Community, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

LWHS routinely sends students, faculty, and staff to external conferences, institutes, and other learning opportunities offered by the following organizations: The National Association of Independent Schools; The Privilege Institute;The National LGBTQ Task Force; People of Color in Independent Schools (POCIS); The Center for Spiritual & Ethical Education; and the California Teacher Development Collaborative (CATDC), to name a few. Conference attendees are then called to collaborate with community leaders, our public purpose partners, as well as other guest experts, to organize our annual Sam Mihara Days of Justice conference (SMDoJ). SMDoJ is an internal conference honoring the legacy and activism of LWHS alumnus Sam Mihara who, after being incarcerated during World War II at the Heart Mountain, Wyoming prison camp, became a rocket scientist and a nationally-recognized speaker on the topic of mass injustice in the U.S. Each year's SMDOJ theme is decided upon via community listening sessions and based on DEI needs/issues present both within and beyond our campus community.

The LWHS Anti-Hate Speech Policy (AHSP) is a public denouncement of the use of hate speech*, derogatory language, and any identity-based slur in any context—academic or non-academic at Lick-Wilmerding High School. The policy outlines a tiered process of accountability that leverages Restorative Justice Practices in instances where hate speech is used. The policy extends across the entire school community and must be observed in both academic and non-academic contexts, on and off campus. It applies to any extracurricular or off-campus LWHS events, or in any context in which an LWHS community member is or can be perceived as representing the LWHS community.

LWHS recognizes that in everyday speech, some communities have reclaimed certain terms, language, or otherwise harmful epithets. To this end, the policy should not be leveraged to police the experience, bodies, or tongues of minoritized community members who are attempting to discuss and navigate their experiences of oppression and resistance.

*For the purposes of this policy, Hate Speech is defined as any use of language that violates a community member’s sense of dignity as it relates to their core identifiers:  race, color, religion (creed), sex, gender (identity or expression), sexual orientation, age, national origin (ancestry), and/or disability.

The Ethnic Studies working group is a task force composed of student leaders, faculty, staff, and administrators investigating the best way, as a community, to make compulsory engagement with Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement. The ask came from the student body in 2020 in direct response to the limited engagement that students have with non-White histories beyond deficit narratives in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Students also shared the need to have White-identifying members of our community face their histories in order for us to engage in authentic conversations, healing, and accountability

This policy was written to support and advance the inclusion and belonging of transgender and gender expansive students in our school community. Informed by California law and transgender inclusion best practices, our policy addresses areas which include, but are not limited to, the use of chosen names, correct pronoun usage, student information system updates, inclusion in Athletics, on overnight trips, facility use and access, as well as community guidance on how to support folx in the social transition process.

The Restorative Practices Working Group, founded in the 2020-2021 academic year, is an ever-growing, trained group of faculty and staff members committed to moving our school away from traditional forms of punitive and exclusionary discipline towards practices and processes that foster repair, accountability, and healing care when social rupture occurs.

The LWHS Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Roundtable is composed of the Head of School, Board DEI Committee Co-Chairs, Parent Association VP’s of Inclusion, Student Council Co-Presidents, Co-Student Inclusion Chairs, the Director of Student Inclusion & Dean of Equity & Inclusion.

The Roundtable convenes to unpack institutional challenges requiring the collective power and coordinated efforts of the entire school community. Participants are dedicated to listening and responding to the needs and feelings of the LWHS community, centering the most vulnerable.

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee works to educate the Board of Trustees and to ensure that the Board and its committees adopt best practices around diversity, equity and inclusion. The Committee is charged with benchmarking the school’s DEI efforts and partnering with the Head of School to fully realize the DEI goals of the Strategic Plan.

The goals for the 23–24 school year are:

• Deepen the Board DEI Committee’s partnership with the Governance Committee to ensure long term equity in the following areas: board diversity recruitment and nomination, new board member orientation, trustee off-boarding, and our annual board self-evaluation 

• Evaluate and recommend for implementation best practices and tools (including an equity reflection tool) delivered by Board Education consultants to be used during committee and board discussions

Twice a year, once in the Fall and again in the Spring, the Parents' Association invites the DEI Department to share initiative updates and to engage in rich conversation with parenting adults about our school's progress in DEI. Our PA General Meetings on DEI are also a place for parent education, where community members and external guests lead workshops, and where families engage in community-building activities. This is just one of many touch points our families have with the DEI Department, and we encourage all parenting adults to attend.