Rockford Sun

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) has been approved to be one of the core values of the Belvidere School District, as the school board recently approved an updated strategic plan adding DEI to that list.

“I think it’s going to be powerfully important that those not just be words on a page,” board member Lisa Whitcomb said during the April meeting of the school board. If that’s a core value, she said, then we should “be having and developing an inclusive culture, and I would look for the action plan to tell us exactly how we’re going to do that.” 

Superintendent Cassandra Schug, assistant superintendent David Carson and the Strategic Planning Core Team rewrote the strategic plan at the request of the board. Earlier iterations of the plan had removed DEI from the list of core values, but debate called for it to be put back into the final draft that was presented in April.

“I think it's a necessary and important thing, Kids aspire to be what they see,” Whitcomb said, in calling for the action plan to make deliberate planning toward answering the question of how to hire from a variety of ethnic groups.

The strategic plan includes a mission statement that says the district wants to: “Cultivate academic success so that our students become lifelong learners, innovators, and contributors to society.” It lists five main goals, which include academic achievement and growth, learning environment, family and community partnerships, premier workforce, and operational resources. Each of these goals have specific methods of measurements and assessment, as well as numerous strategies for improvement and goal achievement. 

Board member Jorge Herrera said he wanted to ensure that diversity was a top priority for the district and did not want it written out of the strategic plan. Members of the committee explained they had made the decision to rewrite it as inclusion because they felt it would translate better to all the families and parents in the district. After much discussion about the importance of recognizing the many non-white members of their community and the diversity they had in their district, the board put “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” back under the core values, and then approved the new strategic plan for a final adoption.