The Region X Equity Assistance Center is located at Education Northwest's Equity Program in Portland, Oregon. The Equity Assistance Center is one of 10 regional equity assistance centers in the nation funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Equity Assistance Center helps public schools and their communities incorporate educational equity into policies, procedures, and classroom practices to ensure that all students receive what they need to succeed academically.

Key Equity Issues

• Structural and Procedural Roots to Educational Inequity
• Family and Community Engagement
• Culturally Competent and Culturally Responsive Education
• Data-Driven, Capacity Building Technical Assistance
• Highly Qualified Teaching
• Race, Sex, and National Origin
• School-Based Harassment, Bullying, and Cyberbullying Prevention and Response
• Charter and Magnet Schools
• School Climate
• Compliance with Federal Anti-discrimination Laws (Title VI, Title IX)

What We Do

At the request of school boards and other responsible governmental agencies, the Equity Assistance Center provides training and technical assistance on issues related to equity in education in order to ensure that all children, regardless of race, sex, or national origin, have equal access to quality education and the opportunity to develop high academic standards in reading, math, language arts, and other core subject areas.

We are funded to provide training and technical assistance to K–12 public schools within Region X at no cost or through a cost-share arrangement. See our regional map. Our region consists of Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Territory of American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Territory of Guam, Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Yap), Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau.

Equity Priority Areas

The Region X Equity Assistance Center helps build the capacity of states, districts, and schools in their efforts to provide all children with access to a high-quality education. We offer training and professional development activities using research-based products and services on a variety of topics. The following priority areas are the focus of our current Equity Assistance Center cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education:

• Reducing the extent to which students are isolated on the basis of race, sex, and national origin, and by doing so, reducing barriers to high achievement for all students.
• Implementing policies and practices that are nondiscriminatory and designed to prevent and counter prejudice and insensitivity based on race, sex, or national origin.
• Providing professional development that gives teachers the knowledge and skills they need to create and maintain a culturally sensitive classroom environment, including the ability to draw upon instructional materials that are reflective of the diversity of their student body and that enable all students, regardless of race, sex, or national origin, to meet high standards.
• Assisting magnet schools, charter schools, and other schools of choice with the identification, design, and implementation of policies and practices that provide all students with equitable access to a quality education, including issues related to student recruitment, selection, admissions, and retention.
• Assisting school districts in the implementation of research-based practices that support English language proficiency for all students regardless of race, sex, or national origin, enabling them to reach high standards in reading, language arts, and mathematics.
• Providing parents with training, skills, and information designed to improve their ability to deal effectively with special educational problems occasioned by desegregation.
• Creating safe and nonhostile schools and establishing supportive learning environments that are free from racial, sexual, or ethnic harassment, bullying, teasing, and hate crimes.
• Collaborating with state education agencies and state and local education initiatives to address issues related to the purposes of this program.
• Collaborating with the Office of Civil Rights, the Department of Justice, and other federal agencies to support compliance with federal antidiscrimination legislation and to address civil rights, desegregation, and equity issues that affect school districts, schools, and communities.
• Collaborating with other federally-supported technical assistance providers to help build capacity and deliver high-quality services related to the purposes of this program to states, school districts, schools, parents, and communities.

Request Assistance for more information or request training.
The Region X Equity Assistance Center is funded under U.S. Department of Education contract number S004D110013.