2022-2023 DEI Plan
Dear LREI Community –
In each of the last two years (‘20-’21, ‘21-’22) LREI has shared a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan with the community. These plans summarized the school’s DEI goals, some new and some familiar, and they restated our commitment to the work of cultivating an environment of equity and inclusion for all community members. They highlighted those expressions of LREI’s mission and focus receiving attention, energy, and resources. They were a reminder and a promise to all, and they served as a challenge to those of us who lead these efforts to be true to our mission in both word and deed, each year, and each day. Our purpose in sharing these plans annually is to point to areas of focus in the coming school year, while not allowing any effort to fall off of our list as we work toward greater equity and inclusion across the institution.
The practice of sharing our annual DEI plans began in the summer of 2020, in the early months of a global pandemic and amidst a widespread movement for racial justice. While the need to recognize systems of power, privilege, marginalization, and oppression has long been recognized at LREI, we saw that more was required. The energy we felt in the summer of 2020 – systemic racism laid bare, protests for racial justice in all 50 states and around the world, millions of Americans marching peacefully in the streets – gave an impetus for us to clarify, to make explicit, and to reinvigorate this work. Although much of what we seek to develop in our equity and inclusion work is applicable across many aspects of our social identities, our DEI plans are built on a foundation of seeking racial justice, of addressing systemic racism, and of defeating white supremacy.
Here we describe several of LREI’s significant DEI initiatives for the 2022-2023 school year, some new, some two years old, and some which have been part of our practice for much longer. While not exhaustive, this list provides a representative sample of our effort to live our values and uphold our mission. We seek to create an environment where all children feel seen, heard, protected, and treated fairly, where all members of the community feel a sense of genuine belonging, where all have access to the full complement of LREI’s educational resources, and where all have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive. Our areas of emphasis this year will include:
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Identity Development – Every member of the LREI community has several opportunities to explore, interrogate, and reflect on their multiple social identities. Personal identity work is essential for helping to create an environment where all of our diverse community members are seen, heard, and feel a genuine sense of belonging. These conversations occur in classrooms, meetings, homeroom, advisory, parent meetings, and in designated affinity spaces. In the older grades students play a significant role in leading this work: high school students lead conversations in affinity groups, in advisory, in student government, in school assemblies, and during our #ItHappensHere Day events; each year we send a cohort of 10th and 11th graders to the National Association of Independent School’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference; in the spring of 2022 we held our first two-day training for white anti-racist student leaders. Our commitment to supporting this work at every level remains steadfast.
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Professional Growth – We recognize that our faculty and staff play an essential role in shaping the experience of our students at LREI. We will continue to devote roughly 25% of our faculty and staff meeting time, over the course of the year, to building knowledge and skills in the areas of equity and inclusion. Similarly, the school’s administrative leadership team will devote a number of additional meetings to our DEI work, including internally led discussions of practices, procedures, and norms, as well as attending workshops and discussion groups led by outside organizations.
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Reporting and Accountability – Schoolwide reporting and accountability procedures are essential for creating an environment of protection and fair treatment for all community members. We have made changes to our anti-bias policy that will make it easier to report an incident of bias. We will share these changes with all constituencies, and we will continue our efforts to systematize reporting and accountability procedures for incidents of bias involving one or more adults in our community. Moreover, we will continue to train adults and students in restorative practices. We will employ these practices proactively as we seek to further strengthen community relationships, and we will expand our practice of engaging in restorative circles in response to disruptions in the community.
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Curriculum Content and Practice – In June of 2022, Kalil Oldham, Director of Equity and Community, led a faculty working group (12 colleagues from all three divisions) in creating an assessment process that will support our evaluation of and planning for equity and inclusion in the classroom, including our teaching practices, classroom culture, and course content. Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, each LREI faculty member will complete a thorough self-assessment, they will carefully solicit specific student feedback, and they will participate in small group conversations about teaching practice with the ongoing goal of better meeting the needs of all students.
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Deeper Understanding – We are re-launching SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) at LREI. SEED is a national, peer-facilitated, professional development program open to all faculty and staff seeking to deepen their understanding of the intersection between personal identity and systems of power, privilege, marginalization, and oppression. These meetings, occurring regularly for the entire school year, will be facilitated by Kalil alongside LREI’s two new peer facilitators, who completed an intensive SEED New Leaders Training in July of 2022.
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Continuing the Conversation At Home – At LREI we have long believed in helping our parent, family, and caregiver community to build the knowledge and skills necessary for supporting children as they make their way through early childhood and into late adolescence. This includes building an understanding of personal identity and of systems of power and marginalization, as well as developing practical skills for supporting their children’s learning in these areas. Kalil will continue to work with the Parents Association leadership and PA affinity group chairs to organize meaningful parent education opportunities, with the goal of offering a varied schedule of virtual as well as in-person events throughout the year.
In each of these areas, from our steady movement to a more strategic approach to the sharing of the Anti-Bias plan to our deep and well-planned examination of the academic program and the ways we implement it, we are hopeful for real and meaningful change to our systems and culture.
As always, we have our work cut out for us. There is, as there always has been and always will be, a lot of work to do. Cultivating an equitable, just, welcoming community is the work of every day and every one. The more we grow the more we will become a genuine home for an increasingly diverse community. Our challenges are many, and the cultural and political resistance to change is intensifying; the backlash is real. Nevertheless, we remain committed to serving our community, to our values, and to our mission.
With hope-filled hearts and sweaty brows,
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Phil Kassen Kalil Oldham
Director Director of Equity and Community