Diversity Advisory Committee

The mission is to advocate for, promote and ensure stronger relationships, improved communication and enhanced understanding between Plano ISD and its diverse communities.

Committee Core Values:

We believe that.......

We should communicate clearly and factually to our customers, i.e. students, parents, staff and community.

We should look for similarities among diverse groups while honoring differences.

We gather strength from diversity as an opportunity for growth.

An excellent education occurs when students, parents and schools are partners.

By hiring and retaining diverse personnel, we will ensure that our children will have appropriate role models to prepare them for the future.

By training all personnel on issues of diversity, our school community will prosper.

We are a voice and advocate for students, parents and staff.

Our schools should ensure respect and acceptance for all of our differences.

The Diversity Advisory Committee (formerly Multi-Ethnic Committee) was formed by the school board in 1988 in response to racial conflicts at a senior high school. The Diversity Advisory Committee was charged with the specific task to study and review district programs and make recommendations regarding diversity issues, to dispell the perceived lack of concern and mistrust by the growing diverse community and to focus their attention on any district program or issue affecting the students and staff of the district as it relates to race, religion, gender or disablility-related situation.

The committee membership shall represent, to the extent possible, the divesrsity of the Plano school community and staff. The committee consist of 21 Board appointed members; 14 community representatives and 7 district staff representatives from a diverse cross-section of the community; including professionals, educators, parents and administrators. The committee may study the advisability of adding, deleting, or changing various programs based on the needs of the community and student body of the district. The Board or superintendent may direct the committee to study and make recommendations on specific issues. The committee will report directly to the Board, since the issues addressed do not usually fall within the purview of the Board.

DAC Impact

The Committee for many years has studied equity issues as to whether there was under-representation of minority children in gifted programs, or over-representation of minority children in special education programs. They have also actively worked with the district to recruit and increase the number of underrepresented employees throughout the district. The committee has also looked at numbers of underrepresented students in extracurricular programs, student management issues and how these issues relate to curriculum and instruction. The committee has been responsible for the passage of numerous significant policies that have helped shape the district. These policies include:

The Policy on Religious Neutrality
The Business Outreach Policy
The Hate Language Policy
A revision of several student discipline policies
The Affirmative Action Policy

Each year the committee will hear progress reports from each department in relations to the mission and core values of the DAC. The DAC has had a great impact on the district and community over the years. Some of the areas of impact include:

The Diversity Advisory Committee meets once each month beginning in September. If you are interested in joining the Diversity Advisory Committee, contact Jun Melvin, Director for Compensation and Employee Records.