$3,674,395
Total Grant Funding
Executive Summary
Tulsa Public Schools received $3,674,395 in grant funding from the Wallace Foundation to participate in the foundation’s Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative (PSELI) and its Principal Supervisors Initiative.
US News and World Report District Test Score Proficiency:
Grant Funded Programming
The district began implementing the foundation’s PSELI programming which pairs a school district with local Out of School Time (OST) programs. The goal of the initiative is to foster a coordinated effort between the school district and afterschool programming in order to bring about systemic social and emotional learning (SEL) for students.
The district states that its “shared core value” is equity, which is the “leading value at Tulsa Public Schools.” It explains that to achieve equity, “we must provide resources and supports matched to student need.” It continues: “We have a collective responsibility for interrupting and transforming systemic educational inequities.”
Tulsa Public Schools’ “Equity Design Teams” collaborate with National Equity Project and the K-12 Lab at Stanford’s design school. District teams engage in a “Liberatory Design process to identify and resolve equity focused problems of practice.”
A Liberatory Design Mindset helps participants develop an “equity-centered creative agency.” As part of the design programming, liberatory design “requires we minimize the harmful effects of our blind spots and maximize the potential for non-oppressive partnerships.” This mindset also involves recognizing oppression through the proper lens. The liberatory mindset seeks to develop in students the ability to “see root causes and systemic inequities more clearly.”
In a 2022 report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, inconsistent SEL instruction within the pilot school led to a “pivot and focus on adult SEL.” The school made the move to “prioritize adults’ SEL” in order to “foster belonging” and better prepare teachers to “support students who had experienced trauma.”
Grant Funding
Below are the granting organizations, grant amount, and the program being funded.
Purpose: To participate in the Principal Supervisors Initiative as a “leading district,” to provide additional funds to the district to develop a leadership tracking system, a planning grant for participation in the Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative (PSELI)
Purpose: To participate in the Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative
Purpose: To participate in the Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative
Consultants and Partners
Below are consultants and partners that the district has contracted with to implement the grant funded programming.