This article appeared as "On Talk and Action" in the Winter 2024 issue of Independent School.
Have you ever returned from a school break and a colleague, parent, or teacher asked you where you went for vacation? There’s an implied assumption that everyone will or has the ability to travel for vacation during a school break. When I was in college—made possible by financial aid—I frequently found myself on the other side of this question from classmates. It was then that I became acutely aware of my socioeconomic class and the feeling of being an “outsider” in my own educational community.
When I arrived at Shady Hill School (MA) as the new head of school in July 2010, I started by listening to the experiences of community members to learn about our community’s values and culture. I posed a few questions to everyone I met, What is something you cherish or appreciate about Shady Hill? and What is one area you think we should improve? And what I heard was that despite the school’s strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, not everyone on campus—students, parents, employees—felt that Shady Hill was equally theirs.
Located in the greater Boston area, Shady Hill sits in an affluent section of a very diverse city and draws from 40 communities across the whole income spectrum. Our enrollment goal is to reflect the racial and ethnic demographics of the city of Cambridge. And given what I’d heard as part of my initial listening tour, it seemed clear that we had needed to do more to ensure that our school community not only reflected that but also felt a true sense of belonging. So in 2011, I decided to dive headlong into belonging and launched a series of events and discussions about socioeconomic class in our community. We wanted to help the students and adults in our school community reflect upon and openly discuss a topic that is often suppressed in schools because it makes many people uncomfortable: socioeconomic class, which we define as perceived social ranking based on income, wealth, education, access to resources, status, and power.
At the time, we asked ourselves Why did we want to talk about class, and why now? The answer at the time—with an increasingly diverse student and adult population, we needed to ensure inclusivity for all—still resonates. When we set out more than 10 years ago on what was, at the time, designed to be a yearlong exploration of socioeconomic difference within our school community and society at large, we knew we would gain a deeper and critical understanding about our school community. But we did not anticipate that more than 10 years later, we would still be deeply engaged in a learning process that continues to evolve and shape how we think about and operate in our community.
Where We Started
As we detailed in “Talking About Class,” which appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of Independent School magazine, we began by surveying parents, faculty, and staff via email to discern the class-related themes we should explore, and then we developed sets of framing questions to guide the work for the year ahead.
How do we help students understand differences, especially in a society that links value to wealth? How do we talk to students in different developmental stages about class issues?
How do we create a community that is inclusive of many different economic circumstances? How do we talk openly about our observations of and experiences with class?
How do we balance the financial needs of the school and the continuation of Shady Hill traditions while being sensitive to differences in socioeconomic class?
We talked with parents and children about class, and we examined school practices and traditions, including financial aid and tuition. It was a bold and challenging topic to dive into and discuss with all members of our community, especially in my early years as head of school, and it was uncomfortable at times.
We were worried about the stereotyping that can sometimes occur at the intersectionality of race and class. But it was necessary, and it ultimately yielded a better understanding and awareness of the different types of socioeconomic diversity in our community as well as generated ideas to help foster a greater sense of belonging. We made some immediate practical improvements in the day-to-day life of the school to help families in which both parents work full-time jobs: child care during evening meetings, after-school programming on early-dismissal days, fun camps during faculty professional days and school vacation weeks, and free summer camp tuition for some staff members’ children. And we kept going.
Shortly after this yearlong study, we launched a climate study to better understand and dive more deeply into how families experience a sense of belonging at Shady Hill. We hired Diversity Directions, a consulting group that works exclusively with independent schools to develop and meet their mission-driven DEI goals, to conduct focus groups with parents, trustees, employees, and students to gather feedback about their sense of belonging. At the end of our one-week engagement and follow-up phone calls, we received a comprehensive report listing our strengths and recommendations for our community to consider. This report has been a roadmap for our continued work and has led to the development of practices and structures to support our diverse community. The most important learning from these yearlong discussions was that we always need to look at every situation through the lens of socioeconomic differences. It is hard work, and we know we might not always get it right.
Where We’ve Been
In the years that followed, we’ve continued to listen and examine—and redesign—many aspects of the school experience. For example, we have documented the number of hidden costs, including sports equipment, field trips, neuropsychological testing, and summer tutoring, and we are providing financial support in these areas to families. Having heard that some parents feel uncomfortable going into very large homes or traveling to far locations, we’ve moved the annual start-of-school potluck dinners, intended to forge community among parents in the same grade, to a neutral location at school. We eliminated an annual auction when we realized how much it put wealth disparities on full display. Not all families have enjoyed the shifts in practices, however; they’ve shared that they miss the homey spirit and community-building of these past events. We are still holding some events in homes, such as affinity group gatherings and our once-a-year “Evening of Appreciation,” although both of these exceptions have evoked criticism from some who’d prefer an all-or-nothing rule. We continue to grapple with this dilemma.
We took an even deeper and more reflective approach when the pandemic hit and highlighted many existing socioeconomic inequities and differences in class across the education spectrum—and society. We used our existing work and knowledge of our community as a foundation to reflect on and examine our school community in the context of the pandemic. We asked, How did families access technology from home? Did they have stable Wi-Fi and appropriate technology to engage in remote learning? How did we navigate Zoom meetings that allowed a glimpse into a child’s home? How did we discuss and address students who shared they were accessing school from a second home or an international location?
Shortly after COVID-19 hit and we moved to remote instruction, we realized not all families had a space or device for student use. So we made laptops and iPads available for anonymous pickup (coordinated by our assistant director of financial aid), both respecting the unknowns about the virus and the privacy of each family. We even provided printers and ink for students who needed it since some students were unable to print out attachments or download necessary work. When we returned in the fall of 2020, we moved to a 1:1 laptop program to ensure all students had technology and appropriate Wi-Fi access. We also established Zoom guidelines for the middle school students while also having internal discussions about the ability for some families to be at their second homes. What was most important is that we didn’t shy away from or ignore these crucial conversations.
Financial Impact
We also haven’t shied away from examining how rising costs—tuition, cost of living, housing—affect our families and employees.
In 2021–2022, Shady Hill’s administration and board of trustees launched a financial aid task force to review the school’s financial practices, study national and local trends, and understand the financial challenges of current and past families. This group of alumni, parents, trustees, and administrators met weekly from October through January and also met with Mark J. Mitchell, NAIS’s vice president of access and affordability, for a half-day retreat to help us with our thinking.
One of the main outcomes of the task force’s work was the decision to adopt the Boston area cost-of-living adjustment in our financial aid formula. The board approved this new formula for immediate implementation, leading to an overall 19% increase in financial aid awards for the 2022–2023 school year and the current 2023–2024 school year. We also increased our operating budget by $300,000 per year, and we were able to support the higher financial aid awards with a board-designated endowed fund, established in 2010, from annual surpluses from the Shady Hill Fund. We intend to continue this fund, which was created for situations where we needed more financial aid—greater demand, family emergencies, or a parent’s sudden loss of a job. Several of the impacted families who received the new awards shared their appreciation.
“We are truly grateful for the financial aid amount that was awarded to us this year. When we got the award letter, we were very thankful and relieved at the same time. We stretched ourselves very thin financially last year when we applied to SHS, and we did that again this year. With this incredible inflation, it would have been more challenging than last year. Now we feel much better, and we are sincerely thankful.”
“Here is our child’s signed award letter. I cannot begin to describe the relief I felt when I saw it. These additional funds will make such a difference for us and will certainly help reduce the financial pressure. Please accept my sincerest thanks to you for your support this year and every year, and please pass them onto the financial aid committee.”
We also analyzed the increased cost of living and how it was affecting faculty and staff recruitment and retention. During a board retreat in fall 2022, we explored case studies about hiring and retention challenges. We examined Why are some teachers leaving the Boston area? What financial reasons contributed to a potential new teacher not choosing Shady Hill? We discussed the stresses that younger teachers had identified, such as the dramatic increase in the cost of living, especially apartment rentals and housing prices. These discussions led to the board’s approval of a one-time, midyear raise in February 2023 for faculty on the step scale and for lower-paid staff, followed by a larger annual salary increase for the 2023–2024 school year for all employees. Faculty on the step scale (1–18 years) received a 10–14% increase over the two raises, while other experienced faculty received a 5% raise. I communicated this news to faculty and staff by sharing why we were trying to increase the lower-paid salaries immediately given the impact of a higher inflation rate and how an increase on a smaller salary
did not make an impact on our younger faculty. It was certainly a
lesson in equity.
Where We Are Now and Where We Go From Here
What does our community look like now? As a practice, we check in and assess this every five years. In the spring of 2023, we administered a schoolwide survey to update our understanding of the socioeconomic composition of our community and whether it has changed. We also used the survey to identify what financial pressures are affecting families’ ability to pay for tuition. In our most recent survey, which the board of trustees’ finance committee analyzed, we observed some significant shifts in our community.
Over the past 10 years, we’ve made great progress toward creating a more equitable and inclusive community. Given an increasing wealth gap, a higher inflation rate and higher cost of living in Boston, and tuition increases greater than the Consumer Price Index, we are compelled to continue this important work. We transitioned kindergarten to a full-day program last year, and we’re planning to do the same with our pre-K program next year to better accommodate the growing needs of all parents and the 63% increase in working families in our community over the past 10 years.
This year, we have implemented a new parent orientation with a facilitated training specifically about navigating a socioeconomically diverse community focusing on the following questions: What is our responsibility as a member of a socioeconomically and racially diverse community? How do we aim to ensure a sense of belonging for all community members? We are also continuing our periodic parent education discussions with Class Action, a nonprofit dedicated to ending classism, where
parents can learn more from college students and young adults about the challenges they are facing. Ultimately, these programs raise awareness and allow parents to share their experiences in safe and inclusive environments.
And we’ve been intentional about ensuring that our board of trustees continues to reflect the socioeconomic diversity of our community. We now encourage parents to self-nominate or nominate others for the board and are proud to have a board from which annual donations range from $50 to $50,000. Faculty continue to consider activities and prompts that help students appreciate different experiences rather than those associated with wealth—instead of asking students about their vacations or trips, for example, we ask them to share about the quality of a relationship, their favorite book, or something they learned over their break.
Although we have not resolved the discomfort people have possessing wealth or, conversely, being of modest means, we have leaned into the difficult conversations and given adults and children both the language to use and the behaviors to exhibit when discussing socioeconomic differences in the community. These tools and expectations have led to greater understanding and open dialogue. And we are committed to continuing to do this work.
Go Deeper
Get a more detailed look at the work Shady Hill School did to understand and explore the socioeconomic makeup of its community in “Talking About Class,” an article in the Fall 2012 issue of Independent School magazine. That issue also explored several related themes, including “Our 1% Problem,” “The Independent School Financial Model Is Broken,” and “What Dead Schools Can Teach Us.”
Also be sure to check out “The Influence of Affluence,” an article in the Fall 2017 issue, which explores additional dimensions of the taboo, elephant-in-the-room conversation schools are still struggling to have about addressing class and wealth in independent schools.