Equity
MISD: Education with Equity and Inclusion
A note to our community: Mercer Island School District is a learning organization. Creating an equitable learning experience for all students and professionally learning and developing the requisite knowledge, skills, fluency, and dispositions as adults is continuous. The Equity pages and resources are constantly evolving and we invite feedback from our students and community.
Each student deserves a learning environment in which they can show up as their whole authentic self regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, ability/disability, gender, sexual identity/preference, or other expressed identity. Mercer Island School District commits to fostering learning settings that allow students to fully participate to achieve successful academic, social and emotional, and physical development and reach their full potential.
The District is dedicated to proactively identifying and correcting practices and policies that perpetuate disparate treatment among children and their families. We achieve this by supporting underrepresented students and not by creating new barriers to achievement for any student group. All students are entitled to the opportunity to succeed and feel valued and respected.
The District is committed to promoting and providing equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, facilities and services, even when this means allocating resources on the basis of student needs. Resource allocation that benefits all students shall support the definition of educational equity and comply with state and federal funding mandates. The District is committed to fostering a learning environment where equity is expected and to recruiting and retaining staff that reflect the diversity of our students and community and/or core beliefs of MISD.
Equity is not a zero-sum game. Attending to, allocating resources, and supporting students historically marginalized or disadvantaged does not mean creating less for advantaged students. Instead, the goal is to create educational excellence for all students by providing what they need when they need it to thrive.
The District will foster learning by engaging students in thinking critically, solving problems creatively, and working collaboratively.
Inspiring our students to be lifelong learners as they create their futures.
Students are the priority. We believe in:
Student-Focused Fundamentals
The Mercer Island School District's Board of Directors systemically measures the District's attainment of Board Policy 1800 OE-1: Student Focused Fundamentals. The Board monitors these five Fundamentals (goals) both quantitatively and qualitatively. Monitoring the Fundamentals allows the Board and the community to contextualize how our educational programs are “benchmarking” progress toward these Student-Focused Fundamentals and the District’s Values, Vision and Mission contained in Board Policy 0001.
This includes Fundamental 5: "Foster and embrace diversity, inclusiveness, and equity with a focus on respect and acceptance of every student."
Supporting the whole child
Creating inclusive and equitable learning settings
Ensuring our school communities are safe and supportive
Providing rigorous and challenging learning