Student and Parent Engagement Updates
- SAVE THE DATE! Hindley Heritage Night this year will be February 9th from 6:00-8:00pm!
- With the overwhelming response last year, please start thinking about what your families might want to do to host a table! We will have an upper limit on how many families can host tables, and it will be first-come, first-serve.
- DEI Committee at the Hindley Holiday Market
- The Hindley PTO has asked if we have interest in doing a holiday crafts table at the holiday market this year (e.g. past necklaces for Kwanzaa, puzzle dreidel for Hanukkah, Xmas craft, etc.). This would require at least 4 volunteers per hour on Saturday December 3rd from 2-4pm inside. Belinda and I are unable to drive this but if there is sufficient interest from a group of you, please let us know.
- If we do not have people who want to and are willing to staff this table, we had the idea to have kids do the Holiday Dioramas again this year where we can put the submissions on display during the Market. Any questions or desire to help, please reach out to Belinda (belindacfang@gmail.com)
- SAVE THE DATE! Our next Hindley DEI Committee meeting will be Monday, December 12th at 9:30 p.m.
- Apologies for not holding meetings for two months – but I hope that this time will give lots of advance notice and be more accommodating for the working families in our community.
- Please reach out with any ideas/thoughts for the Agenda of the meeting.
- I was thinking this could be an opportunity to reflect on where we have come in the two years of this Committee’s existence, and look forward to where we want to go with it in 2023.
- Zoom link will be provided the week before the meeting
- VOLUNTEER NEEDED for the YWCA Parent Engagement Committee
- Responsibility includes attending the monthly meetings/calls with reps from the other elementary schools and providing feedback on programming ideas.
- There is natural connectivity between our DEI work and the YWCA’s mission, so I’m hoping someone from this group would like to step up!
Community Engagement Updates
We just wrapped up the monthly CDSP-All Schools DEI Committee meeting this morning. There are a lot of exciting activities happening around the district that I want to share with you. If you would like to be involved in launching any of these activities at Hindley, please let us know!
- Tokeneke: Institute for American Indian Studies visit this month (we are working with the Enrichment Committee to have them come to Hindley in 2023)
- Tokeneke: Coffee and Conversations (facilitated) for parents on the topic of Belonging – I would love to see this happen at Hindley!
- Holmes: International Food Club’s first gathering of families is coming up with 45 participants. In this club, families meet at local ethnic restaurants to share a meal and learn about different cuisines and cultures from around the world.
- Holmes: “Share Your Light” bulletin board to celebrate holidays with positive affirmations in conjunction with library book thematic displays.
Update on the District Equity Team(disclaimer – I am NOT on that Committee but am sharing this on behalf of someone who is):
- Representatives on the Equity Team have been meeting with their networks in recent weeks to discuss and share reactions to this video, which was shared during their DEI team meeting.
- HERE is the deck that was used during the meeting. They discussed takeaways from a “tough conversations” exercise and worked in small groups on focus topics.
- They are in the process of identifying data and survey needs they will require to address those questions with the goal of presenting recommendations in the Spring.
There are a few upcoming programs in the broader community that may be of interest in the coming months, specifically:
- Workshop for Parents on Creating a Bully-Free Inclusive Culture (Jan – YWCA)
- Brain Development and Executive Function (Feb – YWCA)
- Zoom on “Resilience” (Mental Health Task Force) for parents focused.
Raising your Voice
Parents in our community often only speak up when things are perceived as going wrong. In this season of thankfulness, I encourage everyone here to actively provide positive and supportive feedback to our teachers, administrators and BOE reps for progress they have made and the work they are doing to educate our children for a diverse future and create a sense of belonging for every child in the district. It is in the quiet and uneventful times that we must resist becoming a silent majority – much progress has been made, but much work still needs to be done. They continually need to hear from us that this work is important and a priority.