Livingston Public Schools’ Equity Goal seeks to improve the culture and community with LPS by enhancing inclusiveness, cultural awareness, anti-racism, and acceptance of individual differences through mandated curricular programming, extracurricular programming, and district operations. We are in the very early stages of our work and with each day we realize how much more we need to do in ensuring each of our students know they belong and are sure they are valued in our schools. 

In response to this goal, LPS created District and Building Equity Teams to put “equity into action” at every level across the school community through:

• Data analysis and planning
• Coaching educators on equity, anti-racism and inclusion in the classroom.
• Planning and facilitating community conversations

The Equity teams continue to work with teachers to make instruction more responsive to diversity, and inclusive of various cultures. The teams also work to strategically implement professional development and school-based programming focused on diversity, anti-racism, and cultural inclusivity in teaching and learning in order to create a common language and set of expectations for the school community.

We have received incredibly helpful feedback from members of our school community.  One suggestion recently was to create building equity team web pages where we can share information about the meeting schedules, names of team members, the focus of the work, ways to get involved, and contact information to facilitate easy participation.  This is an example of how we are evolving in our work and how much we value the collaboration with our community. We are working to build and launch those webpages now and they will be up for everyone to access soon!

How can members of our school community participate in affinity groups?:

The LPS Equity Teams have been contacted by school community members with interests in creating smaller affinity groups.  Affinity groups are defined as “a group of people sharing a common interest or goal, or acting together for a specific purpose.” At this time, members of our school community and equity teams have made specific requests for an LGBTQIA+ group, an AAPI group, and a BIPOC group.  We welcome additional affinity groups as part of our work in equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. If you have a suggestion or a desire to partner with the district equity team in creating any additional affinity groups, please contact Lisa Steiger at lsteiger@livingston.org or your building principal.  These groups, which will meet approximately three times per year, will serve as an advisory group to the District Equity Team by offering their experiences, their voices, their interest in collaborating with us and their resources. To indicate your interest in participating in one of our affinity groups, please add your name and contact information to one of the forms below.  Should additional Affinity Groups be requested, we will send out sign-up information in the Discover newsletter and on the district website.