Online Technical Assistance Toolkits
IDRA has published online courses and stand-alone technical assistance toolkits to support educators, leaders and communities on equity and desegregation.
STEM Equity Assistance
Educators across the country know the urgency of increasing STEM participation and performance by race and gender. This need is reflected by a dismal STEM pipeline that traces back to states’ uneven investment in high-quality STEM programs that effectively prepare girls and students of color with high-quality math and science. In this IDRA STEM Equity – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit, we show how schools and communities can open pathways for girls and students of color in the curricular pipeline to prepare them for STEM careers.
Digital Equity Assistance
Solutions for bridging the digital divide are more nuanced than simply providing students with devices and troubleshooting connectivity issues. Students, their families, and their teachers must also feel confident with navigating the digital landscape safely. This IDRA Digital Equity – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to introduce community stakeholders to the conversation around digital equity and invite school leaders to consider how schools can make informed decisions about increasing students’ access to broadband Internet, computer technologies, and the digital skills training necessary for supporting their educational success.
Interrupting Bullying & Harassment in Schools Equity Assistance
Bullying prevention does not happen without deliberate action. IDRA’s Interrupting Bullying & Harassment in Schools – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to give educators and school leaders the tools that they need to prevent bullying and harassment by fostering a positive school climate. This package includes five chapters, each with a video and supporting resources.
Serving Emergent Bilingual Students Equity Assistance
Emergent bilingual students should have the same opportunities to succeed academically. Their English-speaking classmates. Bilingual education programs are designed to increase English proficiency in students while providing instruction in their native language recognizing that students’ academic skills and knowledge transfer between languages. This IDRA Serving Emergent Bilingual Students – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit guides educators with an introductory overview of emergent bilingual students and programs to serve them.
School Discipline Equity Assistance
Schools should be spaces where students feel safe and welcome, actively engage with learning, and strive for success. Unfortunately, ineffective discipline practices that punish students harshly and take them away from the classroom – like suspensions, alternative school placements, corporal punishment, referrals to law enforcement, and expulsions – are prevalent in U.S. schools. When such actions disproportionately impact or target certain student populations, they could constitute a violation of students’ civil rights. This IDRA School Discipline – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to help school leaders and educators identify ways to proactively build safe and trusting communities and end their reliance on approaches to discipline that are harmful to students.
Family Engagement Equity Assistance
Few people question the value of parents being involved in schools. But many school leaders labor with traditional strategies that have little meaning or success. Families can be their children’s strongest advocates for promoting quality neighborhood schools and to ensure excellent academic instruction – where children are safe, happy, learning and engaged. This IDRA Family Engagement – Online Web-based Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to provide educators tools for embracing what, for many, is a new vision for engaging with families and community members.
Ethnic Studies Equity Assistance
In ethnic studies courses and lessons, students study histories, experiences, cultures and issues of race, ethnicity and indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color in the United States. Ethnic studies gives students many benefits, from social-emotional learning to college, career and community readiness. This IDRA Ethnic Studies – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to provide educators tools and resources for implementing ethnic studies in K-12 schools. It includes a literature review, webinar sessions, articles, podcasts and other resources.
Student Engagement Equity Assistance
Engaged students succeed academically. Student engagement refers to a school environment and activities that value students and incorporate them in learning and co-curricular school activities resulting in academic achievement. Student engagement cannot happen only at the classroom level. It also has to happen at the broader school or system level. This IDRA Student Engagement – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to provide educators tools for engaging all students, including students who are usually most marginalized in schools and communities.
College Preparation Equity Assistance
Our nation needs many more students to attend college and graduate, but several things are getting in the way, particularly for marginalized students. Among those who do get in, many are unable to finish. We need our children to be successful in school. We need them to graduate and have options to either attend college or join the workforce. This IDRA College Preparation – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit provides a resource that outlines research on the connection between math course taking and college preparation, on-demand webinars, articles and podcast episodes as tools for college preparation structures in schools and districts.
LGBTQ+ Equity Assistance
Students have a right to be safe in school and to have the support of educators to learn and grow toward their potential. But LGBTQ+ students face attacks and discrimination daily in our schools. This IDRA LGBTQ+ Equity – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit provides contextual data and action steps for school leaders and teachers to ensure schools are safe places for LGBTQ+ students to learn free from bias and discrimination.
Culturally Responsive Instruction and Leadership Equity Assistance
To educate our growing diverse student population, educators must foster learning environments that are inclusive of students from dramatically different backgrounds from themselves and fellow students. Gaps in cultural understanding have the effect of widening disparities in academic performance of students among different groups. This IDRA‘s Culturally Responsive Instruction and Leadership – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit is designed to provide educators tools for embracing what, for many, is a new vision for engaging with families and community members. This toolkit includes a literature review, culturally responsive practices framework, webinar videos, articles, podcasts and other resources.
Diversifying the Field Equity Assistance
Faced with a national teacher shortage, schools across the country are struggling to hire a workforce of qualified educators that reflects the racial diversity of their communities. While current conditions in many states have contributed to widespread shortages of teachers of all types, teachers of color encounter unique barriers to entering the profession and to continuing to teach for the long haul. Fortunately, a variety of programs, policies, and practices hold promise in helping to bolster the pipeline of teachers of color recruited and retained in teaching. This IDRA Diversifying the Teaching Field – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit includes four videos, literature review documents, a diversity gap map and other resources.
Grow Your Own Educator Programs Equity Assistance
Grow Your Own educator programs are a potential strategy for states and district to employ to help recruit and retain teachers of color. Grow Your Own programs help address teacher shortages, retention issues and teacher diversity by engaging in a variety of strategies that aim to recruit teachers from local communities in hopes that the pool of candidates will increase in diversity and will be more likely to stay teaching in the community. This IDRA Grow Your Own Educator Programs – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit discusses how equitable approaches and critical perspectives can combine the powerful roles of “homegrown” teachers, culturally-relevant curriculum, and social justice pedagogy in addressing achievement and opportunity gaps, especially for the nation’s woefully underserved, largely urban schools serving students of color.
Socioeconomic-Based Strategies for Racial Integration Equity Assistance
More than ever before, social science research identifies an array of academic and social benefits for students stemming from learning in integrated educational settings, which is even more beneficial for younger students. This IDRA Socioeconomic-Based Strategies for Racial Integration – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit provides research and strategies to pursue the integration of K-12 schools.
