October 2021
Dear LREI Community,
In the summer of 2020, in the wake of the national racial reckoning and subsequent introspection within the LREI community, we shared a plan outlining a path toward becoming an evermore equitable community of belonging, built on a foundation of greater accountability. While there remains much to do, we are proud of our efforts and all that we accomplished to strengthen our focus on issues of race and equity and to improve the LREI experience for all community members.
During the ‘20-’21 school year, our goals were organized around a detailed timeline. We employed this strategy as we were focused on making significant progress in a short period of time and we knew that we had to move at a pace that served those who our community marginalizes rather than at a pace that created a more general sense of comfort, often favored by those who feel most secure in the school. For the ‘21-’22 school year, we will organize our plans not around time but more directly around the needs of the children, which is, after all, the way in which we organize our most important efforts.
In 1924 Elisabeth Irwin published Fitting The School To The Child. While many of the methods Miss Irwin employed to accentuate the needs of the children differ from the tools we employ today, the overall goal remains constant. As EI wrote, “We believe it possible to create a school environment in which the child himself could feel that he belonged.” Our goal is to continue to center the needs of our students and, by extension, those of all in the community.
As we think about our ‘21-’22 DEI plan, the plan for our Centennial year, it seems important for our objectives to be built around this component of the school’s heritage – the need for each child to feel an unquestionable sense of belonging. In order to achieve this we must acknowledge that children arrive at LREI living different lives, often traveling different paths. They have differing experiences in school and these continue as they return home. We, the adults, bear the responsibility of believing in, of creating, and of sustaining such belonging. We must hold ourselves accountable for this aim. Varied identities must be reflected in our program, in our community, and in our relationships. If we are to “fit” the school community to each of its members, then all members of the community must learn to be open to, really to cherish, the diversity within which we work and play each day. While developing these skills takes effort, we will surely be able to grow and learn, if each of us is dedicated, if we are all dedicated, to this component of our humanity. This learning is central to our goals for the year.
How do the school’s systems fit the needs of each student/family?
We must continue to examine and make equitable the relationships between the students and the school, as represented by LREI’s systems and policies. Last year, we created an institution-wide anti-discrimination policy. In the coming year, we will do a more thorough job of sharing the policy and its processes with the community. Similarly, in the high school, we will continue to develop and implement the student/student anti-bias policy created by members of the class of ‘21 and structured to be led by students in subsequent classes. We will continue, and hasten, our planning for and implementation of our institutional responses to instances of bias that are reported through our recently adopted policies.
We will examine policies and procedures to ensure that LREI equitably engages with all families in our 14-year student experience from admissions to college guidance and during the ongoing dialogue between family and school. We must ask ourselves, “Are we expressing the mission of the school, in word and deed, from the moment a family walks into the school for an admissions tour until they leave at graduation?”
How does the school’s program fit the needs of each child/family?
The connection between the students and the curriculum may well be the longest lasting, most intimate, and most impactful of all of the relationships created during a student’s fourteen years at LREI. Our interrogation and development of the program, examining it for bias and representation, will continue, will widen, will deepen, and will result in both initial revisions and a plan for periodic re-examination.
How does the school support students’ relationships with each other and with themselves?
The relationships between classmates, developed over years, are quite complex and evolve as students grow, mature, and as their identities develop. If we are to support individuals as they work to achieve the promise of our diversity statement, “LREI is committed to each of its community members, each of whom has a responsibility to both the community and to the wider world,” then we must continue our work with each student and with the students as a community unto themselves. Our advisory work, readings, class conversations, affinity and alliance work, and inter-affinity work will continue to support the students as identity conversations become an integral part of their relationships with each other. There is no more essential component of this plan than supporting the individual student as their self-awareness and their community involvement grow.
How do we support our employees in continuing to develop as self-reflective and culturally competent community members?
Students being “seen” by teachers, truly seen for who they are now and who they are becoming, is essential. Each student must feel that their whole being is welcomed, respected, valued, and cared for by each member of the community. We must take action to prepare teachers to be experts in this relationship, to foster a safe and supportive classroom environment, and to be able to respond in the moment when any student is made to feel “less than.” These are learning moments for all. Affinity and alliance work, role playing, workshops on topics such as microaggressions and course-creation / material selection must continue and become evermore robust.
How can families support their children’s learning and membership in the community?
A child’s core relationships – those with their adult loved ones and caretakers, children with each other, students contemplating their family’s values, the lessons learned as members of other communities – these are essential forces, driving forces, in a child’s development as an independent person.
In order to provide support to the students through these relationships, we will continue to offer opportunities for adult reflection, learning, and growth through speaker events, affinity groups, readings, etc. We urge you to join these gatherings. The energy and effort put into these relationships will be a key component in our growth as a community. As the students and staff are experiencing and demonstrating, individual work has a significant impact on our communal progress. We look forward to everyone’s participation.
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Our plans will continue to develop, to come into focus, in the coming weeks and months. We will share invitations and opportunities. You can expect to hear from me, from the divisional principals, the divisional DEI Facilitators, and from Kalil Oldham, our new Director of Equity and Community. You will, of course, have many opportunities to get to know Kalil in the coming months. Thank you, Kalil, for jumping in so quickly.
We come to this work in an honest, straightforward manner, sharing the challenges and goals with your children in age-appropriate ways, as is done daily in our progressive classrooms. We will embed these conversations within the academic curriculum and co-curricular offerings, all with the goal of having your child’s progressive education bridge the gap between school and the so-called “real-world,” evermore skillfully narrowing the distance between learning and life.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion work is integral to our academic program. The ways in which your children take all that they learn at LREI out into the world truly prepares them to succeed and to have an impact wherever their paths may lead.
We are grateful for your participation in this work and look forward to our ongoing growth, together.
Peace and hope,
