An Invitation to Attend the Urban Collaborative Conference in Chicago

Dear School Districts in Illinois,

The Urban Collaborative is a national organization of over 100 school district focused on equitable and inclusive education. Our next member meeting will be held in Chicago November 6-8, 2019. The themes is Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: The Intersection of Disability and Race and our keynote is Dr. Pedro Noguera. I am writing to extend an invitation to other districts in Illinois that might like to attend as a guest. Please see below for more information on the meeting.

Fall 2019 Member Meeting – Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: The Intersection of Disability and Race

Registration is now open for our Fall 2019 Member Meeting hosted by Chicago Public Schools in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting will be held at the Westin Chicago River North, Chicago, IL, November 6-8, 2019. The theme for this meeting is Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: The Intersection of Disability and Race. Please join your colleagues to share how we create equitable, diverse, and inclusive systems that address the intersection of disability and race.

The intersection of disability and race in schools dates back as far as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. As both desegregation and IDEA were implemented in the 1970s, special education, while providing civil rights for those with disabilities, also served as a tool for racial segregation. In 1965, just one year after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, there were allegations that schools in San Francisco used “special education classes as a cover for segregation” (Harry, 1995, p. 603). Dunn (1968) found that in the late 1960s, classes with children seen as intellectually disabled served a disproportionate number of students of color. The issue continues through today. In 2016, Former Secretary of Education John King said that “we need to address racial and ethnic disparities in special education… ensuring the right services get to the right students in the right way."

While there is not one answer and no single district has all of the answers, as leaders in special education, we can learn from each other ways to create practices, processes, and environments that are equitable (providing access to opportunity, fairness, and justice), diverse (celebrating our differences), and inclusive (valuing all). In Chicago, we will work together to share how we are addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion at the intersections of disability and race.

Registration - If you would like to attend the meeting, please email us at urbancollaborative@asu.edu and we will send you an ID code and link to our registration site.

If you would like more information on the Urban Collaborative, please visit our website (https://www.urbancollaborative.org/). We have also attached our enrollment form, list of current members, and a sample of our monthly newsletter, CollabNews.