January 2021: Roots ConnectED: A Year in Review

A Message from Our Executive Director: Roots ConnectED A Year in Review

Dear Roots ConnectED Community:

To say that this year has been an unprecedented one, a challenging one, and an overwhelming one, would be a gross understatement. The ravaging effects of the two pandemics have forced schools to dig deep, face inequitable systems, structures, and curriculum, pushed to design and rethink schools, while centering equity and community building.

Of course we know that one of these pandemics has been festering for decades.  The deeply rooted ills of racist systems and structures and the injustices experienced and felt by large segments of our society have most recently stirred the consciousness of those privileged enough to not have been affected by it in the past.  This occasion allows us to pause and reflect on the vision and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As our nation becomes ever more divided, Roots ConnectED works to envision a unified world built upon a foundation of justice. We believe in the power of teaching children to see the humanity in one another with schools at the forefront of this work.  We know it takes work, patience, and resources.  We know it is a shift in ideology and requires deep changes at the level of institutions. But we believe it can happen and that education can forge the path.  We want more for our children. 

We know all of you are here because you believe in and value Root’s ConnectED’s mission.  We thank you for that and feel compelled to share with you a few highlights from the last year, a year, also, of flexibility and patience, of growth, and a year of hope. 

New Leader Institutes 

Roots ConnectED’s New Leader Training Institutes brought innovative leaders of new schools, some of which are diverse-by-design, from Indianapolis, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and Michigan this fall and winter. 

Leaders convened to think deeply about the foundational building blocks of school culture, curriculum, and anti-bias practices to create equitable and inclusive school communities. Roots ConnectED supported leaders to integrate their learning from the Institute into their own school designs. One of the new leaders explained their experience at the Institute accordingly, “this really shifted how I am going to approach what my school looks and feels like for children.”

Roots ConnectED Workshops

Roots ConnectED has continued to expand its programmatic offerings through immersive and intimate virtual educator and family workshops. Since last January, Roots ConnectED has hosted 22 family workshops and 15 educator workshops, with close to 800 participants collectively. The national shift to online learning has allowed us to make our workshop programming available to schools, and now families, across the country, widening our reach and allowing us the opportunity to engage with more educators and families nationwide.

Deepening Our Impact: Coaching with Roots ConnectED

The deeper work with schools through our tailored coaching has spanned California, New York, Maryland, Louisiana, and Washington DC, including 56 schools, 2,663 educators/leaders, with an impact of close to 38,150 students.  These partnerships feature an array of customized efforts designed to deepen anti-bias education practices including:

• the development of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) practice;

• organizational core value and culture development;

• shifts in mindset around learner variability and increased access for all students;

• faculty professional development and staff leadership;

• and, mapping of curricular scope and sequence models across various grades that include social justice concepts and deepend Anti-Bias Education concepts.

The ultimate goals of RC’s coaching endeavours are to grow participating communities into spaces that are responsive to the needs of the communities they serve by; creating access and equity for all stakeholders; and, examining institutional, interpersonal, and individual responsibility in shifting power within the school community. One of our collaborators noted: “[Roots ConnectED] helped us codify and name who we are, what we do, and why we do it in a way that is authentic and true to us. They have now given us the tools to incorporate equity into our curriculum, and it is not an ‘AND’ in our curriculum.

That has been so important to us because it is tying the special education work we do with the bias and identity work all together and it gives our Fellows the tools to support all kids.”  We have been humbled by our partnerships this year.

Dr. King said, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.  This is the interrelated structure of reality.”  As this week offers us an added reminder of Dr. King’s life and his dream for a better future, let us remember not only the revolution he and many others led, but the work that must be centered in order to realize an equitable and just society. At Roots ConnectED we know that centering this work can and must be the heart of our educational spaces. We are honored to be a part of your process in our collective goal to work towards liberation, freedom and justice for all. 

Warmly,
Sahba Rohani
Executive Director