Transformation Center

When developing a school or district vision, it is important to consider everyone’s wants and needs in order to ensure that the vision is inclusive of everyone. It is important to recognize diversity, equity, and inclusion and integrate it in your vision, mission, and core values.

Students learn in different ways and may lead very different lives outside of the classroom, each with their own unique challenges. Yet everyone deserves a quality education, and therefore learning support and tools need to be differentiated to support all students’ psychosocial, emotional, and learning needs.

The school environment should be one where all students feel welcome, safe, and included. Data should be collected to understand if there are disparities between certain groups of students and/or teachers, and action should be taken to combat these disparities if needed.

Providing educators with opportunities to learn about how to ensure equity in their classroom is essential. Making equity part of the school or district's vision is the first step, but supporting teachers to actually implement the vision of equity is key to success. To access resources for teachers, see our inclusive classrooms section of the Google for Education Teacher Center.

To ensure equity is a priority, funding is essential. To successfully implement any strategy, it is crucial to have the proper resources to see it through. Be sure to think of equity with a long-term lens and be creative with finding funding sources to ensure its success.

Access to technology can be a great equalizer, but that lack of access - whether it be not having access to the internet and/or devices at home - contributes to the digital divide. Evaluate your school and community for technology access gaps, such as internet connectivity. Structure a plan to fill these gaps, such as providing mobile hotspots for those who live in low connectivity areas.

Communicating with the broader school community is very important. Ensuring that communications are distributed in a manner that can be consumed by all is key. This may mean important notices or messages are distributed in multiple ways across multiple platforms. It may also mean ensuring that those same communications are transcribed in multiple languages. Additionally, you may want to be deliberate about inviting community members to join PTA’s and/or other organizations where certain community members may be underrepresented.