A MATTER OF EQUITY

KIT A MATTER OF EQUITY

Associate Director/The Roeper Institute Alumnae Parent & Alumna Class of 1975

Maybe the most important thing we have to do with our children is to make them ready to adapt themselves to change. — George Roeper (1963)

When COVID-19 arrived in Michigan last March, we were deep in the throes of building out A Matter of Equity, our public-private partnership between The Roeper Institute, The Roeper School and Detroit Public Schools Community District, designed to build the knowledge and practice base of DPSCD and Roeper teachers in meeting the needs of low-income and culturally diverse gifted and talented children After completing a two-week intensive summer training in 2019 led by the incredible team of experts assembled by the Center for Gifted Education at William and Mary, the academic year found our inaugural cohort gathering for a series of weekend workshops to refine their skill set, learn advanced methods, and prepare to grow their leadership capacity by assisting the CFGE team in the planned expansion to a second cohort in the summer of 2020

With the advent of COVID-19, our Cohort 1 teachers faced a whole new set of unexpected challenges as DPSCD attempted to grapple with pandemic education, including how to feed a majority Title I student population and offer remote learning when so many students lacked equipment and access to the internet Our Matter of Equity team knew we had to reorient our project delivery model and timetable around the new reality and needs of our teachers In the words of George Roeper, we had to apply our collective gifts and capacity to “revising what is known, exploring the unknown and constructing new forms”

I am pleased to report that our team rose to that challenge — and then some After surveying our cohort, we developed a “Pick Your Own Continued Learning Path”: an eight-module rich remote learning summer-fall plan which included group and individual assignments and synchronous and asynchronous sessions, designed to reinforce skills and knowledge from earlier learning and provide opportunity for advanced professional development in gifted education We also designed a highly successful four-part series of Fall Saturday Workshops where the cohort came together (by Zoom of course!) for an intimate opportunity to learn from some of the most respected national experts in the field of gifted education In a revised form of scaling up the project, William and Mary is developing a rich digital library of resources that will be available to all DPSCD and Roeper educators free of charge Finally, with the continued support from William and Mary and our own exceptional Roeper counselors, we are developing a set of summer 2021 workshops for DPSCD school counselors who are often in the spaces and places where a foundational knowledge on recognizing gifted and talented children and their special needs could make a significant impact in meeting those needs

The host of complex, existential issues magnified during this past year — from public health to public discourse health — underscore better than any case we could have articulated — how the nurturing and full development of our gifted and talented children is a matter of equity and of profound national importance Our project’s adaptation models the critical thinking and problem-solving and creative collaboration that is at the heart of the pedagogy and instructional practices we are helping our teachers develop for not just their gifted and talented students, but all of their students You can learn more about A Matter of Equity as well as other Institute projects (including the on-going publication of the highly respected academic Roeper Review journal) at our newly designed website at https://www roeper org/ about/the-roeper-institute

Amidst this robust activity, our Board of Directors has begun planning for the next phase of The Roeper Institute As I look to observing nearly 60 years as a proud member of the Roeper community, I am delighted to share that as of July 1, 2021, Roeper community member extraordinaire, Sarah Miller, will be assuming the role of Associate Director of The Roeper Institute Sarah holds a Master’s Degree in Social Justice from Marygrove College and has done extensive work in the DEI field, including co-creating and co-leading Roeper’s White AntiRacism Allyship Group Sarah and her husband, Kenny, are the very proud parents of Roeper The host of complex, existential issues magnified during this past year underscore better than any case we could have articulated — how the nurturing and full development of our gifted and talented children is a matter of equity and of profound national importance .

alumna Alexa ‘20, and Elyse ‘24 Sarah is that rare combination of “visionary” and “doer” and “empowerer of others ” I cannot wait to see how The Roeper Institute will evolve under the shared guidance of Sarah and our dedicated Board of Directors

We would never have been in the position of thinking about, let alone actually planning, for this growth were it not for the sage leadership of current and former members of our Board of Directors, the incredible generosity of our Matter of Equity donors, and the School’s commitment to advancing George and Annemarie Roeper’s legacy through consistent support for the Institute’s mission alongside that of the School My gratitude is endless F

This initiative is made possible through the generosity of these donors:

Patti Aaron

Joel & Carol Appel Buck Baker & Christie Peck Cohn Family Philanthropic Fund Steven & Ann Deneroff Dr Raina Ernstoff & Mr Sanford Hansell Joan Lessen-Firestone & Ira Firestone Dr Hobart W Harris Ms Peggy & Dr Jared Klein Ms Linda & Dr James Kohlenberg Joel Lutz, in memory of Barbara Lutz Lori Lutz & Gregory Gamalski Ms Maureen & Dr Alvaro Martinez

Janice B Friedlander Philanthropic Fund

Nicholson Family Fund Harold & Bonita Gardner Robert G Sims & Denita Banks-Sims Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan The Edward E Ford Foundation

And through the vision, counsel, and wisdom of The Roeper Institute Board of Directors

Ann Deneroff Dr Dante Dixson David Feldman Dr Joan Lessen-Firestone Dr Leslie Hosey Hon Qiana Denise Lillard Justin Long Dianne O’Connor Dr Robert Schultz Doug Winkworth