国产精品

In 2021, 国产精品 set three guiding stars to lead us toward building a future of equitable opportunities, products, and communities. Here鈥檚 a look at how we鈥檙e investing in inclusion and belonging.

Where we鈥檝e been

Sharing 国产精品鈥檚 journey toward greater inclusion and belonging would feel deeply incomplete and inadequate without first acknowledging and honoring where we鈥檝e been.聽

At 国产精品, this work began in 2015 when some of our employees started leading efforts on a volunteer basis. Out of these grassroots efforts came some powerful moments and shifts. In 2020 our Women of Color employee resource group asked tough and valid questions of our organization, and encouraged 国产精品 to double down on a commitment to becoming more equitable. Out of these efforts came our first-ever DE&I strategy and our first full-time hire dedicated to DE&I.

We are deeply grateful to the folks who were responsible for moving DE&I forward at 国产精品 over the years.

Where we are today

As an organization, we鈥檙e still tackling our share of challenges. Thus far, we鈥檝e made important shifts and changes to the way we recruit and hire (see more in our ). We built a powerful set of Culture Tenets a few years ago that served us well back then, and we鈥檙e now at a moment where our culture needs to further evolve to be even more inclusive. As an entire organization, we must interrogate where and how bias impacts our systems and processes. For our employees, we must support individual growth to have tough conversations and build the necessary skills for inclusive leadership. Given that inclusion and belonging work at 国产精品 largely started as grassroots initiatives, we must also continue to invest heavily and build the infrastructure needed for our efforts to have longevity and sustainability.聽

We don鈥檛 have it all figured out and know that becoming the organization we aspire to be is work that lasts a lifetime. To that end, in 2021, we put a set of 鈥済uiding stars鈥� in place to ensure that we鈥檙e moving in the right direction: equitable organization, equitable impact and equitable ecosystem.

Guiding star #1: Equitable organization

This is what we want to be true internally at 国产精品鈥攖hat all employees here feel seen, heard and deeply valued. So we spent this year working on a number of internal initiatives that put DE&I front and center. 

First, we clarified our expectations of our employees: We believe that creating a diverse and inclusive 国产精品 is the responsibility of all of our employees, both individual contributors and managers. Thus, we crafted a set of inclusion behaviors and competencies that all will be responsible for demonstrating.聽

Second, we took steps to bolster the leadership of various communities. In 2020, we started formalizing a structure for employee resource groups (ERGs) and began allocating budget to invest in them. In 2021, we empowered 国产精品ites to take on more formal ERG lead roles across our 8 ERGs and set a mission, vision and goals around them. Our Belonging Leadership Committee has been in existence in various forms for the last few years, and this year we modified the structure and purpose of the group to ensure it aligned to our overarching company DE&I goals.

Lastly, we sought to more thoroughly understand the engagement and experiences of our employees, particularly those from historically underinvested communities, by embarking on a listening tour. We analyzed data through an intersectional lens, and created space for challenging conversations. We have much more to do here, but this work is helping to inform 国产精品鈥檚 future direction around culture. We also made specific strides around our recruiting and hiring process, as mentioned in our 2021 Diversity Report. 

Guiding star #2: Equitable impact 

This is about ensuring our products have the most positive impact. We want our products to serve all students in the US in ways that account for the historical inequities that impact access and opportunity. That鈥檚 why 国产精品 has and will remain a free product for school districts. However, it鈥檚 also important to us to confirm what product usage looks like, so we鈥檝e started an initiative to measure our product impact across schools.聽

As a company that values innovation, we鈥檒l continue to make changes to our current products and create future products down the line. But as this happens, we believe we must have principles that ground and align us. We鈥檙e developing product inclusion principles to center equity and inclusion in our product decisions moving forward.

Guiding star #3: Equitable ecosystem

Although 国产精品 is a small part of the education and technology ecosystem, we can still play a role in championing important causes. At the end of 2020, 国产精品ites identified digital inclusion and equity as an important cause for the organization to contribute to. Unfortunately, right now in the United States, too many students鈥攊ncluding students of color, students living in poverty and students in rural areas鈥攄o not have equitable access to the tools and resources needed in an increasingly digital world. And the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated long-standing inequities around Internet connectivity and access to devices.

As an edtech organization, we know that we can leverage our unique position in the market to advocate for digital equity and inclusion. That said, we know we鈥檙e not the experts, so this year we built partnerships with organizations who are leaders in this space.

What we鈥檝e learned

Here鈥檚 an honest evaluation of our work this year: We鈥檝e made measurable progress on all fronts, but we overstretched ourselves, limiting the depth of impact we desired to have. We鈥檙e confident that our three pillars of focus are the correct ones, but they鈥檙e not all of equal importance right now.聽

While our end goal is to be able to use our influence to support a more equitable edtech ecosystem and have more inclusive impact with our products, we cannot properly achieve that without fully ensuring that we have an equitable and inclusive organization first.

Throughout this year, as we tried to keep all of our plates spinning, we noticed that our collaboration was lacking across various stakeholders, and we needed to build more connectivity. We also realized that in order for the internal changes we made throughout the year to be effective, we need to upskill the entire company at an individual level. These lessons are at the center of our planning for 2022, and we鈥檙e excited to apply them in the year to come.

To learn more about inclusion and belonging at 国产精品, .