April included 3 Pollyanna School Conferences, 1 NYSAIS Diversity Conference Curriculum Presentation, several meetings with potentially new Pollyanna host schools, and finalizing the soon-to-be-released K-8 Racial Literacy Curriculum. Below is a quick update:
• New City, St. Louis, MO, April 13
New City School hosted its inaugural conference titled:
Striving for Equity, Inclusion, and Community Conference.
Eleven St. Louis independent schools heard from keynote
Dr. Joshua Bennett
, met in their constituent groups, had an opportunity to listen to students share their thoughts, and then met as their School POD to put together an action plan.
“This conference is a great addition to the diversity and inclusion work being done throughout the St. Louis area and it’s exciting to think about the collective progress we will make.” ~ Alexis Wright, HoS
• Wheeler, Providence, RI, April 27
The Wheeler School hosted its first conference
Power, Privilege, Equity & Voice: Raising Empathy & Taking Action
and welcomed 15 schools.
Professor Tricia Rose
from Brown was the keynote.
“Our first Pollyanna conference at Wheeler was profound. This forum for school communities from all across the region to join together with fierce empathy, urgency and determination about what we must accomplish together was proof that we are more powerful together than we are apart. We're so grateful to be part of the movement.” ~ Allison Gaines Pell, HoS
• Dalton, New York, NY, April 27
The Dalton School welcomed attendees to its 9th annual
Diversity to Community c
onference titled
Implicit Bias
.
Professor Jerry Kang
from UCLA was the keynote.
"Our ninth annual From Diversity to Community conference brought together more than 400 people from 30 New York City independent schools. We wrestled with the idea of implicit bias. The work was hard, complex, vexing, and, in a number of important ways, rewarding. To me, the most important result was that we ended the day determined to take the work back to our schools, to put our good thinking to action." ~ Jim Best, HoS
• K-8 Racial Literacy Curriculum Professional Development
We have been meeting and speaking with many schools ready to implement this curriculum in fall 2019. The
curriculum
will be released shortly allowing schools to familiarize themselves with it before fall. We are offering professional development either at your school and we are hosting an open session for schools on Saturday, June 1 from 9AM to noon.
Please click here to register
or contact
Casper Caldarola
to schedule PD at your school.
• Challenge Grant for the
Parent/Guardian Companion Guide
We have received a challenge grant from the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
to create the
Parent/Guardian Companion Guide
for Pollyanna's K-8 Racial Literacy Curriculum. This Guide will launch at the end of summer 2019 for schools implementing our curriculum in fall 2019. This piece will support our curriculum by educating parents on what they need to know to reinforce classroom messages around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.This is a 1:1 grant, and in order to receive the grant of $46,000, we need raise $46,000. Please consider donating
online by clicking here
.
What’s coming up?
•
Flint Hill
, Oakton, VA, will host its first intra-conference:
The Community of Care: The Flint Hill Vision
In May..
•
Professional Development in NYC for Pollyanna's K-8 Racial Literacy Curriculum
is open to all schools.
Click here to register
for June 1.
As we prepare to launch our curriculum, author Robin DiAngelo wrote a
great piece
I thought might be of interest. It reinforces why a racial literacy curriculum is so important and needed.
Enjoy the beginning of spring!
