Board Diversity Committee & Plan

The Diversity Committee of the Board of Trustees sets policy and goals related to achieving greater diversity at The Philadelphia School. Committee members include trustees, school administrators, parents active in the Family Diversity@TPS group, and members of the faculty-led Diversity and Equity Committee. Their work together supports the school’s commitment to being a diverse and inclusive community.

Recent work of the Diversity Committee has focused on the development of a Diversity Plan for the school, clarification of roles and responsibilities in the various committees invested in the work around diversity, and planning with the Board of Trustees to secure appropriate resources to achieve our goals.

Throughout the making of the plan, the Board Diversity Committee had the support, input and guidance of other committees at TPS: Diversity Coordinator Team, the DEC committee and the Family Diversity Committee.

The plan includes the following statement of intent and purpose:

We have described this plan as aiming to transform The Philadelphia School at three major levels: community, curriculum, and culture. We note that these transformations are already under way, thanks to the efforts of many. Such changes as we both celebrate and propose here are too far-reaching to be the achievement of a single person. They are also too far-reaching to be the responsibility of a single person. With that in mind, we wish to make clear that this plan has been written not in the spirit of a mandate or ultimatum; it is, rather, our community’s commitment to itself and to its future members. We understand its goals, strategies, and tactics as tools to be used on an ongoing basis for clarifying our priorities, channeling our energy and resources, assessing our progress, and adjusting our course based on new data and future deliberations.

The Board Diversity Committee will support and work closely with the Head of School in administering the plan, periodically assessing our progress toward the goals it sets out, and, if necessary, recalibrating tactics, strategies, goals, and resources in light of how things unfold. We expect the plan’s implementation to require patience, flexibility, forgiveness, and humor of all involved. It should also—this has been our experience in writing it – bring out the best in good-willed people.

Next year, the board committee will move from architects of the plan to enactors of the plan. In addition, we will begin with a year-long Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM), designed by NAIS, that involves all members of the TPS community.

Below is the text of the Diversity Plan:

COMMUNITY
In adopting this Diversity Plan, we initiate a change in how The Philadelphia School understands itself, its work, and its relationship to its various communities. Fundamental to this transformation will be shifting, over time, the composition of the student body, family community, faculty, and Board. Rather than treating these as fully discrete groups and developing separate diversity goals for each, we think of them as comprising, together, the TPS community. Over the next three to five years, we aim to increase the percentages of persons of color in all the above-named constituent groups, with an especially significant increase among African Americans.

Our decision to focus on these two groups – persons of color and African Americans—is a matter of both necessity and strategy. We feel we must focus our recruitment, hiring, and retention efforts upon a few groups, and we have identified these two (overlapping) groups as having the highest urgency in the near term. It is also clear to us that succeeding at this first major effort will open the way to addressing other kinds of diversity in the future.

We wish to underscore that the changes described below will be made in organic, considered, and sensitive ways. We are committed the three-to-five-year time horizon referred to below. However, we would rather take more time to meet our community goals in a sustainable manner than realize those goals punctually but unsustainably—that is, without the structural, curricular, and cultural supports they require. Throughout the process, TPS will absolutely maintain its commitment to those students, families, faculty, and Board members who are already part of its community. What’s more, we look forward to enlisting every current member of our community in the work of making TPS an even more inclusive and dynamic school.

Community Goals

Within three to five years, approximately one-third of our students, faculty, and board will be persons of color, with a significant representation of African Americans in all categories. All incoming preschool in kindergarten classes will reflect this makeup.

Key Strategies:

1. Offer financial aid to families applying to preschool.

2. Develop a special fund for students of color for 2011–2012 and beyond.

3. Diversify and intensify admissions & outreach efforts.

4. Prioritize diversity in hiring, recruitment, and retention of faculty and board.

CURRICULUM & CULTURE
Committing to change the ethnic, racial, and socio-economic makeup of the TPS community is an indispensable step toward meeting our diversity goals, but it is not sufficient on its own. That change must be accompanied—indeed anticipated—by efforts to weave diversity and social justice into the curriculum at all grade levels; by the implementation of thoughtful and substantial changes to the institutional culture; and by efforts to educate the existing community in cultural competency on an ongoing basis. It will be important for us to bring all our patience and persistence to this challenging work, which by its nature involves conflict. We should be ready, too, to savor the joy and sense of expansion inherent in the work.

We address the categories of Curriculum and Culture separately in what follows. However, we encourage you to think of them as closely entangled with one another as well; attending to each of these areas will help produce the conditions in which the other will prosper. Diversity will not just be something that happens “inside” these individual areas; diversity will be the place where curriculum and institutional culture most intimately meet at TPS.

Curriculum Goals

Develop and implement a curriculum that weaves diversity into every program and level of study in a manner consistent with the School’s core values.

Key Strategies

1. Provide training for faculty to develop and deliver a diversity curriculum.

2. Integrate diversity curriculum within and across grade levels through thematic units linked to activities and related resources.

3. Develop a library of books and resources to support a multi-cultural perspective.

4. Develop volunteer tutorial program for students who are unable to afford tutorial support on their own; tutors to be recruited at local colleges and universities.

Culture Goals

Support the growing diversity of the TPS community by increasing cultural competence among all its members. Create a feeling of respect, comfort, and belonging for each member of the TPS community.

Key Strategies:

1. Undertake a Cultural Competency Assessment including an unbiased assessment of the current school culture, and an understanding of the diverse cultures of the children we currently serve and who we hope to attract.

2. Utilize the above assessment to make a plan for implementing a more inclusive school culture, which acknowledges difference between home and school life, and that fully values and encompasses those differences.

3. Engage in regular activities within the faculty and staff, parent body, and board to increase cultural competency and our cultural awareness of the student body we currently serve and hope to serve, including bi-annual professional development activities, ongoing readings, bi-annual parent events, and regular board training.

4. Establish feedback and decision-making processes and procedures that include the full diversity of the student, staff, and parent body, especially regarding cultural competence and diversity goals.

5. Establish relationships and partnerships with local community organizations that can assist in establishing accountability to organizations of color, LGBT organizations, and other identity and affinity groups.