Greetings from the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Thank you for visiting the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) homepage for District 300. As you move through our newly created site, you will see that equity resources are dedicated to serving the needs of all stakeholders within the D300 family, including our students, families (parents and guardians), and staff. As a district, one of our primary pillars is to ensure that our spaces (classrooms, common areas, and community spaces) are inclusive of all students.

The site is starting off small, with a limited number of resources, as it was important for us to provide greater accessibility and transparency in many of the initiatives that we are beginning. It is our hope that like many things this humble beginning will grow into a wonderful resource that all community members access to bring us closer together as a community.

Board of Education Equity Policy

The Community Unit School District 300 Board of Education is committed to every student's academic, social, and personal success, growth, and development. Our primary goal, as expressed through our mission statement, is: All District 300 learners will participate in engaging, inclusive, and personalized learning experiences to discover, innovate and succeed now and in the future. We believe that every D300 employee plays a role in this process.

The D300 Board of Education recognizes the historical disparities in opportunity and performance among students from various ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. These disparities are evident in the inconsistency of our graduation rates, inequities in reported incidents of student misconduct, and our standardized achievement profile. However, for D300 to address our broader goal of ensuring the growth of every student (academic, social, and personal), it is imperative that we develop policies and strategies to eliminate or, at the bare minimum, minimize these disparities. We believe our efforts to eradicate these long-standing inequities will lead to the widespread growth of all D300 students.

CUSD 300 will continue to explore, modify, and perfect our practices to achieve and maintain equity in education. We seek to foster an inclusive educational environment where all students, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender (identification), language, socio-economic status, school placement, experience, religion, ethnicity, or ability, feel a sense of belonging and an opportunity to reach their highest individual potential.

To achieve this goal, the District will provide differentiated resources to support the success of all students and will be guided by the following mandates; each analyzed through the Five Strands of Systemic Equity:

• Systems: To ensure a systemic and continuous development toward advancing equity within all policies, processes, procedures, initiatives, decision-making, and fiscal responsibility
• Teaching and Learning: To intentionally embed equity-driven pedagogy and practices in the curriculum, resources, instructional approaches, use and consideration of assessments, and academic programming to advance equity for and among each student
• Student Voice, Climate, and Culture: To consistently seek students’ feedback and develop experiences to nurture a positive, authentic, and meaningful organizational culture and climate
• Professional Learning: To provide a continuum of professional learning and growth opportunities for all staff in pursuit of fully understanding and infusing educational equity in all aspects of schooling
• Family and Community as Agency: To partner with families and the community for authentic opportunities to serve the students, the school(s), and the district

The D300 School Board of Education will hold the Superintendent, all school and central office administrative leadership, and all remaining district staff accountable for their role and contributions towards measurable progress in ensuring these mandates.

The Board directs the Superintendent to develop action plans with clear accountability and metrics to accomplish these mandates. Updated action plans and progress towards these mandates shall be reported annually to the Board through the strategic plan process.