Dear Families,

I am writing to follow up on January 9 th ’ s Equity Relaunch Meeting, at which three intrepid groups took on Lanes 1, 2, and 3 of our plan and discussed next steps.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who participated. Your involvement is absolutely critical to this work and I thank you on behalf of the entire TCS community.

At TCS our values around equity and inclusion are grounded in progressive education in a few different ways. One is that progressive education teaches, values, and honors the whole child in all parts of their identity, talents, and experiences. This of necessity means seeing and acknowledging differences among people and the impacts those differences have.

Secondly, progressive education aims to educate citizens for participatory democracy, which includes honoring each person’s voice, balancing individual, group, and community needs, and working to correct social injustices. Third, progressive education encourages students to take an active role in their education and to employ an empowered and critical stance towards academic and real-world topics, including of course social justice issues.

Below I have pulled out (from the many notes from January’s meeting) high-level next-step action points for each Lane. If you are working or plan to work in one of these Lanes—please know, this list does not mean your Lane can’t or won’t take on other topics or ideas. It is just my best summary of where the thinking is right now about what to tackle first.

Lane 1 (Family Field Trips):
  • Setting up a structure (guidelines, logistics, etc.) for parents/guardians to plan quarterly family “field trips” for TCS community members to attend cultural, arts, or other events that celebrate and expand our understanding of diverse cultures and perspectives
  • Maintain a resource list of events that anyone can contribute to (within guidelines) for parents/teachers who may want to attend with their families/classes