CPS’s Journey to Becoming an Anti-Racist District

Abstract

For the past several years, Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) has implemented multiple equity and racial equity efforts. Most recently, in 2019, CPS made an explicit commitment to becoming an anti-racist district and drafted five district-wide initiatives to achieve this goal. These initiatives were underway when, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the district to pause this critical work and focus on the shift to remote learning and working. At the same time, the impact of the pandemic, coupled with the national and local racial reckoning, heightened the demand for and urgency of anti-racism work. In an attempt to address this dilemma, my residency at CPS focused on one of the five anti-racist initiatives: the creation of anti-racism professional development for all CPS school and district staff. Initially, the goal was to recruit a diverse group of students, caregivers, teachers, and school and district leaders to design it. However, due to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other unanticipated challenges, recruiting a multi-stakeholder team proved more difficult than expected. In this capstone, I describe and analyze the successes and challenges of each of the four interconnected phases of the strategic project: defining a problem of practice, mapping the district’s anti-racist journey, developing a coherent strategy, and implementing the strategy. In addition, I share evidence of the progress thus far, including the creation of the Spring 2020 Anti-Racism Professional Development Plan, the recruitment of the Anti-Racism Professional Learning Planning Team, and the process used to draft the Anti-Racist Leadership“Look Fors”—the precursor to the anti-racism professional development. Lastly, I share the implications of what I have learned for myself as a leader, for my site, and for the public education sector at large.