Ten Actions You Can Take NOW to Improve Diversity, Inclusion and Equity

in Your Independent School

1. In September, take the time to make certain that you can correctly pronounce the names of students of color in your class; ask privately about the origin or family history of a name; avoid “anglicizing” a Vietnamese, Dominican, Haitian or Ghanian name for your own convenience or comfort. Also try to learn the names of new students of color, even those whom you do not teach, and when you see them in the hallways say hello to them and “talk them up” in a manner that shows them that their presence in the school is noticed and appreciated. Do not allow them to be rendered “invisible” by the school.

2. Approach the Admissions office and volunteer to visit a school that is not one of your school’s traditional “feeder schools” or constituencies. Whether the school be “inner city” or Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, use the visit to push the school’s name as well as your individual consciousness into new territory that will a.) potentially result in a candidate who will add diversity to your school and/or b.) place your school in the minds of the school’s teachers and administrators for future students. Bring view books and reply cards.

3. Ask for an accounting of distributed Financial Aid - anonymous of course - broken down by gender, race, religion, athletics, academics, domestic and international, city and suburban. Also, how does the percentage of students receiving FA compare to percentage of legacy/sibling admission and what are the impacts on school culture. An Independent School should strive to have FA % close to the legacy/sibling %. All of your questions may not be answered but the act of questioning will provoke discussion and perhaps even some accountability.

4. Attend a conference in your area that deals with issues of diversity or inclusion and then make a point of bringing that information, learning and awareness back to your school. Even if this is a new discovery for you, you will be signaling to colleagues of color and other potential white allies that you care about the circumstances facing some of your students and colleagues. Push the school to send you and another colleague to one of the Diversity based summer institutes that are available through NAIS, Milton Academy or Eased. But do not attend the annual NAIS People of Color Conference thinking that this will attest to your commitment; it may merely make the conference more complicated and less valuable to people of color seeking space and place in NAIS to call their own.

5. Approach a colleague whose race, religion, class, sexual orientation etc. is different from your own and have coffee or lunch. Then, simply have coffee or lunch; build the relationship, and the trust will follow, for both of you. Go and “hang out” in the space that has been claimed by or unintentionally assigned to students of color. Don’t stay so long that you intrude; stay long enough to demonstrate that you are attentive to them and that you care about their experiences. Then repeat as necessary.

6. Read a book, non - fiction, fiction, play or poetry that is written by an author whose race, religion, class, sexual orientation, experience is different from your own and probably different from your education; do so publicly. You will benefit by reading a voice that does not frequently operate within your own head and others, colleagues and students, will see you as a person willing to seek and to celebrate the art, voice and wisdom of others. Those students and colleagues, who have racial, class or cultural connections to the author, will be affirmed and others, who are “white,” will be intrigued and even prodded into similar reading behavior.

7. Attend a meeting of students who are involved in an organization that is furthest from how you present yourself at your school. If you present as terminally heterosexual, then attend a Gay and lesbian group meeting. If you are seen as one of the “coaches”, attend the meeting for Model U.N. or Debate. If you are a “white” teacher, attend the meeting for those Asian-American kids exploring and celebrating their culture, which they may see as left out by teachers like you. They will appreciate and remember your presence in the group. If you are not certain how you present yourself at school, ask a student; they will no doubt tell you the truth about who you are at school.

8. For the classes that you will next year or next semester, decide that each class will include a text or a segment of the class curriculum or even a lesson that will provide a more diverse curriculum. A new literary voice in an English class, or a greater study in History of the Harlem Renaissance or a discussion of Agricultural science focusing on American Indian farming like the “three sisters” of corn, squash and beans or a comparative lesson of the abacus and the calculator with a history of both.

9. Support the specific Diversity initiatives that your school already has in place and work to create more of them. If you are a person of color, this may mean that you are creating more work for yourself and that you may add unwritten responsibility for yourself as well as some overt and covert criticism; seek allies to assist you. If you are “white” then be willing to be an ally and to assist and support a colleague without the possibility of attention, acknowledgment or promotion.

10. Your choice of action - for your school.