Public schools to present equity audit

The assessment of educational policies and practices is expected to be publicly reported Thursday.

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Superintendent Richie Smith engaging with parents of English-language-learning students. —Charles M. Sennott

Public school officials plan to present the full results of their highly anticipated audit of equity and fairness — conducted in partnership with a national nonprofit — at a school committee meeting tomorrow night.

The district hopes to have a website ready for the public to view along with the presentation during the meeting, and plans to update that website during future phases of the audit.

Audit results have not been published or shared with school committee members, but they are scheduled to be discussed at the All-Island School Committee at 5:30 pm.

The Times made requests to receive the audit, but Superintendent Richie Smith plans to first release the results in the presentation to the committee.

The audit’s purpose, explained this winter, is to review the fairness of an institution’s policies, programs, and practices as they relate to students or staff relative to their race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, and several other socioculturally significant factors.

Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools took the first steps in this audit last November.

Marge Harris, a former Island educator involved in implementing the process, told The Times in February that the plans for an audit grew out of the school system’s desire to examine equity in 2020, when many organizations reassessed their practices in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.

The current equity audit process is being conducted in partnership with the national educational nonprofit Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium (MAEC), and the work is funded through a federal grant.

The equity audit process is made up of several pieces, including surveys filled out by committees made of staff from different schools, parents’ replies to an annual Department of Education School Climate Survey, and focus groups made of high schoolers.

School administrators announced the beginning of the process in February, one week after a contentious Edgartown School committee meeting in which many parents voiced frustration with the school’s allocation and availability of resources for students of different backgrounds and needs.

Superintendent Richie Smith, reached after the February audit announcement, said the public schools needed to collect data in order to make informed decisions. This included decisions to better support changing student populations. “The world has changed since COVID,” he said. “Demographics are changing.”

The school’s non-English-speaking population has shifted, especially in the past 10 years, reflecting the Vineyard’s growing Brazilian community. Nearly 40 percent of the district’s students speak a first language other than English, and 20 percent of students are classified as English language learners. Ten years ago, 13 percent of students spoke a first language other than English, and 10 percent were classified as English learners.

Harris told The Times after the announcement that the audit will show where public schools need to improve. “I don’t know what the data will show, but they’ll show what we are doing right, and where we could improve,” she said. “If we can get any better, that’s great.”

Smith, district leadership, and principals received MAEC’s final audit report this summer, and school committee members pushed in April for releasing the audit publicly.

Smith said that he has worked with a team, and their commitment has been to go over the results during the summer, then present the findings to Island school committees in the fall.

The audit’s release is only part of the second of four steps in the overall process. In a high school committee meeting in early September, Smith shared a four-phase “Road Map for Equitable Schools” based on the findings’ release.

Phase one of the timeline, which took place during the 2023–24 school year, involved conducting the audit and reviewing the public schools’ practices.

Phase two, from September to this October, involves school leadership contextualizing the audit results and sharing them publicly, along with committing to communication with the public.

Phase three, until January, involves schools integrating results into systemwide planning and school improvement plans.

The last phase, from February to June 2025 and beyond, involves adapting, adopting, and abandoning systemwide practices in order to ensure equity across schools, and planning for future improvements in equity. This would include collaboration with identity groups, partnership with families, and promoting students’ well-being and cultural assets.

After a Tuesday Up-Island School Committee meeting, Smith did not offer comment when asked why he did not share audit materials with The Times.

Committee chair Amy Houghton said on Tuesday that she looked ahead to the release of the audit, noting that the committee had not yet received the report. “I anticipate that the report will be the first of a regular conversation about equity, to truly make a difference where needed,” she said.