School district unveils new three-year plan for diversity, equity and inclusion

The School Committee heard a proposal from an equity committee organized by Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa for a new three-year equity plan at its Aug. 12 meeting, the result of a district-wide audit which found major room for improvement in staff diversity and student inclusion practices. 

The plan is based on an extensive series of focus groups and surveys of students, faculty and caregivers on how the district serves its diverse student population. Surveys drew more than 2,000 responses in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese. 

Committee members were surprised to find out during the presentation that 61.6% of students across Waltham Public Schools are students of color, compared to a teaching staff that is 90.7% white. 

Despite such a large population of students of color, members of the equity committee — which included faculty and caregivers — said that survey responses described “surface-level, piecemeal professional development,” regarding DEI and “deficit thinking” from faculty toward multilingual learners. 

Those results informed the plan’s two priorities: instruction and student experience, and adult learning and development, targeted towards teachers and district staff. These areas each have their own benchmarks, action items, task owners and qualitative metrics to track progress. It rolls out in three phases, and is intended to be scaled to the whole district in the 2028-29 school year. 

The audit also found strong individual relationships between staff and students, but little institutional support to build those relationships. Based on that finding, Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa has prioritized guaranteeing every student has a trusted adult at school. The district’s data so far suggests that isn’t a given, particularly for students of color and newcomers, who are in their first year of schooling in the United States.

Mendonsa also highlighted a push to diversify the teaching workforce through new recruitment practices, bilingual educator incentives and strengthening an existing pipeline that lets paraprofessionals earn teaching licenses while they work. 

Presenters framed the plan as a multi-year commitment rather than a quick fix, with public progress reports due each year through 2029 and a promise to publish community materials in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese. Whether it changes daily experience in Waltham classrooms, committee members said, will be measured less by the paperwork than by simpler tests: whether every student can name someone at school who they trust, and whether the adults in the building start to look more like the students they teach.