DSST Colleagues:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion remains core to our mission in DSST Public Schools. Over the past 15 months, DSST’s positionality and focus on DEI as core to our organization has been tested, addressed, reframed, and manifested in a multitude of ways. These tests included COVID-19, Black Lives Matter Protests, the Presidential Election Cycle, and the Insurrection on January 6, 2021. While there are some who argue that such topics have no place in education nor should they be the center of discussion among staff and students, we at DSST stand firm in our commitment to becoming an Anti-Racist, Trauma Informed, Culturally Responsive and Relevant, Culturally Sustaining, and Multicultural Learning organization. These DSST DEI Commitments include addressing and navigating the collective trauma, anxiety, anger, fear, joy, liberation, and awareness that the past 15 months have brought. 

Together we strive to center the everyday lived experiences of our students and families in how we show up each day, along with the needs of our colleagues and ourselves. Several takeaways from this year include the need to become even more trauma informed in our care and leadership of others, relevant and responsive in our self and social awareness, and more intentional in our inclusivity of multiple perspectives, voices, experiences, backgrounds, and ways of thinking and being. Within the context of these takeaways is the growth we have shown as a network in our DEI capacity building and development of staff and students’ “WILL” and “KNOWLEDGE”, the improved emphasis on making mental health care and medical care accessible to our staff across intersectional identities (race, gender, sexuality, and religion); and the intentional design and implementation of anti-racist literacies in Humanities and culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy in STEM. 

There is so much more we have yet to tap in our journey as a DEI-driven organization. As this FYI on DEI in DSST 2020-2021 shows, we are by no means perfect in all of our pursuits and do not intend to be. Striving for perfection in all things can become the enemy of overall transformation. Therefore, to sustain the work of DEI in DSST requires strategic urgency, targeted grace and an open willingness to fail to get “IT” right. Our reliance on the people in our community (students, staff, and families) as a people first organization will undoubtedly position us between points of tension and liberation as we manifest our individual and collective ends: “to transform urban public education by eliminating educational inequity.” The key is to stay the course, find joy when we can, overcome the trials and tribulations that are sure to occur, remain open to non-closure, and keep the Human Condition for self and others front of mind. 

For more information on DEI in DSST and what you can expect in 2021-2022, please view the FYI on DEI in DSST 2020-2021 at your leisure.

Visit the DEI Helix Page for additional resources and development opportunities for your personal and professional growth. If you plan to do some research on your own this summer, type in your subject area, role and/or identity AND the following keywords into Google and/or Google Scholar: Cultural Responsiveness and Relevance, Trauma Informed, Multicultural, AntiRacist, and Cultural Sustainability - For Example: Math and Trauma Informed; Leadership and AntiRacist; Teaching and Cultural Responsiveness; HR and Cultural Sustainability; Family and Difficult Conversations. 

I thank you for your trust, leadership, partnership, accountability, as well as the opportunity to do what I love everyday. 2020-2021 has been a sprint, and our marathon continues.  I am grateful to be among friends and look forward to what will be a magnificent 2021-2022 in DSST. 

Yours in solidarity, 

Aaron