Diversity Bookbag Grant 2002-2003

Overview

We seek funds to produce Diversity Bookbags for every classroom at Hastings which would go home with each child on a rotating basis throughout the school-year. The bookbags would include books, tapes, activities and recipes illustrating various cultures, family types, and aspects of mobility and disability found in our Hastings community. The bookbags are intended to strengthen connections among our school populations and to build an atmosphere of tolerance and respect for cultural, racial, ability, and family structure diversity.

Description

The Diversity Bookbag program is sponsored and supported by the Hastings Anti-Bias Committee, a sub-committee of the Site Council on anti-bias issues, as well as the PTA and the principal.Lexington Education Foundation funding would extend the Committee’s efforts to foster family support for the goals of respecting and celebrating our diverse school community. The project uses as a model the Harrington School Multicultural Bookbag program.

The project will reinforce the work done in the school for teachers, parents and children by the Anti-Bias Committee and the staff over the past several years, including an annual Multicultural Potluck Supper, The Family Quilt Project, Student Mentoring and Affinity Groups, faculty workshops on bullying and teasing for staff and parents, and staff participation in EMI courses and symposium.

The project supports the Hastings School Improvement Plan 2001-2002, in particular in the anti-racism/bias goal of ensuring that "students and families from all backgrounds and of all configurations feel welcome at Hastings "by providing resources to all our families that act as mirrors of and windows into the diverse cultures and families within our community. The project also supports the Lexington Public School district's primary goal of "working to achieve anti-racist/anti-bias educational practice" (Handbook of Professional Development, 2001-2002) by helping children and parents learn about and value the diverse families and communities within our larger school community, which will lead to greater parental support for and understanding of the school's efforts to achieve anti-racist/anti/bias educational practice. The Anti-Bias Committee includes equal numbers of parents and teachers as active participants and its activities are often co-sponsored by the Parent Teacher Association. In addition to its specific programs and activities, the Committee serves as a sounding board for the school principal on efforts to reduce disparities in achievement by students of color and other diversity issues. Through inclusion of materials not only relating to race and culture, but also same-sex headed families and people with differing abilities, we hope the Diversity Bookbags will support the system's recent efforts to expand the original anti-racist vision, as articulated in the Professional Development Handbook 2001-2002 ,"to more deliberately address inclusion as it pertains to gender, sexual orientation, and learning styles that challenge both student and staff."

Specifically, the Committee seeks funding to purchase basic materials for Diversity Bookbags to be made available in each of the school's K-5 classrooms. Like the Harrington Multicultural Bookbags, each bag would contain books, music, recipes, art activities and games that reflect the Hastings school community, a community with strong elements of cultural, racial and ethnic diversity as well as a variety of family structures, and mobility and disability concerns. Anti-Bias Committee activities will be linked to the bookbag resources through opportunities for parents to contribute music, instructions for games and recipes of dishes they contributed to the Multicultural Potluck supper. We will also attempt to link bookbag contents to assemblies we help plan during the year. By linking the various activities together we reinforce the messages of respect, inclusion and acknowledgement, while at the same time building the sense of community among our children and parents.

Goals/Outcomes

• To engage the students and parent population in a sustained effort of acknowledging and celebrating the diverse backgrounds and families in our school community
• To provide some common language and concepts for families that relate to racial, cultural and family diversity
• To support the teachers in their effort to implement anti-racist/anti-bias educational practice

Target Population

The target population of the Diversity Bookbag Program includes students and parents at Hastings School.

Activities/Timetable

1. Anti-Bias Committee will solicit ideas from teachers and parents through the school newsletter regarding bookbag contents (spring 2001-02) especially book suggestions.
2. Committee in consultation with school librarian Margarite Bradley will finalize bookbag contents list. (summer 2002)
3. Committee will purchase, assemble and catalogue book bags contents (summer - early fall 2002)
4. Each child bring a well-stocked bookbag home at least once in the year for one week. (beginning in fall 2002)
5. Times for parent introduction to and discussion of the bag contents be provided over the course of the 2002-2003 school year, including publicized opportunities for feedback and reflection during a PTA meeting, at least one Anti-Bias meeting, and a parent coffee during the course of the year.

Impact

The Anti-Bias Committee believes this project will have a broad impact on the school community as a whole. The bookbag project has the potential to engage parents and children in a very broad way, on-going way. The combination of literature, music, and activities will provide a variety of potential experiences for enriching an understanding of racial, cultural and family structures, and abilities distinctions and commonalities. By providing other opportunities for the children and parents to reflect upon the contents we will be furthering our efforts to weave understanding and celebrating our diversity into the fabric of our school community. Furthermore, bookbags can be supplemented and modified easily to accommodate new goals, new populations, and new materials.

Evaluation

Use of the Bookbags can be tracked in a variety of ways, including sign-out logs and Journal entries. Feedback from parents and teachers will be solicited through a parent evaluation or checklist in the journal. Information on use and reactions will be written up by the committee and submitted to the principal, the LEF, and the PTA.

Dissemination Plans

We would publicize the program through the school newsletter on an ongoing basis, as well as submit an article to the local paper at the end of the year detailing how the program worked at Hastings School. Information about the Bookbag project will be made available on the school web-site.

Replication Potential

The Hastings project builds on a project successfully implemented at the Harrington School. The Bookbags themselves can be easily replicated through inventory lists of the contents, with maintenance by the Anti-Bias Committee and/or the school library on an annual basis.

Budget

Expenses 23 classes?

Durable cloth bags with closures 23 @ $15.00 each $ 345.00

Books and tapes (3 books, 1 tape/bag) 23 @ $50.00 each $1150.00

Supplies (journal, activity supplies) 23 @ $15.00 each $ 345.00

Total Income $1840.00

Partial Funding

The project could proceed with partial funding by reducing the number of books per bag from 3 to 2 or by soliciting donations of additional materials. The Committee's goal is to provide a Diversity Bookbag to each classroom even if the materials are reduced in each bag.

Qualifications

Project Co-Directors will be Lisa Berk, fourth grade teacher and Margarite Bradley, Librarian, both members of the Anti-Bias Committee. Members of the Anti-Bias Committee will coordinate the finalizing of the bookbag contents list and assembly of donations, while Ms. Bradley will take care of ordering resources, cataloguing the bookbag contents and creating a tracking system.

Support Letters

Rick Rogers

The Anti-Bias Committee