The newly-created position of Equity Director for the school district has been filled by Samuel Coleman, a former school administrator from a local Catholic school system. The position was created as a means of making an environment that makes everyone at Shorewood feel comfortable and safe. 

“I’d define my position as collaborating with our district leadership team, our school board, teachers, parents and families to create and to help sustain a district that works for all stakeholders,” Coleman said. “Students seem to thrive and faculty are happy, parents are pleased with their level of connectedness to the district. The same is not necessarily true for all students and all groups of parents.”

Coleman recognizes the concern from some parents and community members that the need for an Equity Director is not prevalent.

“With my position, there’s been some question around, ‘Oh, what is he even going to be doing? How do we know what he’s doing is useful in any way?’” Coleman said. “Hopefully I’ll be working with [students] and just get ideas and information… that’s super important to me – and parents too. My priority is to work with a representative group of all stakeholders.”

Before working at Shorewood, Coleman worked as a director of student services and as interim chief schools officer (similar to a superintendent of a public school district) of Seton Catholic Schools, which is a network of Catholic K-8 schools in Milwaukee. Prior to Seton, Coleman worked as chief of staff for the City of Milwaukee Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton. Coleman’s first job in education was teaching social studies for a private school in Milwaukee.

Coleman has some ideas concerning the lack of diversity in both staff and students at Shorewood.

“I think it’s about the selection process or who, as a district, is attracted here, and I think we need to think about that,” Coleman said. “[Someone at Shorewood] might call a friend who’s a professor at Marquette and say, ‘Hey, we know that there’s a graduating class out of the teacher prep program. Are there some students that you recommend?’ … If we look at the demographic, social, and ethnic makeup of the class that just graduated from Marquette, there’s not a very diverse teaching crew.”

Coleman believes Shorewood students will benefit from a diverse teaching staff.

“If students don’t see any black teachers, or any Hispanic teachers, or whomever, there’s a subconscious cue and message that’s being sent around… students aren’t seeing leadership that they can assume is out there.”

He explained why the community benefits from hiring diverse teaching and administrative staff. 

“I think that the broader community of a school district and school system benefits from having diverse perspectives and ideas represented when planning curriculums, or planning lessons, or planning units,” Coleman said. “If you have a diverse set of thoughts and ideas in that planning process, I think it makes it better… And I think the community as a whole, Shorewood as a community, benefits from seeing and valuing and appreciating diversity as well.”

The events surrounding last year’s last-minute cancellation of the play To Kill a Mockingbird spurred conversation over creating the Equity Director position. Coleman says he does not have an opinion on what should have happened, or what went wrong, but he does like what he saw from the students involved in leading the conversations about it. 

“The reason why I don’t have a strong opinion about what went wrong is because I feel extremely strongly about what went right,” Coleman said. “Amidst a lot of tension and amidst anxiety, students were able to persevere and press through, and I really appreciated that.”

He wants to include the student voice in more decisions and events at Shorewood.

“I think we need to continue to create opportunities for students to be vocal leaders and to have a voice,” Coleman said.

One thing that Coleman wants to address at Shorewood is low ACT scores for black students. 

“To me it’s important that we look at what’s happening in kids’ learning experiences so by the time they’re in eleventh grade, particularly students of color, they aren’t struggling to do as well as their white peers on the ACT, especially in the areas of math,” Coleman said. “I’d like to look at ensuring that our district hires and recruits and retains a diverse teaching and leadership staff.”

Coleman also wants to address discipline and behavior with minorities. 

“I want to work to ensure that students are not feeling that they’re being targeted or selected for discipline [more] than other students because of their race or because of the neighborhood or community that they live in,” Coleman said. “Those three areas are super important for me.”

Coleman thinks that there are ways that he can help with some of Shorewood’s problems related to equity.

“Being able to facilitate conversation and understanding about the issues, helping us move beyond a place of blame, or shame, or who’s responsible for that to a place of ‘let’s all collectively agree that this is an issue we want to collectively be a part of solving’,” Coleman said. “Those discussions should then lead to a set of goals or actions that we all agree on, and ensuring that there’s a commitment to those actions – so that they’re tied to outcomes.”

Another broader issue Coleman wants to address at Shorewood is race.

“I think we need to talk about race, and right now there are several points of tension around race that may have existed from situations that happened last year, or just in the world that we live in,” Coleman said.

However, he doesn’t limit the issues just to race. 

“I think gender equity is important to talk about. I think a lot of times when we think about equity or talk about equity it starts with race, then it goes to socioeconomic status, and then it goes to gender, but then it stops there,” Coleman said. “I think we also need to have conversations, really difficult conversations, but important conversations about equity for LGBTQ students.”

He noted that identities overlap and that is very relevant to making all students feel comfortable at school, in both academic and social settings.

“Nobody is just male, or just Hispanic,” Coleman said. “There’s intersecting identities and we want to make sure that people feel comfortable with who they are, but then that who they are can be reflected across the district in as many ways as possible.”