Equity in education means that opportunities are differentiated to ensure all students have access to the resources, programs, and experiences that they need to feel safe and supported. In East Penn we believe in removing barriers to learning and commit to fairly distributing access, opportunity, and participation.
We use four frames to examine situations from an equity lens: structural, societal, socio-economic, and cultural.
Structural
We remove barriers to educational opportunities that exist due to organizational structures or practices by ensuring concerted efforts are made to provide access for underrepresented groups to learn alongside their peers in classrooms with appropriately designed rigorous programs that meet individual needs.
Societal
We remove barriers to educational opportunities that exist due to disadvantages caused by pre-existing prejudice in society, based on both conscious and unconscious bias, related to students’ membership in one or more underrepresented groups by broadening access to engaging and challenging curriculum and instruction backed by high teacher expectations for performance.
Socio-economic
We remove barriers to educational opportunities that exist due to students’ economic status by ensuring they have advocates on a personal and systems level.
Cultural
We remove barriers to educational opportunities that exist due to students’ cultural backgrounds by incorporating the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds in our materials and resources.
No Place for Hate in East Penn
Willow Lane students create their February 2024 No Place for Hate message.
Eyer No Place for Hate Club held a 2024 kick off event challenging students to pledge to support its goal of being a No Place for Hate School. The purpose of the No Place for Hate Club is to engage in student led programming in order to help create an inclusive environment where all students feel welcome and accepted.
The February 1, 2024 Hornet Huddle was written by our No Place For Hate organization. Students had to move in concentric circles to discuss important topics of acceptance and belonging and to share some information about themselves in order to build connections between the students in homeroom.
East Penn Diversity, Equity and Inclusion News and Events