Foster an Environment Where All Students Feel a Sense of Belonging
Home > K–12 Education > Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Maximize your equitable outcomes by understanding and meeting the needs of your students
Establishing a fair and just learning environment is a districtwide effort. It requires an understanding of the current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the district. It also must include the perspectives of students, research-based evaluations, and input from the community.
At Hanover Research, we can help you establish an effective DEI strategy for your district. Our suite of research, tools, and expert guidance will help you develop a districtwide DEI framework, foster agreement with the community, and execute successful DEI initiatives.

Get the tools you need to build a schoolwide system that meets the needs and fosters a sense of belonging of each student
Set effective and achievable DEI goals and strategies
The Hanover advisory team will provide guidance to district leadership and DEI working groups, assisting them in conducting a thorough examination of qualitative and quantitative data to pinpoint disparities, articulate attainable goals, and determine mitigation strategies.
Assess the current state of DEI in your district
Hanover’s DEI Diagnostic evaluates student, parent, and staff perceptions of components of DEI including school belonging, social environment, academic environment, staff perceptions, engagement and outreach, and district priorities. You can compare your results with districts across the country in the aggregated DEI Dashboard.
Track your district’s progress on equity metrics and outcomes over time
Hanover's Equity Scorecard evaluates your district on two key disparities: gaps in student outcomes and behavioral outcomes, and inequities in access to programs. As a result, you can create a measurable framework to track DEI initiatives and understand where to focus improvement efforts.
Gather meaningful input from the community on your district’s DEI strengths and challenges
Our focus group facilitators will lead discussions with staff, students, and families on strengths and challenges related to DEI in your district. Our analysis provides in-depth insight into the experiences and perspectives of the participants.
Give teachers the tools to meet the needs of each student
Our online professional learning platform supports educators across twelve crucial education topic areas such as creating equitable and culturally responsive classroom strategies and environments, enhancing students’ social-emotional learning, and supporting evidence-based practices through a Multi-Tiered System of Supports.
Communicate your DEI strategic planning process
Hanover's DEI Community Report provides you with a report and infographics to effectively communicate your DEI strategic planning plan moving forward to your board or external community members.

Why Ceres Unified School District is Partnering with Hanover Research
“Over the last year or so, we’ve shifted our mindset from looking at teacher professional development as a one-way process to an actual learning process. Then March happened, and we went into crisis mode to help our teachers through our online platforms. We were able to provide some digital learning resources for teachers over the last few months, but as we started to prep for summer, we started to think about what we normally provide for our teachers, and how we can incentivize them to participate in professional learning and provide feedback.”
– Dr. Amy Peterman, Assistant Superintendent Educational Services

New Albany-Plain Local School District Assesses Students’ Social-Emotional Competencies
“We have really appreciated our partnership with Hanover, particularly in being able to do longitudinal work—we like being able to look at work from years ago to see school improvement shown through data-driven insights. The survey team has given us solid research that we can lean on to make informed decisions driven by what our community is showing and saying; we plan to use these survey results to see how we can best support our students in their social-emotional learning. We’ve done substance use, SEL, and staff climate surveys with Hanover, and have found that our partnership helps us be better at what we do.”
– Jon Hood, Director of Student Services, Safety & Security

Lake Forest Academy Creates Educational Outcome Index to Track Student Performance
“We have a mission to cultivate and embody our four pillars. There are some areas where we have identifiable performance metrics, like a student’s GPA, how many AP classes they are taking, etc.—but there was a call to find tangible metrics to demonstrate growth over time for areas like Character and Citizenship. Hanover’s survey instrument provided a subsection of questions and topics for each pillar, so being able to break down from the macro view to look at detailed insights let us examine if we were doing anything differently that led to our success, or if our students have a greater awareness of the things around them.”
– Chris Tennyson, Assistant Head of School, Dean of Students & Academic Affairs, and Mathematics Teacher
Ways to Partner
Hanover offers multiple ways to work with us. From one-on-one expert guidance and custom research to professional learning and on-demand resources, our goal is to customize our capabilities and support to best meet your needs.
Our research partnership provides you with a dedicated research team and a customized research plan that will deliver actionable insights and analysis.
- Best Practices
- Survey Design & Analysis
- Benchmarking
- Data Analytics
- Qualitative Research
Our Advisory Services include our research services in addition to personalized support from one of our advisors, interactive workshops, and group consultations.
- Capacity Building
- Implementation Support
- Interactive Workshops
- Group Consultation
The Educator Learning Center (ELC) is our online professional learning platform that makes teacher learning sustainable, useful, and convenient.
- Interactive Learning Modules
- Resource Library
- Discussion Boards
- Custom-Built Content
- Implementation Advisor
Our always-on resource that provides research, data, benchmarking, and implementation tools that you can access anytime and share across teams and departments.
- Online Research Library
- Implementation Tools
- Benchmarking Analytics