In the age of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), there has been an abundance of discussions, newly created positions and departments, and professional development to encourage awareness and fairness for all. However, it’s important to keep in mind that DEI does not only apply to Black or African American people. My personal shift has gone from diversifying largely with the Black population (due to the societal struggles associated with the often insurmountable challenges they face), to including a wider spectrum of diverse people.
This comes to mind for me for many reasons. Firstly, I chair a DEI committee at my school, although my professional title is not in the DEI realm. The committee has taught me a lot about the research conducted to offer growth of DEI schoolwide concerning all factors of diversity, more specifically to the admissions process and department. Secondly, I work at a school that enrolls, educates, and supports students who are diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (LDs) and/or ADHD and ASD (I know these acronyms can be confusing). THAT, in and of itself, is fresh off the diversity train. Although we have a mission and vision to educate the LD/ADHD/ASD population, all schools have students with similar diagnoses, but due to the nature of my school, the definition of diversity often becomes clouded. Some think it means only race (more specifically Black/White relations), while others think it concerns neurodivergent vs. neurotypical people. DEI and its Equity and Inclusion partners are so much larger than that.
Let’s consider what’s meant by a truly diverse population in our schools:
- Students, faculty, and staff of ALL races
- Students, faculty, and staff of all pronouns
- Students, faculty, and staff of all physical abilities
- Students, faculty, and staff of all learning preferences (within your admission criteria spectrum)
- Students, faculty, and staff of all political beliefs
- Students, faculty, and staff of all religious beliefs
- Students, faculty, and staff of all socio-economic backgrounds
- Students, faculty and staff of various interests and experiences
- Students, faculty, and staff of various ethnicities
- Students, faculty, and staff of various cultures
At a bare minimum, we can invest in welcoming these ten diversities within our independent schools, although there are numerous others to consider.
Next, I want to share how my thinking has changed around this matter. Back in 2010, I had a major issue with the lack of effort being put toward recruiting and enrolling/employing Black students, faculty, and staff at my school. At the time, I was specifically focused on Black/African American students because there were so few enrolled at the school. Several colleagues told me the learning diagnoses of our students were of more concern than race. They commented that the learning issues overshadow the race and culture issues that our Black students are dealing with, thus my focus should not be on how many students of color are at the school nor the inclusivity with them. They didn’t think this was an issue. This disturbed me greatly.
I couldn’t understand why my colleagues didn’t see how Black students needed schools like ours to feel included. They couldn’t see that Latino, Asian, and Bi-racial students had similar needs. They couldn’t understand the need for Black, Latino, Asian and other races of teachers needed to teach and support all our students. They couldn’t see that our school lacked diversity, equity, and inclusion. They couldn’t understand that the neurodivergent learning diagnoses of students of color compounded the life challenges that those students had to contend with daily. Why would we simply focus on enrolling and educating White students who had the resources and access to attend our school, and felt quite welcomed within the school environment? Why would we overlook the fact that race is a factor even if the student is diagnosed with a learning disability? Why would we ignore the fact that our school needed to become more diverse with students of color who also were diagnosed with learning differences? I needed to uncover the answers to those questions that I thought my colleagues couldn’t understand.
To my thinking, growing a school population of diverse bodies will inadvertently make the school great in so many ways. With the idea of recruiting and supporting students diagnosed with learning disabilities, while still intentionally focusing on diversifying our population with able-bodied and non-able-bodied students of color and girls, we carved out a plan by:
- Recruiting and networking in areas other than what the school traditionally had done to reach the Black population.
- Starting a Young Men of Color (YMC) affinity group in partnership with a local school. This served as a safe place for the small number of Black males enrolled in my school and welcomed other Black males who qualified for the school to join.
- Launching Girls Groups because our student population of girls is less than 25%. These groups allowed girls to come together socially, provided a chance for me to work with and mentor Black and Latino girls enrolled in the school, and served as a safe space for them.
When I started the groups, I initially received some push back on why they are leaving out White students or males. This annoyed me given the fact that males comprise 75% of our student population and have natural affinity groups each day, whereas Black males comprise less than 2% of the population. At the same time, Black females are coupled in a group with ALL females to receive affinity support. But I persevered in honor of DEI. Although the YMC group disbanded after a few years due to lack of Black male leadership (faculty/staff), the Girls Groups are still going. We found the more students in these groups, the more welcoming the school became for students of color and girls, and the easier it was to recruit, enroll, and retain more diverse students. This also became true when trying to recruit, hire and retain faculty and staff of color.
I have worked at my school for 14 years. It has been quite a journey. Not only has it revealed areas of DEI weakness, but it has provided teachable moments for the school to grow into a welcoming space for all diverse sectors. This has greatly impacted the admissions department and I see its manifestation every day. It brings me joy to see students in the school that are not only neurodivergent, but they are also Black, Latino, Asian, East Indian, White, non-able bodied, use all the pronouns, transgender, hearing impaired, genius level IQ, low socioeconomic status, and carry many other diversities. Additionally, our school has adopted the word “Belonging” to join forces with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion With that in mind, I’ll conclude with three broad points of advice.
- Advance your thinking about what diversity means
- Don’t forget about Diversity’s partners: Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
- Transform into the person and school that our society needs
My personal growth with DEIB allowed me to not only focus on increasing the enrollment of Black students, but all diverse populations. We still have a very long path to travel on the diversity trail but the beauty of independent schools is the ability to transform into what our society needs and deserves.
Portia M. York, PhD
Director of Advancement
The John Crosland School