Meet the BRIDGE-RI Equity Review Team

The Equity Review provides opportunities to explore a BRIDGE-RI MTSS course and reflect on equity implications, potential improvements, and ways to strengthen an equity lens. Our Equity Review Team offers collaboration and feedback to inform continual course improvement.

Team Members

  • Dena Núñez, Assistant Principal
  • Becky Coustan, Director of Learning & Teaching, K-12
  • Oscar Perez, Assistant Principal
  • Heidi Batista, Assistant Principal
  • Nancy Ceseretti, Literacy Educator

BRIDGE-RI Beliefs

Schools and districts are microcosms of society: they reflect structural inequities that favor the dominant culture and status quo.
Culture and identity matter: Culture includes multiple components of identity—race, economic background, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and ability. Equity work addresses these areas.
Strengths-based approach: We see culture as an asset rather than a deficit. Key practices include:
  • Welcoming & affirming environment: Safe spaces where students and educators see themselves represented, and all identities are respected.
  • High expectations & rigorous instruction: Opportunities to engage with appropriately challenging learning that empowers success.
  • Inclusive curriculum & assessment: Learning about diverse perspectives and fostering student agency to create change.
  • Ongoing professional learning: Teaching rooted in students’ lives and day-to-day realities.
We define culture as (and therefore look for equity regarding) “the multiple components of one’s identity, including but not limited to race, economic background, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and ability.
We want to shift from treating culture (race, economic background, gender, language, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and ability) as an obstacle to overcome or a deficit, to a strengths-based approach, in which it is seen as an asset: 

  • Welcoming and affirming environment - safe spaces where students and educators can find themselves represented and where all cultural identities are treated with respect.

  • High expectations and rigorous instruction - opportunity to engage with rigorous and appropriately challenging instruction. Communities that foster high expectations empower its members to succeed.

  • Inclusive curriculum and assessment - include all students in learning about a variety of perspectives and how to be agents of change in today's world.

  • Ongoing professional learning - teaching is rooted in and reflective of students' lives and day-to-day realities.

Last modified: Saturday, January 10, 2026, 12:47 PM