Opening Doors: An Implementation Template for Cultural Proficiency

See how one school district made Cultural Proficiency real―and how you can too!

In spite of Brown vs. Board of Education, true integration and corresponding equality of educational opportunity is still far from reality in American schools.  

Opening Doors tells the story of Ventura Unified School District′s successful implementation of cultural proficiency, which opened long-closed doors for marginalized students and returned gains on every key success metric. Most importantly, it will empower you to do the same for your school or district. Resources include:

• A method for evaluating the impact of educational decisions on students′ access to learning
• A clear three-year implementation plan for making your school culturally proficient
• A content-rich companion website that includes templates and forms for implementing the book’s suggestions

It is long past time to make cultural proficiency real by ensuring universally equal access to educational resources for all students. This book removes the remaining barriers to the achievement of this ideal. 

  "This powerfully insightful and thought provoking book, takes us on a journey to culturally proficient actions."
―Rosemary Papa, Professor
Northern Arizona University

"The book is full of compassion, conviction and hope―pure heart, pure corazón―in the quest to tackle inequality and the opportunity gap head on."
―Gilberto Q. Conchas, Professor of Educational Policy and Social Context
University of California, Irvine

Dr. Trudy T. Arriaga served the Ventura Unified School District for 14 years as the first female superintendent.  She began her career as a trilingual paraeducator and enjoyed 40 years of service in education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, director, superintendent and university instructor at all levels.  
Trudy retired as superintendent in July 2015 and was honored by the naming of the VUSD District Office, The VUSD Trudy Tuttle Arriaga Education Service Center.  She recently retired from Cal Lutheran University as a faculty member in the Educational Leadership Department in the Graduate School of Education.  Trudy is the co-author, with her esteemed colleague Dr. Randall B. Lindsey of Opening Doors: An Implementation Template for Cultural Proficiency, which delivers a compelling account on how leaders can create and expand cultures of inclusion and equity by dismantling and crafting new organizational policies and practices on behalf of the students they serve.  Her second book, “Leading While Female:  A Culturally Proficient Response to Gender Equity” and co-authored with Dr. Delores Lindsey and Dr. Stacie Stanley offers a counter narrative and strategies to overcome the barriers of women in educational leadership, followed by the companion journal, “My Leading While Female Journal”.  It has been her privilege to assist educational districts, institutions and organizations throughout the United States through keynote speeches, workshops, leadership and equity institutes and online professional development to align the actions of the organization with their stated values and principles in their effort to build a culturally proficient and inclusive organization for each and every one.   Trudy and her husband, Raymundo, are enjoying this grand chapter of life as grandparents to Rayo Mana and Sofia Anuhea.  Trudy can be contacted at trudyarriaga73@gmail.com

Randall B. Lindsey is Emeritus Professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He has served as a teacher, an administrator, executive director of a non-profit corporation, as Interim Dean at California Lutheran University, as Distinguished Educator in Residence at Pepperdine University, and as Chair of the Education Department at the University of Redlands. All of Randy’s experiences have been in working with diverse populations and his area of study is the behavior of white people in multicultural settings. His Ph.D. is in Educational Leadership from Georgia State University, his Master of Arts in Teaching is in History Education from the University of Illinois, and his B.S. in Social Science Education is from Western Illinois University. He has served as a junior high school and high school teacher and as an administrator in charge of school desegregation efforts. At Cal State, L.A. he served as Chair of the Division of Administration and Counseling and as Director of the Regional Assistance Centers for Educational Equity, a regional race desegregation assistance center. With co-authors he has written several books and articles on applying the Cultural Proficiency Framework in various contexts.

Email – randallblindsey@gmail.com
Website - CCPEP.org
Twitter - @RBLindsey41