2022 Utah Rural Schools Conference

Utah principals know that high quality instruction that mirrors the demographics of the learners they steward leads to improved student outcomes, particularly for learners who may be at-risk. Many schools throughout the Intermountain West reflect a percentage of minority teachers and administrators much below the level of their minority learners. Because these chasms exist, Utah’s teachers and leaders must make extraordinary efforts to understand and include their learners’ backgrounds and experiences into their classroom climate and culture to ensure that their unconscious and implicit biases and values do not negatively impede their learner’s education.