Digging Into the Data: A School District’s Journey to Close the Discipline Disproportionality Gap

Presented by Dr. Ivan Duran, Superintendent, Highline Public Schools (WA); Dr. Rebekah Kim, Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Kent School District (WA); Dr. Lisa Williams, Founder/Consultant, EMCS; Melissa Pointer, Director of Social Emotional Learning, Highline Public Schools (WA); and Kimberly Smith, Chief Inclusive Innovation Officer, Digital Promise

Sponsored by Digital Promise Center for Inclusive Innovation

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Learn how Highline Public Schools (WA), with support from Digital Promise’s Center for Inclusive Innovation, is engaging district leaders and principals in a data-driven process to analyze exclusionary discipline consequences and co-design a process for increasing student voices and root cause analysis. The goal of this edWebinar is to provide a case study and model for how district leaders, principals, and teachers can examine data in new ways with the goal of reimagining school discipline systems.

Viewers understand how to conduct a root cause analysis on discipline data, how to view narratives through an equity-centered lens, and how to take a strengths-based approach to student data. They will also gain insights and inspiration from new approaches to both data and interventions.

This session features Dr. Ivan Duran, Superintendent of Highline Public Schools, Dr. Rebekah Kim, Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at Kent School District (formerly with Highline), Dr. Lisa Williams, Founder and Consultant with EMCS, Melissa Pointer, Director of Social Emotional Learning at Highline Public Schools, and Kimberly Smith, Chief Inclusive Innovation Officer at Digital Promise’s Center for Inclusive Innovation.

This edWebinar is of interest to K-12 teachers, school and district leaders, and education technology leaders.

About the Presenters

Dr. Ivan Duran is Superintendent for the Highline Public Schools in Burien, Washington serving approximately 17,000 students in 35 schools. Highline’s promise is to know every student by name, strength, and need so they graduate prepared for the future they choose. Dr. Duran previously served as Superintendent for the Bellevue School District. As Superintendent, he led with a focus on racial equity and inclusion, creating systems to support academic, social-emotional, and behavioral development for all students. Prior to Bellevue, Dr. Duran was Deputy Superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District and Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education for Denver Public Schools. He has also served as a principal supervisor, director of instructional technology, principal, assistant principal, and teacher.

Dr. Duran’s core values include a passionate commitment to educational equity, dedication to continuous improvement aimed at results, and a collaborative and transparent leadership style. He holds a doctorate in education leadership and policy study from the University of Denver, a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Colorado, and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Dr. Rebekah Kim is the new Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning for the Kent School District. Most recently, she has served as an Executive Director in Highline Public Schools for 18 years. She was a principal for 12 years and served as a district leader for six. Dr. Kim brings her personal experiences as a mother of teenage children, daughter of an immigrant family, and advocate for all children around racial and social justice in her personal and professional life. Dr. Kim centers her educational leadership with a lens of equity and seeing the whole child. In this effort, she has brought her leadership in her various roles to transform mindsets and systems to ensure students, staff, and families are provided with rich learning and school experiences.

Dr. Lisa Williams is a national expert on topics of equity and access in public education. She is the Founder and Principal Consultant at EMCS, an organization that partners with clients to engage in capacity building to support intersectional racial equity and system transformation. She has served as an executive leader in public school systems and non-profits, providing guidance and consultation on creating equitable organizations.

She is a co-author of two books, When Treating All the Kids the SAME Is the REAL Problem: Educational Leadership and the 21st Century Dilemma of Difference, and Humanity Over Comfort: How You Confront Systemic Racism Head On, both published by Corwin Press. She recently partnered with Dr. Kendra Johnson and teacher leaders in Cologne, Germany to publish the article We Don’t Make History, We Are Made by History: The Call for Education as an Instrument for Social Justice. Dr. Williams is the proud mom of a son, Andrew, who is her daily inspiration for justice work.

Melissa Pointer is the Director of Social Emotional Learning in the Highline School District, just outside of Seattle. Prior to that, Melissa served as an elementary principal for 11 years and a High School Associate Principal for four years.

In her current role, Melissa is leading her team in elevating student voice as they engage in a Community Advisory Process with Highline students, staff, families and community for the purpose of auditing their current SEL Practices and to get input from the community on their hopes for SEL Instruction and discipline practices and procedures. The information gathered is being used to redesign SEL in Highline Public Schools. Melissa has also led school leaders through the process of engaging in root-cause analysis around discipline disproportionality in order to close gaps and improve discipline and school culture practices.

Kimberly A. Smith is co-leader and Chief Inclusive Innovation Officer at Digital Promise’s Center for Inclusive Innovation and former Executive Director of the League of Innovative Schools. She works in collaboration with a national network of forward-thinking school district leaders in equity-centered R&D to design and implement inclusive innovation teaching and learning opportunities to advance equity and excellence for every learner.

Previously, Kimberly held senior leadership positions at the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, PBS, Discovery Education, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Kimberly is an Aspen-Pahara Institute fellow and co-founder of the National Charter Collaborative—a non-profit to support single-site charter leaders of color in creating quality schools. She serves on the boards of CatalystEd, Learner-Centered Collaborative, and Beacon House in Washington, D.C. She received her MBA from Johns Hopkins University and her Bachelor of Science in journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Digital Promise’s Center for Inclusive Innovation reimagines education research and development (R&D) by resourcing the creative ingenuity of communities working in partnership with school districts to create equitable powerful learning opportunities for students furthest from opportunity. The foundation for Inclusive Innovation is anchored in a set of core tenets that embody an equity-centered approach to research and development. The tenets define how we deliberately support teams in co-constructing an inclusive R&D culture that enables equitable leadership and contribution.