Cedar Rapids, Iowa City school districts join Center for Equity

Launched in late July, the team at the Creative Corridor Center for Equity is raising funds to create a plan for four area school districts to achieve racial equality.

A partnership between Diversity Focus and West Wind Education Policy in Iowa City, the Center for Equity's initial goal was to get a few key school districts on board, said Chad Simmons, executive director of Diversity Focus. The Cedar Rapids Community School District is now an official partner, said Ken Morris Jr., the district's manager of student equity.

The Iowa City Community School District has also signed a memorandum of understanding, said Chace Ramey, the district's spokesman.

The Center for Equity is in the process of getting a memorandum of understanding signed with the Linn-Mar Community School District and Waterloo Community School District, said Circe Stumbo, president of West Wind Education Policy.

The first area of focus for the Creative Corridor Center for Equity is recruitment and retention of staff of color, Stumbo said.

'Our ultimate goal is to ensure that our communities are inclusive and equitable,” she said. 'We've seen evidence that our communities care deeply and want to do what we can to overcome inequities.”

The team is now working to raise $200,000 locally in order to complete this work, Stumbo said. Individual communities are being asked to show their support in order to help pave the way for improvements in their school districts, Simmons said.

Ramey said the district is having meetings with the Center for Equity and its leadership team to begin the process of developing a long range plan to help the district improve recruitment and retention of staff of color. 'Having equity across our schools is something the board and administration is committed to,” Ramey said. 'We think that it's a crucial piece of providing an excellent education to all students.”

Ramey said it's important for the staff population to reflect the student body. While the district's student population is one-third students of color, Ramey said that as of the 2013-14 school year, only five percent of the district's teachers are teachers of color and eleven percent of support staff is of color. There are no administrators of color.

To address that discrepancy, Simmons said the organization will attempt to recruit and retain talent from outside the state while also encouraging Iowans to stay in the region.

'We're really focusing on the whole pipeline, for the whole experience for how you get someone from cradle to career,” Simmons said.

All of the focus areas of the center are designed to improve education outcomes for students.

'The concept around equity is that you don't need to treat everyone the same, and get a variety of different outcomes, Simmons said. 'The goal is, you treat everyone differently based on what their needs are and you get similar outcomes.”

Stumbo said working to recruit and retain more staff of color will help ensure the teaching population mirrors the demographics of the student body.

Eventually, the Center for Equity will work to engage local educational institutions, such as Wartburg College, Cornell College and other colleges and universities. These institutions are suppliers of talent to local schools, Simmons said.

More information on the Center for Equity is available from Diversity Focus at (319) 363-3707.

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