Building a More Inclusive School:

A school’s journey to create a more inclusive environment where every member of the community feels seen, heard, affirmed, supported, and valued.

Jose Jimenez • Cahn Fellow 2019

A.C.E. Academy for Scholars has been on an evolving journey to fulfil the promise of public education. The capstone project, “Building a More Inclusive School” is a continuation of that work and sought to address the inequities and pitfalls that may still persist by focusing on inclusive and humanizing practices. Educators came together in community to take a critical look at the ways in which they utilize teaching materials and engage with the multiple identities that exist in order to represent the realities of living in a multicultural world. The project included an emphasis on collaborative thinking and design. Educators collaborated on various school teams to create initiatives and develop tools that would increase the critical consciousness of the members of the community. While doing this work, educators analyzed their implicit bias, discussed their teaching materials and curricula to determine which voices were represented and which were not. In turn, scholars were engaged in a similar practice by analyzing their classroom libraries and determining which books and stories they felt important to include that were not being heard.