The Marietta City School board voted to spend $75,000 for the district to implement a program that will help teachers and administrators better understand their students’ cultural and social differences.
Board members on Dec. 10 approved a contract with Atlanta-based Clearwater Consulting to implement a cultural fluency program at Marietta High School and at the district-level.
Clearwater Consulting provides leadership development programs to create positive change within organizations.
Clearwater will work with collaborators and the leadership team at Marietta High School consisting of teachers, administrators and counselors “to support their ability to create (a) safe space for dialogue and shared commitment to positive impact with each other and in the classroom,” according to the company’s proposal to the system.
From January through May, collaborators will host a series of facilitated sessions. Marietta school leaders will learn to appreciate diverse backgrounds, build self-awareness and work on creating “psychologically-safe environments” to address any potential biases, the organization said.
READ: Marietta school system first to offer free childcare to teachers
The participants will have the opportunity to apply these new perspectives through relationships and conversations with other faculty and administrators, in the classroom and in the community. The program will eventually expand to include all faculty members.
Superintendent Dr. Grant Rivera said the Marietta City School System consists of a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses and social and emotional experiences “that are as individual as each person within our community.”
This cultural fluency program supports the school system’s values as a community and will subsequently help the district prepare each student for life after high school, he said.
“With this diversity comes incredible gifts, but also important challenges,” he said. “Our intent with the cultural fluency work is to ensure that we know how best to interact, collaborate, and support each other, and as a district, we are consistently focused on positively impacting and improving both our students’ educational experience and their achievements.”
Like Cobb County News Now on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter
About the Author
