June 12, 2024 – The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education heard an update on the Fostering Diverse Schools Grant during their meeting on Tuesday night.
The federal grant, worth $948,688 over two years, is intended to help school districts diversify student bodies and make sure that pupils of all backgrounds have equal access to funding and classroom resources. The demographics of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County are becoming more diverse with every passing year, with Black, White, and Hispanic students each making up roughly 30% of the district’s population today, but residential zones and student assignment plans have not been adjusted to reflect those shifts in more than 30 years. District leaders hope that the grant will facilitate a comprehensive analysis of the current model that will result in a more equitable layout.
Developing a plan worth implementing will rely heavily on stakeholder engagement and vetting. Having completed Phase I of the grant process, which deals with exploration and modeling, the district will spend the rest of the calendar year in Phase II, which will solicit the input of students, teachers, families, and other community stakeholders to come up with a diversity plan that works for everyone. Chief Equity Officer Effie McMillian is confident that with time, hard work, communication, and compromise, the goal of more equitable student assignment is well within the district’s reach.
“Everybody won’t get exactly what they want, because that’s not how it ever works,” McMillian said. “But I think that it’s important that people see that their voice was heard and that it impacted the decisions.”
Also on the board’s agenda for the evening were:
- - Recognitions for 2023-24 Clean and Green School award winners, 2024 Music Performance Adjudication Superior Rating winners, and James P. Glover of East Forsyth High School as CTE Teacher of the Year
- - Discussions about before and after school care providers, contracts with Ellevation for multilingual learning programs and with school resource officers, and updates on diagnostic resource purchases and the district’s vision for teaching and learning
- - Approval of contracts with Imagine Learning, Discovery Education, KickUp, the Center for Exceptional Children, and more
The Board of Education will meet again on Tuesday, June 25.