Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Westside School is committed to promoting inclusiveness, diversity, and cultural competence in its education, employment practices, school community, and governance.

We view inclusiveness as a fundamental value, diversity as a key element, and cultural competence as a vital skill necessary to prepare students to participate in and contribute to a global society. At Westside, diversity broadly encompasses differences in the attributes of individuals, families, and communities.

This is our collective work. We might approach this call to action in different ways as parents, teachers, and leaders, but it is the work of the whole community. As leaders of the school, the Board of Trustees, the Westside Family Association, and the school's administrative and educational leadership teams are committed to advancing our efforts to actively create equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist systems and institutions.

DEFINING TERMS

DEFINING TERMS

At Westside, we believe that having a common understanding of terminology and language helps us have essential conversations. We plan to have community dialogues to build our own working definitions of key diversity, equity, and inclusion terms. For now, we source definitions from credentialed anti-racist organizations as a resource to guide our work.

Pollyanna Racial Literacy Curriculum

ANTI-BIASED EDUCATION

“Anti-bias education is an approach to teaching and learning designed to increase understanding of differences and their value to a respectful and civil society and to actively challenge bias, stereotyping and all forms of discrimination in schools and communities. It incorporates an inclusive curriculum that reflects diverse experiences and perspectives, instructional methods that advance all students’ learning, and strategies to create and sustain safe, inclusive and respectful learning communities.” (Anti-Defamation League)

DIVERSITY

Diversity is all the meaningful and varied identities of individuals and groups present in our school community and world. These include, but are not limited to: ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. We strive to provide a safe place for students and faculty to step out of their comfort zones and discuss each of our multiple and complex identities. We recognize that diversity creates situations in which groups are advantaged or disadvantaged and that experiences can be varied both within and between different groups. (Southern Poverty Law Center & Learning for Justice)

EQUITY

Equity means each student receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential. We work to identify and remove structural barriers that prevent strong outcomes for students in our educational system. We attempt to interrupt inequitable practices, examine our personal and institutional biases, and create inclusive classes. We acknowledge that equity is an ongoing process to counter systems of oppression. (National Equity Project)

INCLUSION

Inclusion is the active and intentional process of creating and maintaining an environment and culture that is welcoming and affirming. An inclusive community promotes and sustains a sense of belonging for all by actively inviting contribution and participation, with a particular focus on historically marginalized identities. Inclusive communities promote and enact the sharing of power and recognize the interdependence of individuals. We strive to be an inclusive community where all feel accepted, empowered, supported, and affirmed. (National Association of Independent Schools AIM Survey Definitions)

CULTURAL COMPETENCE

Cultural competency is the application of a defined set of values, principles, skills, attitudes, policies, and behaviors that enable individuals and groups to work effectively across cultures. Cultural competence is a continuum that evolves over time for both individuals and organizations. Cultural Competence is the means by which institutions are equitable and inclusive. (National Association of Independent Schools AIM Survey Definitions)

Commitment from Westside Leadership

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

The Westside Board of Trustees is committed to a leadership role in the school’s DEIB journey in which we will promote inclusiveness, diversity, and cultural competence in the school’s governance, employment practices, and school community.

In 2020, the Board launched a task force to research and identify the ideal structure to ensure integration of diversity, equity, and belonging within our institutional practices. We set goals for 1) individual trustee self-study to reflect on these concepts – leveraging a trove of articles, books, podcasts, and videos to build awareness around privilege, systemic racism, perceptions, and biases – and then conducted open conversations to share our learnings with other trustees; and 2) determining how and where to incorporate changes to our guiding principles, mission statement, by-laws, and procedures. Some trustees attended a workshop designed specifically for board members of independent schools.

The Board determined that a strong DEIB practice is foundational and critical to the health of the school and warrants a permanent committee of the Board and formed this new committee in 2021. The Board has made significant changes to the school’s trustee handbook, formalizing acknowledgement and incorporation of DEIB considerations within all of our committee work, and we adopted a Land Acknowledgement honoring the first peoples of the Duwamish on whose traditional lands Westside sits. The 2021-22 school year will see us further expand on trustees' DEIB awareness and mindfulness practices, along with strong alignment with the WFA and school administrative leadership, and participation in the local independent schools Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series throughout the year.

WESTSIDE FAMILY ASSOCIATION

The Westside Family Association aims to create an inclusive environment where all families are welcomed, feel seen and heard, and have access to resources when they need them. The Westside Family Association is guided by values grounded in anti-racism, equity, trust, and transparency. We provide education to support families through shared challenges, act as a connector between families of all grade levels to build and strengthen the school community, and empower families to support the school in ways that are meaningful to them.

WESTSIDE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

Westside’s administrative leadership and Educational Leadership Team (ELT) are committed to promoting inclusiveness, diversity, and cultural competence in our classrooms, curriculum content, and school community.

The ELT consists of our three Division Heads, our Directors of DEIB, Counseling/SEL, Teaching & Learning, Technology, and Auxiliary Programs, and Experiential Education, as well as our Head of School. It is a group that collectively examines our practices and curriculum across all three divisions and shapes our program, both now and into the future.

With the ELT’s leadership and support, our teachers are challenged and encouraged to evaluate their teaching tools and further their thinking to support the school’s DEIB goals. These teaching tools include formal curriculum, choice of materials, language that our teachers use with students and each other, professional development opportunities, and more.

In order to support and sustain an inclusive community, our ELT understands the responsibility of our educators to grow their cultural competence. We know our educators influence the expectations and norms of our culture. Therefore, it is important that faculty and staff learn to enhance the development of skills and knowledge to serve students from diverse backgrounds effectively.

Facts & Figures for 2023-2024

36.4% Students of Color
Languages Spoken: 25+

Amharic, Cambodian, Catalan, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Oriya, Oromo, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese.

Chay Dixon

She/They

Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Chay is committed to creating safe and equitable classroom environments. She is in alignment with Westside that the concept of Belonging is critical to diversity and equity work in schools. They are excited to partner with us to help all of our students, families, and staff feel a greater sense of Belonging and to ensure that our children see themselves in our curriculum, materials, and in our faculty and staff. She looks forward to bringing a critical thinking, data-driven approach to support the school in our DEIB efforts.

CHAY'S GOALS

CHAY'S GOALS

Chay's goals are to:

Shepherd our grassroots work to provide a strategic vision and develop institutional structures necessary for sustaining and advancing DEIB goals throughout our school.
Lead recruitment and retention efforts, focusing on building and sustaining the diversity of the faculty and staff in collaboration with the leadership team.
Develop targeted professional development programs for faculty and staff to advance cultural competency and other diversity, equity, and belonging skills.
Lead and support others in the organizational structure tasked with DEIB work, including affinity groups, curriculum assessment, admissions, and development.
Collaborate with parents and caregivers on educational programs and serve as a resource for families to ensure that this vital constituency engages with the school's and their own DEIB work.

Partnering with the Community

POCIS

People of Color in Independent Schools (POCIS)

Westside School is a proud member of POCIS (People of Color in Independent Schools). Find out more about POCIS, including upcoming events for families and educators.

"POCIS Northwest is a consortium of independent schools in the NW that strives to connect, empower, and strengthen Black, Indigenous and people of color by providing opportunities and programming for education, growth, and community engagement. This website serves as a hub where people of color can find DEI-focused programming, admissions information, job postings, community events, and networking opportunities within independent schools."

SPEAKER SERIES

Westside School is excited to partner with local independent schools to sponsor the Equity & Inclusion Speaker Series, which offers our community the opportunity to connect, learn, and engage in topics around equity, inclusion, and antiracist education and action. The purpose of this series is to raise awareness, challenge ourselves, deepen understanding, and empower our communities to advance their efforts to actively recreate systems into equitable, inclusive, and antiracist institutions. The program invites 4-5 speakers throughout the academic year to create access to recognized authors and speakers that engage participants in complex topics through dialogue, cross-cultural communication, and a deeper understanding of the impact that racism and oppression have in our institutions and the greater society. Find out more here.

2023-2024 SPEAKER SERIES

2023-2024 SPEAKER SERIES

Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez

Storytelling as Resistance: Experience at Predominantly White Institutions and Generational Trauma

Thursday, October 5, 2023, 6:00–7:15 pm

In this talk, Prisca Dorcas will name what it means to attend a predominantly white institution, PWI, as a non-white person. She will also address generational trauma, telling stories about her own experiences with therapy, the stigmas around therapy, being 1st generation, and the experiences with being from a war-torn country has meant for her and her family. She will also explore ways to reclaim traditions while healing from generational trauma.

Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez was born in Managua, Nicaragua, but calls Nashville, Tennessee home. She is a feminist, theologian, storyteller, and advocate, founder of Latina Rebels, and author of “For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts” A Love Letter to Women of Color.” Mojica Rodríguez merges storytelling with pedagogy to help folks understand the larger forces at play, also known as systemic oppression.

Dr. Bernice A. King

A Conversation with Dr. Bernice A. King

February 8, 2024, 5:00–6:15 pm RSVP

Dr. Bernice A. King is a global thought leader, strategist, solutionist, orator, peace advocate, and CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center), which was founded by her mother as the official living memorial to the life, work, and legacy of her father. In this position, Bernice continues to advance her parents’ legacy of nonviolent social change through policy, advocacy, research, as well as education & training through the Kingian philosophy of nonviolence, which she re-branded Nonviolence365TM️ (NV365). See Complete Bio

Dr. Megan Asaka

Beyond the Model Minority: Asian American Histories of Resistance and Renewal in the Pacific Northwest and Beyond

March 13, 2024, 6:00–7:15 pm RSVP

In this talk, Dr. Megan Asaka will examine how Asian Americans have responded to, challenged, and resisted anti-Asian racism and injustice. Though often portrayed as passive “model minorities,” Asian Americans have a rich legacy of resistance and militant action that has long been overlooked. Focusing on historical accounts from in and beyond the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Asaka will offer a new understanding of the Asian American past as a pathway for future action.

Award-winning scholar, writer, and teacher of Asian American history, urban history, and public humanities. She is the author of Seattle from the Margins: Exclusion, Erasure, and the Making of a Pacific Coast City, which examines the erased histories of the communities that built Seattle. The book was inspired by her own family history in Seattle as well as her work as an oral historian and archivist for Densho, a community-based organization that seeks to preserve and share the stories of the Japanese American incarceration. She is an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Riverside and lives in Pasadena.

Ruha Benjamin

Race to the Future? Reimagining the Default Setting of Technology and Society

May 23, 2024, 6:00–7:15 pm RSVP

From automated decision systems in healthcare, policing, education and more, technologies have the potential to deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to harmful practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha Benjamin takes us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech predictions with historical and sociological insight. When it comes to AI, Ruha shifts our focus from the dystopian and utopian narratives we are sold, to a sober reckoning with the way these tools are already a part of our lives. Whereas dystopias are the stuff of nightmares, and utopias the stuff of dreams… utopias are what we create together when we are wide awake.

Ruha Benjamin is a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab and author of three books, Viral Justice (2022), Race After Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013), and editor of Captivating Technology (2019). Ruha Benjamin speaks widely about the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, health and justice.

Click here to RSVP

RAINIER SCHOLARS

Westside has a strong relationship with Rainier Scholars, which began in 2012. Each year, Westside welcomes Rainiers Scholars into our Middle School community. Westside usually has 4-8 scholars among our Middle School student body and offers 2-6 scholarships to rising 6th graders annually.

The Rainier Scholars program supports students most underrepresented on college campuses: Multi-Generational African American, African immigrant, Hispanic/Latinx, first-generation Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American students who have the greatest number of barriers to achieving a college degree. Partnering with local independent schools, including Westside School, Rainier Scholars engage in a 12-year model that combines academic preparation, career and leadership development, and personalized, comprehensive support. The students’ twelve-year journey includes a fourteen-month intensive academic phase, placement into the area’s top schools (both independent and public), leadership development, and support which lasts throughout their college years. By offering access to exceptional educational opportunities and ongoing comprehensive support, Rainier Scholars works to increase college graduation rates and to develop a new generation of leaders.

Rainier Scholars Program Success

At Westside

Between 1-5 new Rainier Scholars are added to our Westside MS program each year
100% of scholars graduate middle school on time and ready for high school placement
100% of scholars are admitted to at least one top tier independent high schools in the Seattle area

At Large

Nearly 850 lives transformed to date
60 new Rainier Scholars added to the program each year
98% of High School Seniors are accepted to a 4-year college or university with 90% on track to graduate.

Find out more about the Rainier Scholars Program here.

DEIB AT WESTSIDE

In program & Curriculum

DEIB Resources

2024-2025 Equity & Inclusion Speaker Series

Westside School is excited to partner with local independent schools to bring the Equity & Inclusion Speaker Series to our communities. The purpose of this series is to raise awareness, challenge ourselves, deepen understanding, and empower our communities to advance their efforts to actively recreate systems into equitable, inclusive, and antiracist institutions.

Find out more and RSVP

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT