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Diversity Audit Update: June 2020

Diversity Audit Update: June 2020

Almost a full year has passed since SSFS completed its diversity audit, a comprehensive examination of our progress in fulfilling the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals of our mission and strategic plan. It is a fair time to consider what progress has been made towards the action items spelled out in the report to the community distributed last fall. (See Feb 27, 2020 update here.)

The spring tidal wave of COVID-19 swamped, and continues to dominate, the administrative agendas at schools around the globe. However, recent national (re)attention to incidents of police bias and brutality illustrate for us how essential fundamental DEI work is, not only for the SSFS community, but in fulfillment of our mission to be change agents in the world, and to educate the change agents of the future. It is not work that can be deferred to some future post-pandemic world.

Based on feedback from the community, the original Action Plan list was expanded to a total of 26 action items (listed at the end), serving as a blueprint for school action for years to come.  All of these are important, and there is also recognition that not all of these will be addressed on the same time schedule, due to community and administrative bandwidth, and the nature of some of the action items. DEI work is never complete, never finished and checked off.  However, we should be able to monitor, access, and celebrate concrete, observable progress on the agenda produced by the audit process.

Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Even before the audit report was released to the community, the School’s administrative council identified the first action item, the hiring of a diversity practitioner, as the most immediate need.  Consequently, a search committee was formed to hire a full-time senior administrative level Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DDEI) for the 2020-2021 school year. After two rounds of interviews with many highly qualified candidates this past spring, the School was not successful in identifying and hiring a person into this essential position. By April, it was felt that the community’s needs would be best met by retaining an interim DDEI, on a consultative basis, for the coming school year in order to allow the School to initiate a new search, early in the fall, when a pool of strong, experienced candidates will again be available. The School is in the process now of evaluating proposals from multiple consultants for providing DDEI services for the coming school year.

Audit Oversight Committee: As an accountability structure, the School formed an Audit Oversight Committee (AOC) to serve as a feedback mechanism to the School’s employee community, administration, and Board of Trustees. Rather than serving as a working committee to accomplish specific action items, this group monitors and reflects back to us our progress on addressing the elements of the Diversity Audit Action Plan, individually and collectively. The AOC includes members of the staff and faculty and is formally a subcommittee of the All School Diversity Committee. However, it operates with a high degree of independence.

Discipline and Bias: The School has begun a comprehensive review, through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, of its disciplinary systems and policies.  For this effort, the School is looking at not only the formal discipline systems and policies, but also considering the day-to-day interactions between students and teachers/staff, and the quality and equity of these interactions which might more commonly fall under the label of “classroom management.”  This second dimension of discipline is the more difficult to address as it is grounded in the small, moment to moment interactions between people that are influenced by each person’s unconscious, implicit biases. It is this second aspect that also seemed to be the focus of student concerns expressed through the diversity audit. Consequently, the School’s efforts regarding more equitable discipline are proceeding along two parallel paths: policies and procedures, and implicit bias in student-teacher interactions.

To help us examine this complex topic, a group of 18 administrators, deans, and student support professionals participated in three workshops this spring with a consultant. This group is now serving as an ad-hoc committee to examine current policies, practices, data, and issues, refine our goals and philosophy, and develop specific action steps.  The group is focusing on these key areas:

  • Creating a comprehensive, all-school statement of philosophy and approach to discipline that will guide the work of all three divisions

  • Examining and revising the discipline policies and procedures in each division in light of the all school philosophy and our DEI goals

  • Creating a confidential bias incident reporting system to be made available to all students, employees, and families

  • Initiating system for collecting data about discipline that will provide a tool for examining patterns (such as bias)

  • Focusing on faculty and staff education regarding implicit bias, especially as it may play out in classroom management and day-to-day interactions.  This work is expected to lead to staff/faculty professional development study and discussion on implicit bias over the coming school year.

Diversity And Hiring: Two significant efforts have been made to make SSFS hiring practices more equitable, in support of the goal of hiring and retaining a diverse faculty and staff. First, our hiring process has been revised and formalized in order to reduce opportunities for the introduction of bias. Hiring committees are provided more guidance about the process.  At each step, candidates are exposed to an experience that is as identical as possible. For example, when conducting phone interviews, all candidates are asked the same set of questions, determined in advance, in order to reduce opportunities for bias to be injected. Bringing consistency to our hiring practices is an ongoing effort.

Second, each hiring committee now includes a designated diversity advocate who is responsible for monitoring the consistency and equity of the process, the diversity of the candidate pool at each stage, and providing feedback to the committee on this essential aspect of hiring. Our current pool of diversity advocates participated in a workshop (via an outside DEI consultant) on hiring and implicit bias last fall, and it is the School’s intention to conduct additional trainings in the future to expand our pool of advocates and increase overall institutional competency. The hiring process for the coming school year is not yet complete, but at this point measurable progress has been made towards increasing the diversity of the teaching faculty for the 2020-2021 school year.

Affinity Groups: There are multiple efforts in the school to support and promote affinity groups.  These groups strengthen the community in several ways. They provide people with common experiences a place to voice and process those experiences with others who share commonalities of perspective, background, etc. Second, they provide a mechanism for “reality testing” and reporting experiences that might otherwise go unacknowledged. Third, they provide additional forums for generating ideas and plans for advancing shared community goals of providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all. The Upper and Middle Schools have worked with consultants to enhance and expand opportunities for student affinity groups in both divisions. The parent Intersect leadership is pursuing efforts to foster affinity groups among parents/guardians.

Residential Program: The dormitory staff arranged for a series of three workshops with a consultant to examine issues of implicit bias and how bias may play out in the residential life program, dorm leadership and supervision, and equity in policies, discipline, and student leadership. Two of these workshops took place in the early spring; the third was disrupted by the sudden shift to virtual learning and will be rescheduled. The Residential Program will be under new leadership for the 2020-2021 school year, and staff training is undergoing considerable revision.

Other Efforts: Not every SSFS DEI effort began with the diversity audit or is directly tied to a specific audit Action Plan item. In addition to numerous individual and small group participation in workshops, readings, discussions, and curriculum changes, here are activities that connect to Audit action items but are not necessarily initiated as a direct response:

  • Curriculum and Program:

    • The Upper School is revising its freshman seminar curriculum and assembly program to enhance efforts to build cross-cultural competence among students./p>

    • Selection of any new Lower School curricula will be evaluated with inclusiveness as part of the explicit selection criteria.

    • Work continues to systematically review, cull, and augment book collections and reading selections in the library and Lower School classrooms, through the lens of diversity and inclusion.

    • A new Middle School “minimester” program with multiple courses focusing on DEI and the voice of others outside non-majority culture.

    • The Middle School Humanities Department is in the process of further reviewing course content, sources, and teaching practice with a focus on DEI.

  • Infrastructure: A Lower School diversity committee is being reconstituted.

  • Implicit Bias: The Lower School faculty is engaging in spring and summer professional development work focused on unpacking individual privilege as educators, discussing how to address different social identifiers in developmentally appropriate ways, and identifying ways to hold each other accountable in DEI work.

Diversity Audit Action Items

  • Determine staffing model and responsibilities for a diversity and inclusion leadership role/diversity practitioner; hire person to fill this role.
  • Review and evaluate disciplinary system(s) across all three divisions through lens of implicit bias
  • Evaluate and reconfigure staff training model for dorm staff, in light of concerns raised in audit
  • Determine and implement revised approach for collecting demographic data for students, families, employees
  • Formulate a structure for better supporting and giving voice to parents of color
  • Formulate a structure for better supporting and giving voice to LGBTQ+ parents and students
  • Create formal, known pathways for incidents related to race and other forms of diversity to be brought forward by students/parents/staff, addressed, and communicated
  • Revise, update, and document the hiring process with an emphasis on anti-bias strategies. 
  • Create mechanism for evaluating curriculum, particularly with an eye to diversity, inclusion, equity and anti-bias around both race and gender identity/sexual orientation
  • Evaluate and update current approaches to Board diversity and inclusion training
  • Evaluate and update current approaches to administration diversity and inclusion training
  • Evaluate and update current approaches to staff/faculty diversity and inclusion training
  • Develop ways to better inform and educate parents regarding diversity, inclusion, and equity, both the School’s efforts and the topic more generally
  • Evaluate and recommend improvements to how international students and families are supported
  • Develop strategies to engage with those who consider themselves in the “thought minority” at SSFS
  • Evaluate Health and Wellness/Life Skills curricula in light of needs expressed in the audit
  • Examine bathroom options, seeking opportunities to expand gender neutral options
  • Assess academic opportunities for/performance by students, with an eye towards differences between various groups
  • Clarify role of student leadership in the US, MS, and LS.  How are student voices part of the decision-making structures at the school?  What responsibilities do students have?
  • Examine structures for faculty/staff accountability for the School’s values and expectations around diversity, inclusion, anti-bias education
  • Evaluate family experiences around the total cost of SSFS education, and examine financial aid structures for expenses beyond tuition.
  • Create more authentic, organic places for students, parents and employees to give feedback about the School’s diversity efforts.  Consider a smaller, annual survey to assess the School’s progress in diversity efforts over time.
  • Create a formal plan for making campus buildings accessible to persons of all physical abilities.
  • Develop an approach and plan for training substitute teachers regarding SSFS values and expectations with regard to inclusion, equity, respecting identity, understanding of student learning plans.
  • Examine, and expand where needed, ways to support community members who are experiencing mental health challenges.
  • Seek ways to expand community inclusiveness and support for those with cognitive, mental and/or emotional disabilities.

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