so we are going to deal with equity at work!!

[Zoe Girl]

OMG, not sure what I want to say. Equity is a huge value of mine at work. It is one of the 6 core values in our district. Each year we need to have 3 goals as part of our work, track them, do the data for it, etc. We need to also connect them to the department goals, which connect to the district, all pretty normal stuff. 2 years ago or so I was talking to my supervisors about equity and in my evaluation meeting they just said 'the department is not working on equity'. I could have created an equity based goal if I wanted 4 instead of 3, but knew I didn't have that much energy. My 'bad year' started off with conflict over a homeless student and a large bill. I kept dealing with that and blew my temper, there were other issues but standing up for that family set up my year badly. I was flying in the face of the business model. I also have tracked every year things in my program, like how many families on scholarship compared to the free and reduced lunch rate at the school so I know we are serving the actual community. I know other schools don't do this, or track race (if a school is 70% black why is our after school program 70% white). My focus is socio-economic, racial, and language, making sure that everyone has an opportunity in my programs after school. I track that my program matches the school on these factors, and I am sure no one else has been doing this.

So now we have what is called the Bailey report in Denver. It was a report a few months ago by a former school board member showing that we are doing a very bad job on racial issues. I read the summary and will read the whole thing later, it is pretty solid data that matches what I have seen in the last 2-3 years. Our full day/all staff training had a lot of sessions on racial and other issues of equity. I loved it, and I found that so many of the staff I have talked to were also excited, a few didn't believe we would actually do something. Our department is a better I think, a lot more staff in my role have been promoted from within, we have a strong racial diversity as compared to the teachers in schools who are amazingly white and under 30.

Can I just do a huge 'Ha, told you so!!!!' We are talking about race, now they are not financially withdrawing ANYONE but instead working hard to get financial assistance to families, and they even set up a large meeting for a location that I am taking my staff on a field trip to. I have this surreal feeling that I see the supervisor level doing some things that I track back directly to my unique work and yet no one has said anything to me. I guess that is typical to not say anything, but still feeling excitedly unsettled. I would love to ask if I had influenced any of this, but I am pretty sure there is no way to ask that.

[sweetana3]

Been in a similar situation. No one will thank you or give you any recognition for being the one to recognize an issue. You can however, insert your data in any presentations or note it in future reports to show that you were on track and maybe give the supervisors something good that THEY can show for their progress reports. You can reference it in your annual progress reports to support ratings.

I alone did a huge multi year project dealing with hundreds of trust accounts and the improper handling of issues by 9 different service centers. Handled all the cases and provided the data and solutions in a final report to the National Office. Answer: not our problem. I felt good about my work but did not have the influence or standing to push anything in the National Office. A few years later, all the work is consolidated into the one service center office I identified as being the most competent to handle the trust accounts. I never received any recognition and no one wanted to hear "I told you so". OK with me because I know I shook up the system.

Another time, I had to compile reviews of a national conference. Ended up with a 29 page report. Got so mad and embarrassed by the poor quality of the document given to all the attorneys at the conference that I designed a whole new one and provided it to the group running the conference. Resulted in a job offer from the group leader but was in NYC. My boss did not care except for getting a thank you from the other group. You can do great work and be unappreciated but it was fun to do the job.

The end of year time is a perfect time to remind employers of all the work you do on issues that are "important" to them. I used both of those examples above in end of year rating reports.

[razz]

Wonderful to hear about positive changes taking place.

I find that a lot of needed change is triggered by some consciousness raising about issues. This then ripples out and finds a 'champion' to carry it forward to implementation. Often people won't remember the trigger. Each significant change needs both the 'trigger' and the 'champion' to succeed. Well done to both of you.

[Zoe Girl]

Razz, that is a super helpful way to look at it. I find that I tend to be a consciousness trigger. That sounds so hippy dippy! But I think it is an INFJ thing at times, seeing subtle things.