Cambridge Narrows Community School

Project Leaders: Erin Jones, Cristina Sivitilli, Melissa Creighton, Shelly Graham

Town: Cambridge-Narrows

School Name: Cambridge-Narrows Community School

Project Name: Discovering Multiculturalism and Diversity in Our Rural Community School

• Understanding the importance of multiculturalism and diversity has never been so essential to our education system. From the Truth and Reconciliation Act to the cultural and racial clashes across the globe, NB students need to understand and encourage multiculturalism and diversity. However, to many rural students—including those here at C-NCS— “Diversity” and “Multiculturalism” are alien words predominately due to rural demographics.

• Therefore, it is our duty as educators to foster a cultural awareness within our school community. By applying, sharing, strengthening, and designing practices of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) our team will introduce students and teachers from K-12 to facets of multiculturalism.

• Both students and teachers will be exposed to a variety of cultures that contribute to inclusion. By planning and designing instructional approaches, our team will assist teachers in developing new UDL multicultural experiences in their classrooms and throughout the school.

• Diversity and multiculturalism can be applied across curriculum in all grades; therefore, we will introduce tools and resources that embrace UDL and multicultural teaching practices.

Goals

1. Foster culturally inclusive classrooms and schools by creating ongoing teaching practices in classrooms from K-12 centered on multiculturalism and diversity at C-NCS.

2. Enhance teachers' professional learning experiences so that they feel confident independently applying UDL practices in the classroom that ties to multicultural initiatives.

3. Impact students’ learning through the UDL model and expand their knowledge on culture and diversity in our global society.

4. Deepen the connections with community to inform and educate community members on benefits and opportunities of having newcomers in our school system and the benefits of housing foreign exchange students for the school and community

5. Involve parents and community members in sharing their own cultural backgrounds and traditions to strengthen the bond between school and community, so that members become receptive to multicultural learning programs such as student exchange programs with ADI.

6. Build student leadership opportunities by creating multicultural club to promote and support dynamic change to create cultural vibrancy at C-NCS so gradually and naturally our school and community becomes culturally inclusive