The Hampden-Wilbraham School District has a decades long history of inadequately addressing issues facing marginalized communities. Whether it be disparities in discipline, AP placement, passing of MCAS tests or how special education services are delivered, data shows that the district has issues with ensuring equity and inclusion. 

However, in January 2021, Superintendent Al Ganem proposed conducting an equity audit and the school committee supported his effort. This was a major first step in ensuring that all students can be successful in the district.   

The goal of an equity audit is to identify institutional practices that produce discriminatory trends in data that affect students. Schools and districts conduct audits to analyze data in three key areas: programmatic equity, teaching quality equity, and achievement equity (Skrla, McKenzie & Scheurich, 2009).

Unfortunately, hesitancy, other priorities like COVID 19 and remote learning, along with changes within the state guidelines have slowed down the process and Mr. Ganem has yet to hire a company.  

This petition is meant to support the proposal for an equity audit and to show community commitment to ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion for all students within the Hampden-Wilbraham School District.  We ask that at the 9/2/2021 school committee meeting, a motion be made and a vote be conducted to move forward with the proposed audit, to hire a company and to complete the audit by December 2022 and then have the results and recommendations worked into the Strategic Plan by June 2023.