The Museum School believes in the importance of diversity, inclusiveness and equity and is committed to developing good students and good citizens. The Museum School believes that the administration, faculty, and staff members should be constantly engaged in a conversation about how to promote diversity from within.
The Museum School administration devotes ongoing attention and effort toward creating an inclusive, diverse environment. Examples of these efforts are:
- During the 2017 – 2018 school year, the school hired a professional consulting group to elevate the ability of staff and faculty to be leaders in equity and inclusion and provide engagement opportunities with parents, caregivers, and community members
- In March 2018, the school formed the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Committee, an active and engaged group of staff and faculty who are charged with deepening the equity work within the TMS communities
- The school partnered with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center to engage students and host conversations with the community
- The school hosted all-staff meetings to provide cultural diversity and inclusion training to every staff member
- School faculty created a comprehensive resource called the “Summer PD List,” which provides an extensive list of books, articles, and internet resources that educate on race, gender, and sexual identity
- Teachers and staff conducted an Equity Walk, a survey of the physical spaces in the school to determine where equity was lacking
- All staff members took the Implicit Association Test and debriefed, privately or with colleagues, reactions and action steps.
“We’re truly acting on the needs of our community. We’re using our different kinds of knowledge to gauge what our community needs. We’re not just following a pre-determined set of steps. It is very much work of the heart.” – EDI Committee Member
Meet: The Museum School EDI Committee
Who are the members of the EDI Committee?
- an active and engaged group of staff and faculty who are charged with deepening the equity work within the TMS communities
What do the members of the EDI Committee do?
- Make recommendations around hiring and recruitment practices
- Identify and study resources for best practices for diversity within the classroom
- Strengthen relationships among staff and with students and parents through the lens of enhancing relationships
- Compile resources that teaching staff can use to teach diversity, inclusion and equity
What’s valuable about the EDI Committee?
- “As a school we were already working on having these conversations but through a PD once a month. We had a top down, broad kind of learning, with experts. But then we hit a point where we needed to find a way to address specific issues, and become expert learners ourselves.”
- “We already have a diverse family of students, teachers, parents, etc. Our goal is to go beyond that – to figure out ways to teach students how to be open-minded.”
- “The EDI Committee models for our school community as a team what equity and diversity could look like. We’re a work in progress, but so much of teaching is modeling, and we’re working hard to do that. We want to create an authentic reflection of what diversity and equity and social justice look like.”
- “It gives us an opportunity to have a lot of different life experiences at one table, and to think through the same situation from different points of view. We all come from life experiences that make us sensitive to issues that we work through as a school. We’re looking for ways to protect kids.”
