Educational Equity

Creating opportunities and providing support to achieve and sustain equitable student achievement

The Department of Educational Equity supports student learning by:

Building staff capacity to institutionalize racial equity and cultural relevancy; and
Effectively implementing practices that achieve and sustain equitable student achievement.

Support services provided by Educational Equity staff include:

American Indian Education
English Learner program
Equity Specialists
Equity Teachers
Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools®

Overview

Since 2014, Osseo Area Schools has hosted Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools® programming to engage approximately 300 students in high-quality learning each summer. CDF Freedom Schools play a critical role in the school district’s priority work to ensure equitable student achievement. This means ensuring high levels of achievement for all students and accelerating growth for students of color and other underperforming groups in order to close the achievement gap on all state-mandated tests.

Program focus

The program’s focus on reading enrichment is highly effective in helping students prevent summer learning loss in reading. Nationwide, the typical summer loss for students from low-income families is two months of reading achievement.

The Freedom Schools experience

In addition to helping students make gains in reading, Freedom Schools is fun! Students participate in literacy enrichment, STEM activities and cultural learning, while also learning through field trips and in-school field experiences.