The 2013 NAIS People of Color Conference included lunchtime screenings of two films. In Prep School Negro, André Robert Lee tells the story of his experience at Germantown Friends School (Pennsylvania) in the 1980s. The school challenged him academically and he developed some strong relationships, but the experience was at times deeply painful. His film examines some of the hidden costs for children of color at our schools, particularly when they come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
The other film, American Promise, chronicles the lives of two African-American boys who begin kindergarten at New York City’s Dalton School. As they reach adolescence, one leaves Dalton to attend a public school while the other stays. This film, too, addresses the challenges that some students face when they feel isolated outside of the dominant culture of the school. At one point, Idris Brewster, the young man who stays at Dalton, says to his father, “I bet if I were white, I’d be better off. Isn’t that true?”
What I find most remarkable about these films is that the protagonists experienced such similar challenges, despite the concerted efforts of independent schools in the 20-plus years between their graduations. Both of the schools featured have been leading the charge for more diverse and inclusive schools, yet even there, some children feel isolated.
At most independent schools, the focus of diversity work has shifted over the years from representative diversity based on race and socioeconomic status to multiculturalism and inclusion. Recruiting students of color and students from all economic backgrounds is, of course, vitally important. But this approach to diversity focuses attention on only two ways in which communities can be diverse and says little about the students’ experiences in school. For a number of years, NAIS-member schools have been working to build communities that are not only diverse in terms of social identifiers but also inclusive of the different perspectives of all constituents. We’ve made important strides as a community of schools, but as these two films so clearly illustrate, our work is not done. We need to ensure that our schools not only seek out a diverse group of students (and teachers) but also truly support all community members.
Shortly after I began my tenure at NAIS, I received a letter from Call to Action. Call to Action is NAIS’s think tank and advisory council on issues of diversity. This group of dedicated practitioners from NAIS-member schools helps the organization identify the big issues in equity and justice work in our schools and helps shape NAIS’s efforts to guide and support this work. Call to Action wrote to me in the summer of 2013 to urge me to address the “gap between our schools’ missions and the reality of the day-to-day experience of underrepresented and marginalized students at the intersection of independent school culture and their own identities.” It is a matter of urgency, the committee wrote, that we address “the long-term health and success of all the youth we are charged to educate.”
It’s not hard to figure out which students are underrepresented in our schools. In 2013–2014, students of color made up 47.7 percent of all students nationally and just 28.1 percent of independent school student bodies. In the same school year, 22.9 percent of our students received need-based financial aid, yet very few received full aid, suggesting that low-income students are not well represented at most independent schools.
Race and socioeconomic status, of course, are just two of the many important social identifiers that shape our notion of a healthy multicultural community. Yet, while they don’t tell the whole story, they are central to it — and need our constant attention. Given that the demographic makeup of our country varies significantly per region, the work of recruiting a diverse student body is necessarily shaped by local demographics. What matters is that schools study those demographics carefully and make a concerted effort to reflect them. To that end, the NAIS Demographic Center can help schools better understand some of the nuances of their local communities. It will also show how communities are going to change over the next five years, so that schools can project what their demographics should look like in time.
It’s no surprise, of course, that all corners of the country will experience some change. In most locales, racial and ethnic diversity has increased dramatically. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that a majority of children under the age of one were children of color in July 2011. By 2018 or 2019, the majority of school-age children will be nonwhite. All of this leaves us with one brutal fact: unless independent schools do a better job recruiting and retaining students of color, many will cease to exist.
As both Prep School Negro and American Promise make crystal clear, retention is a key element in the equation. Retention requires that schools not only make themselves appealing to prospective families, but that they deliver on the promises in their mission, too. And to deliver on those promises, they need to be able to measure the outcomes. Many independent schools set out to educate the whole child, helping all students grow intellectually, physically, socially, and emotionally. Of these four elements, schools are quite familiar with different instruments for gauging intellectual and physical development. What is more complicated, however, is how they measure social and emotional development. How can we be certain we’re doing what we claim — especially regarding the emotional health of students outside of the dominant culture?
The High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE), produced by Indiana University, is one instrument that helps us better understand the student experience in our schools. Individual schools can administer the survey and examine how their students fare compared with students in other schools. NAIS recently published a report1 on the HSSSE that looks at the aggregate responses from NAIS-member schools. In many ways, the results are heartening. Our students report being deeply engaged in their work and well supported by their schools. There is, however, room for improvement. On the question “There is at least one adult in this school who knows me well,” 89.1 percent of white students agreed or strongly agreed, but only 77 percent of Pacific Islander students and 82.8 percent of African-American students reported the same. African-American, Native American, and Pacific Islander students in NAIS-member schools were also more likely than whites to report that they had sometimes or often witnessed an act of bullying during the school year. Pacific Islander students were more than twice as likely as other students who had indicated their racial or ethnic identities to report that they had been picked on or bullied by another student sometimes or often during the school year.
The Independent School Health Check2 administered by the Institute of Living, also tells us that some students — including children who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender — report significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety and experience much higher rates of bullying than others.
All of these data points can help us better understand which students are most likely to be marginalized within our communities so that we can develop better ways to meet their intellectual, physical, and emotional needs. Marginalization creates suffering, and suffering negatively impacts health and learning. We cannot provide the best academics unless we also address students’ social and emotional health and well-being.
The day-to-day struggles that go into building inclusive and supportive communities are often messy and uncomfortable (“the work” is called work for a reason), but doing the work is critically important to the advancement of our schools — not to mention the improvement of our society. The good news is that these concerted efforts to effect institutional change — growing our own awareness of what inclusive schools look and act like and taking unflinching steps in that direction — help model the behavior that we hope our students will exhibit. Our work to become critical thinkers who are comfortable with ambiguity and ready to address complex problems helps our students become critical thinkers who are comfortable with ambiguity and ready to address complex issues. It encourages them, in other words, to want to grow and learn and lead throughout their lifetimes.
As the organization charged with leading, guiding, and supporting a network of schools, NAIS also continues to grow. Our work is to produce the resources, tools, and trainings that help our member schools, and to both share examples and foster conversations. Our goal is to move the community forward collectively, regardless of where we, individually, or as schools, began the journey.
Equity and justice are among our community’s core values, not just because they are “the right thing to do” but also because they are mission critical. We cannot achieve our missions to nurture such high levels of academic growth unless we also support the social and emotional development of all students.
Notes
1. The report is available at www.nais.org.
2. For more information, visit www.harthosp.org/instituteofliving/childadolescentservices/ishc/default.aspx.