Dear SSFS Families,

We write to you in the hopes that you are staying healthy and finding time for self-care and rejuvenation this summer. 

Here at SSFS, we are busy preparing for the 2020-2021 academic year, including our ongoing work of addressing the action items identified in the SSFS Diversity Audit, completed in Spring 2019. Please take a moment to review the June 2020 Diversity Audit Update for information and updates about the following topics:

• Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Audit Oversight Committee
• Discipline and Bias
• Diversity and Hiring
• Affinity Groups
• Residential Program
• Other Efforts, including
  • Curriculum and Program
  • Infrastructure
  • Implicit Bias

We also wanted to share with you a Board Resolution relating to the issue of systemic racism. The resolution, approved by the Board on June 23, 2020, is copied below, and also posted on our website.

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns. 

Tom Gibian, Head of School
Rodney Glasgow, Incoming Head of School
David Hickson, Assistant Head of School
Kip Imlay, Clerk of the SSFS Board of Trustees
Hamid Faruqee, Incoming Clerk of the SSFS Board of Trustees

RESOLUTION

The pandemic of racism that has plagued the United States from its inception to the present day is antithetical to the values of Sandy Spring Friends School and to the fundamental nature of a Quaker education.

Our Mission Statement includes the School's commitment to provide a welcoming and nurturing learning community. The School cherishes the worth and dignity of each individual because we embrace the Quaker belief that there is that of God in every person. We strive to develop caring and effective citizens of the world.

The Board of Trustees endorses the peaceful activism of the Black Lives Matter movement. We refuse to accept the suffering by any of our students, parents, faculty, staff and persons of color and indigenous people in our greater community who are regularly confronted with violent reminders that their lives are not protected from the consequences of hatred and brutality. 

We reaffirm our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we pledge to act with a concern for eradicating race-based injustices and inequities, whether they appear within or outside our School. 

We will act to ensure that our School is a place where all people of color will feel safe, secure, and respected—a comfort to which everyone is entitled. 

We will perceive injustice to one as injustice to all, and will respond, not with silence, but by speaking truth to power. 

We will continue our work to ensure that Sandy Spring Friends School is not an impediment to, but an advocate for, equality and justice within our own community and around the world.