Targeted Systems Support

Who

The superintendent of a school district, charter school CEO, commissioner, or board member engages TWS to solve a particular problem related to equity.

“We started working with TWS because we thought we had a discipline problem, now we know we have a culture problem — and we could not do this work without the TWS team.”

Superintendent

Why

Schools and school systems often perpetuate the same inequities we see in society, specifically:

  • Schools — and the systems in which they operate — are consistently failing 20% of their most vulnerable students. These “Students who Systems Fail the Most” (SSFMs) have special needs, are court-involved, live well below the poverty level and/or face unthinkable barriers to success. Statistically, they are likely to be students of color. Too often they are labeled “special populations” and further marginalized out of classrooms and into separate and unequal programs.
  • Black and brown students as well as students with disabilities are between 3 and 4 times more likely to be suspended than their white peers, often for the same infractions. These students report they feel less seen and heard, and less connected to adults. Over 50% of school-based arrests are of Black students though they make up only 17% of the student population nationwide. Punitive discipline is correlated to poor student outcomes and a life-long connection to a biased justice system.

How

The TWS team helps the leader and their team deeply and accurately diagnose the root cause of the presenting challenge and step out a concrete plan to solve it. Sample clients include:

  • The Los Angeles Unified School District recognized students with disabilities were being segregated from their peers and suffering from poor academic outcomes. Further, the district had been embroiled in a 30-year consent decree related to special education. The TWS team envisioned an entirely new approach to special education and a multi-year plan to get there.
  • The Louisiana Department of Education tapped TWS’ Discipline Revolution Project to pilot a radically different approach to the Alternative Education Pilot Program. The TWS team worked with the state to shift policies and incentives, and with two parishes to put in place on-the-ground pilots.
  • The Discipline Revolution Project: Tangipahoa Parish has partnered with the TWS team over multiple years to completely rethink their approach to equity from top to bottom. The work began as a frank assessment of biased discipline practices and led to a co-constructed blueprint for a pathway to becoming a district that exemplified critical consciousness, equity, and inclusion.