September 2023

Foundations for Racial Equity: The Influence of the School Counselor

Kelly Curtis-Slaughter
School Counselor, EP Rock Elementary, Hudson Schools

Imagine this: your school is 99% white. You have one family from Pakistan, and their fifth grader is getting ready to do state testing this week during Ramadan. She has been getting up before dawn to eat breakfast and fasting all day until after sunset. She is exhausted and hungry – and proud she is participating for the first time, like her big brother. Her teacher doesn’t know it is Ramadan and doesn’t understand why her student fell asleep during target time.

How could an equity mindset help this child’s test scores?

Like 94% of Wisconsin public school educators, I am White. I was raised in Wisconsin, with a whole set of Midwestern biases. While my school is the most diverse in our district, it is still 80% White. The rest is composed of students who are African American, Latinx, Arab, Chinese, Hmong, and Ukrainian. We have a fair amount of economic diversity too, which contributes to the accepting and generous nature of our staff. Our principal supports the intentional ways we facilitate ongoing courageous conversations about race and ethnicity and learn from each other. We regularly analyze academic and behavioral data to identify the gaps and problem-solve, and we started a parent cultural advisory group to engage in authentic conversations. We showcase our diversity in many ways. Last year, a new student with First Nations heritage completely blossomed when her teacher encouraged her to teach her class Ojibwe words every Friday. 

We still have a long way to go, but our work as a staff to understand differences and reveal biases has made us aware we need to continue to grow. It is like a curtain has been pulled to the side, with a light shining on what had been hidden before.

From the preamble to our ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors: 

School counselors are leaders, advocates, collaborators, and consultants who create systemic change to ensure equitable educational outcomes through the school counseling program. School counselors demonstrate the belief that all students have the ability to learn by advocating for and contributing to an education system that provides optimal learning environments for all students.

School counselors are in a unique position. We really shine with individuals, going to bat for the student who is misunderstood and underrepresented. But how are we doing system-wide to spark change – especially when our population is mostly White? I challenge you to explore this question.

In the pamphlet, Is Racial Equity in Rural Wisconsin Relevant?, DPI outlines the need for increased focus on racial equity work in Wisconsin’s small-to-medium-sized school districts. These districts often have a low percentage of diverse students, but this population is growing. It may be less likely that someone is leading the charge, but one could make the case that the most homogeneous of schools have the greatest need for equity work. Author Rudine Sims Bishop is often quoted about how to seek diversity in the literature we provide to students: “Children need windows and mirrors. They need mirrors in which they see themselves and windows through which they see the world.” 

As school counselors, we may not think it is “in our lane” to wonder about the books available to students in the library or the stories read in the reading curriculum. Our ethical standards would say that it definitely is – not just for the fifth grader observing Ramadan, or for the transfer student from Chicago whose norms have been entirely different his whole life, or the boy from Guatemala who speaks only Quechua. It’s more – how can we create systemic change for the majority White population of students who have little exposure to people who are different from them? 

Here are a few ideas about what you can do to help ensure equitable educational outcomes in your school:

• KNOW your data and share it. Numbers are powerful and can illustrate gaps in a way people will believe. This isn’t so we feel badly; it’s to shine a light on something we otherwise wouldn’t know was there. If you can’t see it, you can’t work toward a solution.
• Accept your own ignorance when it comes to understanding bias. Your own misunderstanding is not something to be ashamed of; rather, it is a place to grow from. Those around you will notice your willingness to learn and open themselves as well.
• Work with your school leadership to pursue opportunities for equity professional development, exploring biases, and keeping the conversation courageous. Begin a discussion or strongly support and promote someone else’s. 
• Create a small group of like-minded educators in your school, and offer to staff or even parents book clubs for discussion-starting books like White Fragility, Stamped from the Beginning, and Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain.
• Showcase diversity that does exist in your school: students from diverse cultures speaking the word of the day on the school news, researching projects for Black History Month, or sharing something from their culture in class.
• Never underestimate the power of displaying a poster, pin, or sticker to show your personal allyship with students of color or other differences.
• Follow influencers who are people of color on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms. This gives you one more way to inform your perspective on the world, daily.

The fifth grader from Pakistan? Her teacher learned about Ramadan, and she contacted the parents about how she could support them. She arranged for herself or others to spend lunch with her somewhere other than the cafeteria. And the next year, we explored ways to have these students take the Forward during the testing window right before Ramadan started. This was one teacher working within the backdrop of a school undergoing systemic change.

What is ONE small thing you can do this year to create systemic change? Maybe it is to start with your own understanding of race. It may be one of the most important things you do this year. How will you embrace the challenge?