Phase 2 of the Canadian School Board’s Anti-racism Initiatives

The goal of this two-year project is to enable Canadian school boards to become leaders in racial equity. In 2021, the CSBA completed Phase 1 of its anti-racism strategy which identified recommendations and next steps.  The second phase of the project aims to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in school boards and school board trustees and to increase school board and trustee awareness of systemic racism in Canada that continue to disadvantage students and families who are Indigenous, Black or otherwise racialized.

Led by Dr. Jerome Cranston, the project has five main activities:

• The development of an action plan for the implementation of policy changes
• The creation of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion self-assessments to member Associations and their respective member School Boards.
• The development and launch of a national campaign focused on increasing the diversity of locally-elected School Boards.
• The development of online facilitated learning modules for Trustee and Board professional development. These modules are web-based, professionally facilitated discussions with scholars who work in the fields of anti-racist, anti-oppressive and decolonizing fields of study and practice. Topics include: Understanding the history of colonization and racialization in Canadian society; Understanding race, racism and systemic racism in the Canadian school system (K-12 and post-secondary context); Combatting systemic racism in school boards and schools.