Redondo PTA welcoming signs in 22 languages part of DEI Award
by Garth Meyer
In August 2021, Redondo Beach Unified students were welcomed back to school by signs written in each of 22 languages spoken in the district.
The signs were part of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program, led by PTA Chair for DEI Tijen Loubert.
For the signs, and other DEI programs, the Redondo Beach PTA has been named one of three recipients of the 2023 National PTA Jan Harp Domene Diversity and Inclusion Award.
The designation honors PTAs for work in “making sure the perspectives and needs of all communities are heard and represented, as well as efforts to end discriminatory practices.”
The Redondo Beach Council PTA, which includes presidents of individual school PTAs, was also saluted for starting yearly community forums at Redondo Union High School on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The local Council has adjusted requirements for nomination committees to diversify its main board and individual school representatives.
“It was very white and very female,” Loubert said. “The leadership is now almost twice as diverse as two years ago.”
The Redondo PTA has also worked with school librarians to create a “DEI Book Nook,” starting with a Redondo Beach Education Foundation list of titles about “historically marginalized identities,” as described by Loubert.
PTAs use the list to buy books for their school libraries.
Redondo PTA also hosts cultural celebration nights at each of the schools in the district, and have made a cultural calendar to coordinate school events and meetings with ethnic and religious holidays.
The National PTA’s other two DEI award winners were in Kirkland, Washington. and Santa Ynez, California.
Award recipients were chosen by the National PTA’s Diversity, Inclusion & Outreach Committee. The awardees will each receive $1,000.
Plans discussed by the Redondo PTA for the money include new murals in school libraries.
“Most are very white, for lack of a better word,” said Loubert.
The three national award recipients will be recognized June 15-24 at the 2023 National PTA Virtual Convention.
Newsletter addition
Aileen Connoy, Washington Elementary School PTA president, notes that each Redondo Beach school group sends out a PTA newsletter. Included at the bottom of which are designations, such as Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Featured events on the newsletters are decided by the Council PTA. The council’s DEI chair position was added in 2021.
The DEI efforts have met with some resistance.
“What happens nationally happens here,” Loubert said. “There is a small but vocal group who do not support DEI.”
Elementary schools in Redondo Beach have held a multicultural night for some time, while middle schools joined in the past two years, adding LGBTQ+ and neurodiversity to the events.
Each of the 11 school PTA groups has its own diversity, equity and inclusion chair, overseen by Loubert.
“(The award) is amazing and our school district is so supportive of the things we do for DEI,” said Connoy.