ABAR/DEI Update

Faculty/Staff
Activities and events centered around our anti-bias, anti-racist (ABAR) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work continue. Most recently, all faculty and staff engaged in professional development during our in-service day with Dr. Liza Talusan, who is serving as our DEI consultant this year. Dr. Talusan is an educator, strategic change partner, leader, writer, leadership coach and parent. With over 25 years of experience in PreK-20 education, strategic leadership, and organizational change, Liza is an engaging facilitator in conversations about diversity, anti-racism, bias, privilege, and power, and creates environments that allow for people to build skills for difficult conversations. The in-service day included the first of three workshops that Dr. Talusan will offer faculty and staff. Part one of this series, entitled Engaging in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Organizational Change, introduced tools for the “Identity-Conscious Educator.” These tools included how to get conversations started, how to use Singleton’s Courageous Conversation Protocol, and establishing clear definitions of diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice. The workshop led to productive small-group conversations. Additionally, the in-service day began with an all-employee workshop led by the Quaker Life Committee which provided ongoing education about Quakerism, and concluded with divisional workshops focused on student learning and wellbeing.

Lower/Middle School
Kelly Yiadom, Lower and Middle School Equity and Inclusion Coordinator, has provided a variety of learning opportunities for students, teachers, and parents to deepen engagement in this work. Throughout the fall, Kelly has focused on strengthening students’ knowledge of other cultures and identities, and offered opportunities and affinity groups for students to explore their own. Kelly has also met with parents to discuss her role and to encourage both alignment with Westtown’s ABAR/DEI vision and goals, and to explore how parents can support moving toward these goals. As she shared in her most recent newsletter, “I had the pleasure of speaking with parents at October’s Lower and Middle School Parents’ Council meetings. During my time with parents, I shared that an integral part of my role is supporting the Westtown Village: parents/guardians, faculty/staff, and students. I also noted how important it is to have parents aligned with our anti-racist and anti-bias (ABAR) vision and DEI focus in order for this work to be meaningful and holistically impactful. Parents posed questions and engaged in a call to action, ‘What is one goal to which you can commit that will further support ABAR/DEI work at Westtown?’ We ended our sessions with an affirmation as a reminder to take this work forward.”  You can learn more details about Kelly’s work in her most recent newsletters here and here.

Upper School
In the Upper School, activities, initiatives, affinity groups, and conversations abound. New this year was the addition of a special orientation session for 9th graders who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. At the beginning of the year, Westtown hosted the first-ever 9th Grade BIPOC Summer Camp for both 9th graders new to Westtown and those rising from our Middle School. Conceived of and designed by Dean of Access and Equity Jay Farrow, Equity and Inclusion Specialist Marissa Colston, and Upper School Diversity Coordinator Celeste Payne, this summer camp experience took place prior to the opening of school and other new student orientation activities over the course of four days and three nights. The camp comprised 20 interactive sessions that covered topics like academics, residential life, co-curriculars, and community. Older BIPOC students served as mentors and helped facilitate the sessions. Farrow says, “The purpose of camp was to present ninth grade BIPOC students with opportunities to develop a genuine sense of belonging and to build strong relationships with each other, as a cohort, and with key staff and faculty before the official start of school. We sought to introduce them to multiple areas of the Westtown School program, its intentional community, this gorgeous campus, and resources and activities in the surrounding area…There was emphasis on them finding, sharing, and sharpening their voices and them taking ownership of their Westtown experience.”