The La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board heard a presentation on its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion plan, which includes updates for the upcoming plan and site-specific goals and committees.
Superintendent Wendy Sinnette, the LCUSD cabinet and DEI Oversight Committee Chair Sugi Sorensen presented the report to the board on June 25.
As the third year in the three-year plan wraps up, goals, actions and services have been managed and implemented, according to Sinnette.
To advance their efforts and implement site-specific plans, leadership personnel at each school site will start at the end of the 2023-24 school year, taking on their own DEI plan and designating committees to oversee it.
Principals and district administration will monitor site and district demographics and create annual action plans for support as needed. The newly appointed assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, James Cartnal, will oversee this process. Principals from each school site will report to the board three times throughout the year.
“So, there’ll be plenty of oversight,” Sinnette said.
The DEI three-year plan has five components: district and school leadership, human resource policies and practices, professional development and parent education, student services and climate of care, and curriculum and instruction.
Plans put in place in the last year included teachers grading for citizenship relating to belongingness and wellness, principals monitoring site and district demographics, and completing exit interviews for any families leaving the district “to make sure they’re not leaving for any DEI-related reasons.”
As part of the human resource practices of the plan, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Debra Cradduck recognized everyday heroes each month from classified and certificated staff members employed throughout the district for extraordinary performance in terms of creating environments of belongingness and wellness for colleagues and students.
The district also had a new teacher mentoring program, where every new staff member received formal onboarding, training and support. Additionally, professional development and training opportunities were available during the summer, such as strategies for TK through sixth-grade teachers to use to create inclusive and welcoming learning environments.
Meanwhile, the district worked on and completed adding new and existing student clubs, especially at the high school and 7/8 level. The district also conducts yearly student perception surveys on climate and the welcoming nature of classrooms and school site environments.
Therapists were also provided to students at the high school and 7/8 wellness centers.
“In terms of restorative practices, we continue with our DEI initiatives,” Sinnette said. “… When there are disciplinary infractions, students are encouraged to complete the cycle of restoration by giving back to the community or restoring the relationship with the person with whom the infraction was against.”
As for the climate of care, the district is continuing to empower teachers to effectively utilize relational tools to create safe and inclusive learning environments. For example, the district has kicked off the Positive Behavior Intervention Support initiative in the past year, which has been well-established at the high school and Palm Crest Elementary School.
According to the PBIS website, PBIS is an evidence-based tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional and mental health.
The district continues to offer ethnic studies and urban sociology courses from Pasadena City College. Work also continues on the ethnic student program, which was implemented in the English 1 classes. It will continue to be refined next year and will be formally launched in the 2026-27 school year.
“We have continued with our special education inclusion program, which emphasizes our DEI efforts for including all students in the general education environment,” Sinnette added. “We’ve continued with our responsive teaching plans and monitoring the data to make the curriculum more accessible and students more successful.”
Sinnette then reviewed the survey results, asking students in grades 4-6 and 7-12 DEI-related questions. The students ranked their respective school sites high in topics such as providing a caring environment for learning, prioritizing academic excellence, and promoting safety and security.
The item that ranked in the lower range, 57-72%, was “At my school, the principal gives out disciplinary consequences consistently.”
Although the board was worried about the outcome and considered changing the wording of the question — since it can look as if students are interpreting it differently — Sorensen informed the board that it was mainly due to students responding with “Not Sure,” which he views as a valid response.
Board members said they were concerned that students might not understand the disciplinary consequences at each of their school sites, even though they are required to sign a student handbook.
“I think the ultimate outcome, and you’re already addressing it, is that we can get more information out to the community about how discipline works on our campuses and how and why we’re confident that this one is fairly meted out, consistently meted out, and that there are no differences between different groups,” said board member Dan Jeffries.
Board President Josh Epstein also asked if the DEI committee could identify subgroups related to race in its future reports or surveys.
He also wanted to clarify if the district will create smaller DEI committees within each school site.
Sinnette answered and said that all principals have been working to develop their plans, and each school site will have its own DEI oversight committee.
Epstein also asked how each school site committee will work to ensure consistency with the other schools in the district’s DEI plans.
“The plans will be consistent enough that you can see the similar through lines, but they will also be site-specific based on the nuances at each site,” Sinnette said. “… So, you will see differences, but you will see fidelity with regard to implementation, implementation oversight by the site committees, and then ultimate district oversight and through Jim Cartnal, overseeing the principles on this particular plan, and also the production of data and reports to the governing board, three times per year.”
Board member Joe Radabaugh was pleased to see where the DEI plan is going, especially after a shift to the different school sites this coming year.
“In my mind, there was always going to be a moment where DEI just became the way we did things, it was embedded in our values, embedded in our culture, and it didn’t need to be stand-alone,” he said. “… It made sense to me that [the district is] transitioning from a district lead charge to a distributed site lead charge that eventually gets fully embedded. So, I’m thinking this is the change curve of the degree of embedding it, but it is still new.”
