provide each and every student with equitable access to educational opportunities by enhancing and supporting racially equitable and culturally responsive approaches to education. We believe that the development of these approaches and systems will contribute to creating strong educational systems and academics for every student. Services include:
- Building Capacity for Leading with Racial Equity
- Achieving Racial Equity Through Policy and Beyond
- Creating LGBTQ+ and Gender-Inclusive Schools
- Data Coaching for Equity
- Educators of Color Leadership Community
- Equity Advisory Committee Development
- Equity Consortium
- Leadership Coaching for Equity
- Professional Development for Equity
- Racial Equity Tool Implementation
- School, Family, and Community Partnerships
- Supporting Our Immigrant and Refugee Students and Families
Administrative and Management Services
In partnership with public, private, tribal and charter school systems, PSESD provides strategic leadership and inter-agency cooperatives to support all aspects of school, administrative, business, finance, communications, evaluation, policy, transportation and human resources functions. Services include:
- Accreditation
- Conference Centers
- Communications and Public Relations
- Fingerprinting
- Fiscal and State Reporting Services
- Government Relations
- Human Resources and Organizational Development
- Puget Sound Workers’ Compensation Trust and Unemployment Pool
- Regional Committee on School District Organization
- Strategy, Evaluation and Learning
- Superintendent and Board Member Support
- Transportation
Outcomes-Focused Partners in Eliminating Opportunity Gaps
OUTCOMES-FOCUSED PARTNERS IN ELIMINATING OPPORTUNITY GAPS
We partner with school systems and communities to eliminate opportunity gaps and affect meaningful change. We recognize the opportunity gaps in education that impact students are the result of inequitable practices, policies and systems in schools, and in our society. As a result, we designed our Measures of Progress around these outcomes as a way to focus and track our efforts to influence systems and student experiences.
In 2019, the PSESD Board of Directors adopted a new policy and procedure regarding Transformational Relationships (ELP-3). It reinforces their commitment to work in concert with the agency for a collective focus.
A transformational relationship is one that focuses on the integration of our relationships in our work to build an antiracist community. The emphasis of our interdependent relationship is to simply love, inspire and care for the other. Identifying the full spectrum of our transformational relationships requires developing, implementing and caretaking early on as critical steps in effective public involvement.
The groups we foster transformational relationships with include: families; community members; Sovereign Nations; Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities; business operators and owners; and nonprofit, public and private agencies and organizations.
Becoming an Anti Racist Multicultural Organization
BECOMING AN ANTIRACIST MULTICULTURAL ORGANIZATION
We are now in our sixth year of enacting our Racial Equity Policy — which aims to create a racially just and humanizing educational system, with equitable outcomes through our transformational relationships with: early learning, K–12 education, higher education, families, public and private organizations for success for children, and families and communities of color. These relationships move us closer toward our goal of becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization.
An Antiracist Multicultural Organization has within its mission, goals, values and operating systems, explicit policies and practices that prohibit anyone from being excluded or unjustly treated because of race or any other social identity or status. As we work toward becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization, we commit to:
- Implementing explicit antiracist practices and procedures, and being accountable to communities of color to define success
- Appreciating all forms of social diversity — and understanding the strengths and advantages that social diversity brings to the community
- Working systematically and deliberately to ensure all members of its diverse workforce feel fully included and have opportunities to contribute to achieving the PSESD's End
- Supporting racial equity and social justice through advocating these values in our transformational relationships with internal and community partners, and peer organizations
Racial Equity Policy Implementation Plan
The Racial Equity Policy implementation plan includes four strategic directions for closing opportunity gaps, achieving racial equity, and becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization.
Strategic Direction Action Team 1
PSESD will assure the cultural responsiveness and antiracist leadership knowledge and skills of all staff. We will strive to deepen every staff members’ understanding of opportunity gaps and knowledge of gap-closing and gap-perpetuating practices. We will provide staff development to strengthen employees’ knowledge and skills for eliminating racial disparities in educational outcomes and becoming antiracist leaders. We also strive to become an antiracist multicultural workplace so that all employees can thrive and support our shared End.
Strategic Direction Action Team 2
PSESD will identify and create opportunities to cultivate a racially diverse and antiracist workplace that allows PSESD to serve as the model of a diverse and Antiracist Multicultural Organization that its partners may strive to emulate.
Strategic Direction Action Team 3
PSESD will provide catalytic leadership with educational partners that respectfully, but firmly and persistently, accelerates the implementation of antiracist, gap-closing policies and practices.
Strategic Direction Action Team 4
PSESD acknowledges power imbalances that perpetuate inequities. We are committed to addressing this by centering power within students, families and communities. All PSESD relationships and partnerships are rooted in antiracism practices.
Transformation Team
Established in 2016, the Transformation Team is a collective of PSESD staff, community members and parents charged with guiding the agency towards becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization. They do so by overseeing and evaluating the implementation of the Racial Equity Policy No. 1010. This team is integral in assisting the agency in eliminating opportunity gaps and providing a bridge between the PSESD Board and the agency.
The work of becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization requires mutual accountability. To instill mutual accountability, the Transformation Team is a collection of voices from the agency, community, family and students. To ensure there is communication across the Strategic Direction Action Teams, the co-leads are members of the Transformation Team. To that end, the PSESD Board, Superintendent, Executive Leadership Team and Transformation Team are mutually responsible by ensuring adequate resources and executing strategies that support the recommendations of the Transformation Team.
PSESD commits to sustain and support the continued development of the Transformation Team for the purpose of achieving full implementation of the racial equity policy and transforming the agency into an Antiracist Multicultural Organization.