Staff builds on districtwide focus to create learning opportunities for students

Building on its mission to challenge and support every student every step of the way, Upper Arlington Schools launched a focus on cultural competency and diversity at the start of the 2017-2018 school year.

This focus began with staff-wide training planned in collaboration with the Upper Arlington Education Association and the Ohio Education Association.

“What has resulted from this training over the course of the school year is nothing short of amazing,” Superintendent Paul Imhoff said. “Our staff across the district has truly embraced this focus and been incredibly thoughtful in how to share their learning surrounding cultural competency and diversity training in very meaningful ways with their students.”

Here are just a few ways this focus has come to life in the schools. 

Inclusion Revolution

During a professional development session before the start of the school year, Hastings Middle School intervention specialist Kyle Evans held a breakout session called “Join the Inclusion Revolution.” 

He came away from the session, he said, knowing that he “wanted to do more to help make it schoolwide and get many students involved.”

So, in March, he launched the Inclusion Revolution, a spin-off of the Spread the Word to End the Word fundraiser that Hastings had held for the past five school years. 

Evans created “Inclusion Revolution” t-shirts to sell as a fundraiser for field trips that he and other staff members take with disabled students. With the help of peers, they wrote an Inclusion Revolution pledge that more than 530 students at Hastings took.

By taking the pledge, the students promised to be inclusive, kind and helpful to everyone and to not exclude anyone “no matter what they look like, act like or where they're from.”

Students say the Inclusion Revolution has helped their peers “realize that people are different and that is okay” and has made students “feel like they belong more and … (are) more connected at Hastings.”

Cultural Celebration

After going through staff cultural competency training, teachers at Tremont Elementary School wanted to find a way to celebrate the many cultures that make up their school in a meaningful and engaging way for all students.

What resulted was the first annual Cultural Celebration Day on April 27 — which featured a World Literature Fair and cultural arts performances by Tremont students.

The initial idea, second-grade teacher Amalee Dahman shared, was to “immerse students in books from different languages so they could truly feel and understand what children from other countries experience on a daily basis when they come to Tremont and English is a foreign language to them.” That idea expanded to include “the different clothing, entertainment and music from other backgrounds,” she added.

Each class, grades 1 through 5, prepared for the World Literature Fair by reading a book in another language and trying to interpret its meaning. For the day of the celebration, Tremont families were invited to be part of the fair by bringing and reading books in their native languages to students.   

For the “celebration of the arts” part of the day, Tremont students took center stage to share music and dances from their families’ native countries — from China to Sudan to Ireland to Portugal, and several others in between.  

“We feel so fortunate at Tremont to have families from all over the world,” Dahman said. “Children love to support one another, and it’s our hope they can learn about and understand each other’s differences in a meaningful and engaging way.”

Ambassadors of Change

Taking shape in May for the upcoming school year is a new program at Upper Arlington High School that will bring together students to promote empathy.

Tricia Fellinger, a teacher at UAHS, serves on the school’s cultural competency team and had shared after her experience with the staff-wide training that she was “really excited for the future steps, what we’re going to do in the future.”

One of those future steps will be Ambassadors of Change, an initiative for which she’ll serve as a co-adviser. It was proposed by UAHS staff members and is supported as a pilot project of the UAHS Research & Design Lab.

Ambassadors of Change will bring together approximately 30 students for monthly hands-on workshops related to leadership skills and the district’s focus on cultural competency and diversity.

“In this program,” said Tricia Fellinger, a teacher at UAHS and an Ambassadors of Change co-adviser, “students will work together as leaders to ensure that UAHS is an inclusive community where all students treat each other with respect and kindness despite our differences.”