LENS-NC believes that all students deserve a welcoming, supportive, and rigorous learning environment rooted in asset-based approaches to teaching. This requires that teachers, staff, and administrators are not only well versed in the best practices to support students who are marginalized by race, learning differences, or income but also empowered to implement changes in their own schools to create learning environments where students can thrive.
Typical professional development sessions include synchronous and/or asynchronous review of material and curriculum does not provide any additional support outside of learning the course objectives. Teachers and other education professionals may glean important insights into creating inclusive educational environments, but these types of courses don’t necessarily equip participants to implement changes in a classroom or school. To create more impactful change educators require additional support.
To this end LENS-NC would like to see the implementation of coaching and mentorship programs in districts across the state. These programs should build the capacity of individual educators and administrators within schools or districts to implement systemic changes that support marginalized students with learning differences.
Because LENS-NC believes that all students deserve to learn in a welcoming, supportive, and rigorous environment we support the creation of coaching and mentorship programs that build the capacity of individual educators to implement systemic changes that directly address the needs of students of color, and other marginalized students, with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning differences. These programs should:
- Provide for a full-time staff member in a school or district with knowledge of equity and justice principles and frameworks who can support educators in applying these principles in their classrooms
- Provide a full-time staff member in a school or district with knowledge of best educational practices who can support educators in applying these principles in their classrooms
- Establish a process for individual teachers or administrators to suggest and implement changes at school and/or district levels
- This process should include avenues for teachers and administrators to initiate changes, with support from the mentor or coach
- This process should outline how suggestions will be reviewed and identify the committee or individual that will review these suggestions
- This process should include avenues for best practices to be shared within a school or district
- Provide for continued learning and professional development for the coaches and mentors
- Collect qualitative and quantitative data on student experience, teacher experience, family experience, and student performance data
LENS-NC believes that all students deserve a welcoming, supportive, and rigorous learning environment rooted in asset-based approaches to inclusion and belonging. This requires that students are able to safely navigate relationships with peers, teachers, administrators, and other school staff while remaining in the classroom. Threat Assessment Teams implemented in North Carolina public schools in March 2024 have the potential to do harm to students by removing them from classrooms for actions not taken and by disproportionately targeting individual groups and/or students- by diminishing a sense of safety and belonging in school. Without sufficient monitoring, data collection, and evaluation, Threat Assessment Teams have the potential to harm students more than they help students.
In looking at overall student discipline data it is clear that students of color, students with learning differences, and students at the intersections of these identities are more likely to receive exclusionary discipline and harsher disciplinary action than their white or non-disabled peers. In other states that have similar Threat Assessment Team policies Black students and students with learning differences were disproportionately identified as threats. With no qualitative data collected to understand student, teacher, or family experiences we can’t know how these kinds of investigations and interventions are impacting individuals. Given the risk of excessive discipline, removal from the classroom, or diminished psychological safety the network believes that these team will need to proceed with caution and have appropriate guidance from folks with lived experience.
Because LENS-NC believes that all students deserve to learn in a welcoming, supportive, and rigorous environment rooted in asset-based approaches to inclusion and belonging with focus on maximizing student time in the classroom we support the creation of an advisory board to evaluate the impact of Theat Assessment teams. To ensure student, family, and teacher experience are documented and evaluated as part of the impact of the Threat Assessment Teams these advisory boards should:
- Exclusively comprised of members who are students, teachers, parents, and caregivers
- Have policies and procedures to identify, invite, and rotate members
- Have access to the quantitative data collected by public school units across the state
- Have the ability to confidentially interview students, families, or teachers impacted by threat assessment intervention
- Have the authority to suggest and implement changes to the threat assessment policy at the public school unit level
- Have clearly outlined avenues available to suggest changes to be made to the threat assessment policy
