Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Goodwin University Magnet School System

Equity Statement

The Goodwin University Magnet School System intentionally disrupts the historical imbalance of power and privilege that continues to marginalize our scholars and community. As a reflective system, we strive to eradicate the biases and prejudices of race, socioeconomic status, gender identity and expression, education, age, ability, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, language, nationality, and religion that impact our scholars as they pursue their education. Therefore, we honor and affirm the diverse experiences of others to empower scholars to create a more just and equitable world.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging:

What's Next?

Here's what DEIB work you can expect in the 2024-2025 school year:

District Diversity In Action (DIA) committee meeting every second Monday of the month at 4:00 p.m.

Meeting Schedule:

Monday May 12, 2025
Monday June 9, 2025

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 949 1352 9532 Passcode: DIA

Implementation of building-based DIA Committees
Professional Development (PDs) will continue, led by building-level teams
Embedded Equity Practice
Expanded enrichment programs and opportunities to be learning in the community

If you have questions please contact mstrawder@goodwinmagnetsystem.org

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: What our Scholars are learning and saying.

Shawnta Thompson, the DEIB Lead at the high school, leads a weekly student DEIB group comprised of scholars. Through this group scholars are able to explore thoughts, feelings, and concerns about diversity and what it truly means to be belong. At CT River Academy the guiding principles are Diversity, Awareness, and Action. Scholars in the DEIB group have created their own mission statement:

With an expanded DEIB lens used to view the work in progress, we hope to help others open their minds to explore what prejudice is and how learning what's present can cause harm if left unsaid. Honey will be our vehicle and take us deeper into the real world works.

They have pledge to:

1. Be verbal in announcements/acknowledgment

2. Ask Questions

3. Have Accountability

4. Show Atonement

5. Have Acceptance

The club has published their first issue of the Student Action Inclusion and Diversity (SAID) Newsletter which came out in November 2024. The newsletter aims to be a space where scholars can openly discuss issues around prejudice, inequality, and the importance of inclusion.

March 2025 Edition

All About The Work

Books We Love

Radically reimagine our ways of being, learning, and doing

Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on "fixing" and "filling" academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up―with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.

By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book

· Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately

· Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong

· Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture

Podcasts

Documentaries

13th is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Ava DuVernay. The film explores the prison-industrial complex, and the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States"; it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime. This allowed for a constitutional loophole in which Black Americans became criminalized and faced involuntary servitude in the form of penal labor. Watch on Netflix.