Resources for Students, Staff, Families, and Community Members
Racial and Educational Justice Toolkit 2025-2026
The Racial and Educational Justice Toolkit was developed by The Northshore School District Racial and Educational Justice Department. This toolkit serves to store and make available resources for Northshore staff and administrators as they relate to racial and educational justice topics and is intended to streamline access to such resources in one place. In the below chart, each resource has a short description, identifies relevant grade band(s), and categorizes whether it is for student or adult learning. To continue to maintain and update this toolkit, the Racial and Educational Justice Department and Racial and Educational Justice Committee will engage in quarterly reviews of the document.
Click on the document below to view categorized resources.
Glossary of Terms
This is a resource list of terms created by the Racial and Educational Justice Department. It is an ongoing working document.
| Theoretical Concept | Simple Explanation |
|---|---|
| Critical Pedagogy | Helping students learn about social, political, economic, historical, and current functions of oppression, and brainstorm ways that they can critically work to undo these forms of oppression. This allows students the space to apply what they’re learning to then problem pose, question pose, problem solve, and think critically. |
| Critical Consciousness | Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for understanding systems and dynamics of oppression. |
| Culturally Relevant Pedagogy | Student-centered teaching that includes students and their cultures in the classroom in ways that promote greater academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. Refers to any teaching approach that is student-centered, and takes into account students’ cultural strengths, using them to support teaching |
| Culturally Responsive Pedagogy | Teaching that focuses on supporting and celebrating students’ intersectional cultural identities and experiences through meaningful learning that is responsive to who each learner is and can be. |
| Culturally Revitalizing Pedagogy | Teaching that recognizes and revitalizes histories and cultures, particularly for indigenous people, that have been disrupted by colonization, involving communities in the learning process and relationship. |
| Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy | Fosters and maintains the multilingual and multicultural strengths of students while maintaining access to dominant cultural competence. |
| Ethnic Studies | The study of race, ethnicity and indigeneity that centers the history, experiences and perspectives of people of color and their intersecting identities. |
| Ethnic Studies Pedagogy | Teaching that helps students gain knowledge about and challenge social, political and economic structures, locally, nationally and globally. |
| Ethnic Studies Movement | An educational and social justice movement that decolonizes teaching and learning and humanizes and empowers students, families, communities and land. |
| Pluralism | Using and sustaining assets for learning from your cultural background throughout school, while gaining new assets in school. |
| Derogatory Slurs | Terms that are used to harm or mock an aspect of a person or group’s identity |
| Diverse Identities | The way a person or group identifies based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, mental health status, disability, age, sexual orientation, religious status, gender expression, etc. |
| Stereotypes | Inaccurate, over-generalized ways of categorizing, labelling, or thinking about an identity-based group of people |
| Tokenism | A false sense of diversity; hiring or including a small number of people who have historically excluded identities; thinking that the experience of one person from a historically excluded community is the exact same as or completely opposite from the experiences of all people in that historically excluded community |
| Deficit-Framing | Thinking that some people have strengths and some are not capable of having strengths or succeeding. This thinking is often informed by implicit bias. |
| Individuality | Individuality (or self-hood) is the state of being an individual; particularly of being a person separate from other people and possessing their own needs or goals, rights and responsibilities |
| Authenticity | Engaging in conversations that are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications; learning experiences should mirror the complexities and ambiguities of real life. |
| Strengths-Based Framing | Knowing that each person has strengths, brilliance, and various abilities |
| Power | Who has access and the ability to influence and make decisions that impact others |
| Positionality | One’s relationship with power; one’s understanding of the way that they enter into and are seen in a space |
| Hierarchical Power | Top-down, vertical power structure; the people with the most power are at the top of the pyramid and have access to the most decision-making privileges; the lower a person or group is on the pyramid, the less access they have to decision-making and systemic/institutional influence |
| Shared Power | Circular, horizontal power structure; each person and group has access to decision-making, is seen as vital to the overall wellness of the community, and has a voice that is seen as important |
| Oppressive Themes | The impacts of institutional power which creates systems that discriminate against minority communities. These systems enable groups who have access to power to exert control over minoritized communities by limiting their rights, freedom, and access to basic resources such as health care, education, employment, and housing. |
| Multicultural Themes | Multicultural education advocates the belief that students and their life histories and experiences should be placed at the center of the teaching and learning process and that pedagogy should occur in a context that is familiar to students and that addresses multiple ways of thinking. In addition, teachers and students must critically analyze oppression and power relations in their communities, society and the world. |
| Justice-Driven Themes | A justice-driven education refers to pedagogical ways to actively address the dynamics of oppression and privilege that are deeply embedded in society. This recognizes that society has been built on the foundations of social constructions of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability. Working for social justice in education means guiding students in critical self- reflection, analyzing of the systems of oppression, and the ability to challenge these hierarchies |
Resources for White Allyship
This resource list was put together by a collective of current and graduated students in the Northshore School District. They found these resources on white allyship valuable for promoting racial equity in our community. Embracing responsibility as an ally takes the form of educating other white community members on the grounds and implications of their privilege; please consider reading and sharing these resources.
Click on the document below to view categorized resources.
Safety & Anti-Discrimination Resources
The Northshore School District has an unwavering commitment to student and staff belonging and safe learning and working environments. It is especially important that we come together as a Northshore community and support each other. Hate speech, discrimination, and all identity-based forms of oppression and harm will not be tolerated in Northshore. Anyone who is subjected to or observes these types of behavior is asked to report it to our school staff, school leadership, or through our Safe Schools Alert System.
To engage in our collective commitment to student and staff belonging and safe learning and working environments, District staff have curated this Safety and Anti-Discrimination Toolkit. These resources are intended to help our educators and families support our students and one another.
Northshore’s greatest strength is our diversity and it is each of us that makes Northshore such a special place. Through challenging times and in each school year, we are committed to supporting each other and continuing to become an even stronger, loving community.
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Category |
Resources (Protocols, Practices, Supports, and Materials) |
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Safety and Security |
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Student Services: Rights and Responsibilities |
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Mental Health and Social and Emotional |
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Racial and Educational Justice |
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Who to reach out to for support |
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