Rachel Goldberg, when serving an assistant superintendent in Passaic Public Schools and former director of staff development at Elizabeth Public Schools, districts whose student populations are primarily low income and Latinx. In both districts, the superintendents were members of NJNS, and over the last 10 years, she has participated in equity visits to a range of diverse schools, many different from both of her districts. She reflects on how thinking about equity across district demographics helped her think further about equity and instruction in her own district.

Ultimately, our job as district leaders is to think about how members of this network can work together to identify how differences in student demographics appear in our school policies, culture, and classroom instruction. A key benefit of equity visits is looking at schools across the state to ask what instruction looks like for students in other districts. In the network, we sat across from districts very different from us, and we went and saw what their students experienced.

Having high-income, majority white districts in NJNS was fabulous for our learning. My team from Passaic looked at their practice as external points to better understand equity. The students attending those schools, what is their experience like? How do we duplicate that high-level instruction regardless of where the student goes to school?

–Dr. Rachel Goldberg, Superintendent, Springfield Public School District, formerly Assistant Superintendents in the Passaic Public Schools and Elizabeth Public Schools

“Asking Questions About Student Experiences Across Districts”