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You must understand your own color and culture to effectively teach in a diverse environment, said Alexis Vafides, government teacher and teachers'union president in the Fairfield City School District.

"We need to be very competent in each others' cultures," she said. "You have to be an expert at your own first. I have to understand about being white, so I can understand about not being white. We can't teach what we don't know."

The goal is not to become color blind.

"I was taught in high school and beyond that the goal was to be color blind," Vafides said. "(But) if you're color blind, you're saying everyone should be white. When someone walks in a room, what do you see? It's not how they view themselves. It's what you see."

So, when students walked in Vafides' classroom this past year, she said she split them all up equally around the room.

Later, she said she learned that arrangement could be considered racist, because she was preventing students of color from finding comfort and solidarity by sitting together.

Scott Colliflower's students at Middletown High School also come from a variety of backgrounds. The district's racial equity work has shown teachers that the little things often make a difference.

In the past, Colliflower might have used an example about playing golf in the classroom.

"Culturally, you have a classroom filled with students who are like 'Golf? What are you talking about?' " he said.

The transformations made through the district's racial equity work has helped build better relationships with students, he said.

"One of the primary things is the relationships, being able to establish trusting relationships with students," he said.

The racial equity work at Fairfield and Middletown prompts educators to examine how their own backgrounds color the way they view the world.

Central Academy teacher Kim Amburgey said she is more aware of how her personal perspective affects her teaching through her participation in the district's equity work.

"My natural instinct is to make judgments based on my middle-class white perspective," she said. "Something that I may think sounds engaging and fun may be boring and meaningless to somebody else, especially to somebody from a different culture. A behavior or way of dressing that I may see as being inappropriate may be considered completely acceptable in a different culture."

Racial equity is a process designed to help classrooms become student-centered, said Amburgey. It requires that she look at herself as a potential reason why students aren't engaged in the classroom and connected to their work.

"It's not always easy, but who ever said teaching was?" she said.

Just before baseball's opening day, Mayfield Elementary's secondgrade teachers in the Middletown School District noticed in their textbooks an upcoming story on homerun hero Jackie Robinson's break through the color lines.

But the story, told from the perspective of a black man, wasn't so perfect for Mayfield's predominately white student population.

"The kids didn't really understand that because it was written more from the perspective of an African-American male telling his story," said Principal Marla Marsh.

The staff found on its bookshelves a supplemental story told from the perspective of a white teammate and a second book told from the perspective of a white father and his son, said Marsh.

"That kind of helps them better understand," she said. "Those are the things we strive to do every day.

Once a month, the staff at Mayfield Elementary does "equity walk-throughs" where educators observe classrooms to look for engagement.

They are looking to see that teachers direct attention equitably; that classroom materials reflect a "visual representation of races, cultures and ethnicities;" that teachers make opportunities for students to connect the school curriculum with home experiences; that students have the opportunity to learn about one another; and how home/school communication is used and incorporated.

The racial equity work is about change and transformation of the staff, said educators.

"If I want to see a change in the behaviors and learning of my minority groups of students, I first have to find ways that I can change," said Amburgey. "This work is not about a program or materials ... it is about changing behaviors and practices of teachers, that have been in place in our school systems for years. This work is not about changing students ... it is about engaging students, which is the responsibility of the teacher."

"I have been transformed and the goal of the district is transformation of leadership," Marsh said.

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