In Practice

In addition to the mission, vision, and philosophy animating the work of creating a more equitable school, our efforts can also be framed in terms of ongoing practices and programming. These include long-term institutional commitments as well as specific programming initiatives that focus on responding directly to the voices of students.

Overview

Policies and Practices

The School regularly reviews our official and unofficial policies, practices, and cultural norms with an equity lens. Some of these efforts have resulted in short-term policy changes, while others are ongoing examinations to ensure that we never assume that individuals’ experiences within the institution are equitable. 

Examples of policies and practices that we review on an ongoing basis include hiring, onboarding, retention, and mentoring of faculty and staff, professional boundaries policies, evaluation processes, processes for student support and guidance, admissions and financial aid processes, family communication, orientation activities for students, and academic scheduling, among others.

Part of our commitment to responding to incidents more robustly includes more transparency, while respecting each individual’s privacy. 

Students

The School has directed significant time and effort toward being more responsive to students’ voices around issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. How administrators and faculty understand and respond to students’ experiences in and out of the classroom is continuously being recalibrated and expanded upon. 

Our approach to child and adolescent development focuses on independence, self-advocacy, and risk-taking, and our mission centers student voices. It is common for students to organize and advocate for what they care for, and the School supports various student-centered groups such as those focused on race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+ identity, academic interests, environmental activism, and so on.

Below is a sampling of recent student-centered programming and initiatives. Some are spearheaded by the Office of Diversity and Institutional Equity, while others are collaborative across many divisions, departments, and offices in the School.

Lower School Affinity Groups

In the 2023-24 academic year, the Lower School began offering affinity groups to second and third graders. These opt-in after school groups are spaces that provide students with opportunities to build relationships and celebrate shared identity.

Lower Middle School Workshops

Fourth and fifth graders participate in bi-weekly workshops that cover foundational concepts in equity work, including how to listen to each other and disagree productively, defining and understanding categories of social identifiers (e.g. nationality, religion, age, race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and ability), and understanding the difference between generalizations and stereotypes. 

High School Affinity Spaces and Monday Meeting

The High School Monday Meeting, a time when no students have scheduled classes, continues to be a cornerstone of diversity and equity programming. Race-based affinity spaces that take place in that block were recently expanded to accommodate student feedback. 

GUST 

GUST, Get Uncomfortable and Start Talking, is a student-led mini-conference originally created by students of color from the class of 2015. High school students create, organize, and facilitate workshops for their peers that explore topics around identity, diversity, and equity. Since its inception, GUST has expanded to two half-day conferences per year along with a few “MiniGUSTs” (one-period workshops) in between. The Middle School recently held its first GUST as well. 

Student-Led Groups and Spaces

Other groups and spaces in the Middle and High Schools include Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA), Women in Math and Science, Black Student Union (BSU), Asian Student Union (ASU), Jewish Student Alliance (JSA), among others. These student-generated, student-led groups and spaces involve faculty in an advising capacity.

Middle School/High School Mentoring

In response to student requests, our Health Department began a supervised mentorship program between older High School students and Middle School students.

External Events and Conferences 

The School also encourages or supports student participation in external organizations, events, or conferences that focus on topics related to diversity or equity, such as the city-wide Diversity Awareness Initiative for Students (DAIS), or the National Association of Independent Schools’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference. 

Faculty and Staff

In recent years, faculty and staff have engaged much more explicitly and pointedly in dialogue, discussion, and professional development around issues related to diversity and equity. 

Professional Development for Faculty and Staff

The School has invested in expanded professional development for faculty and staff. On-campus workshops have explored the following subject areas, among others:

  • Culturally responsive teaching, an approach that centers relationships and seeing all aspects of students’ lives. 
  • Creating anti-racist and equitable classroom practices and cultures.
  • Creating and utilizing norms or guidelines to foster an anti-racist classroom culture.
  • Recognizing, responding to, and preventing bias-related incidents.
  • Restorative justice practices, both preventative and responsive to harm.
  • Racial justice in early childhood education.
  • Understanding transgender and non-binary students and pronouns.
  • Creating equitable department cultures and mentoring with an equity lens.

Faculty and staff also regularly attend a variety of professional development opportunities off campus, occasionally in conjunction with students attending their own conference.