The Speyer School strives to provide a responsive and rigorous academic program for each and every student – and to do so by embracing diversity, practicing equity, ensuring inclusion, and promoting community.
Our curriculum is culturally aware and intentionally designed to incorporate a broad range of perspectives and traditions. Our faculty works diligently to ensure that every student feels known and supported in reaching their potential. Each student feels a strong sense of belonging and each family feels valued and welcomed within the Speyer community. We work to place equity at the center of our academic and programmatic vision and strive to offer every child an opportunity to find multiple mirrors in which their identity and experience are reflected, multiple windows through which to learn about and understand the identities and experiences of others, and multiple prisms through which to understand the complexity of their community and the world at large.
Because of their intellectual curiosity and awareness, Speyer students often observe and question what they see and experience around them with insight beyond their years. Students bring these lived experiences into the classroom, while Speyer faculty actively facilitate conversations connecting real-world perspectives to curricular content. They help students make meaning out of what they learn from one another and apply this knowledge to their understanding of the world.
Beyond the classroom, Speyer also works hard to ensure that our overall program – not just academics, but also extra- and co-curricular activities for students, community events for families, and social and learning events for parents – intentionally includes every Speyer family. Speyer commits to embedding social/emotional learning across our entire program, so each student learns to be empathetic, kind and caring allies within our community; to be engaged in courageous conversations; and, to appreciate failure as a path to success and a requirement for resiliency.
Statement on Diversity
Examples of how Speyer embraces, encourages, and supports our diversity efforts include:
Student affinity groups that provide supportive spaces for students to connect with peers and faculty who share aspects of their identity to explore their common experience.
A robust and inclusive Parents’ Association (PA) that promotes community by organizing a wide range of events – including book clubs, speaker events, programs for new families, community service efforts, family gatherings and parent socials – that are financially accessible and accommodate varied family schedules and circumstances.
Parent Affinity Groups include Parents of Girls, Parents of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Students, Parents of AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Students, SAPAS (South Asian Parents at Speyer Affinity Group), Shalom Speyer and Dragon Pride. Affinity Groups provide a safe and supportive space for parents to share experiences, resources, ideas, and more. Parents strategize solutions to common problems and come up with ideas for positive change.
The PA’s Kaleidoscope Committee encourages all families – regardless of means and especially families of color, LGBTQIA+ families, families whose primary language is not English, and families which include individuals with physical differences – to fully participate in the Speyer community. The Kaleidoscope Committee also works hand-in-hand with school and board leadership to facilitate parent affinity groups, organize inclusive community events, identify and share reading materials and resources to expand our definition of diversity, and foster a sense of belonging and connectedness.
Commitment to hiring and retaining a diverse faculty and staff that is representative of our student body and of the broader community.
Continuous review and revision of our curriculum to ensure that all students are able to see themselves and their experiences represented – and in so doing, to deepen their engagement and to help them build lasting connections between themselves, their learning, and the broader community.
Professional development and in-service training for faculty and staff focusing on diversity and equity and on practices and skills needed to support learning within a diverse environment and to facilitate conversations that nurture understanding, empathy, and respect.
We will continually update this page as more initiatives are developed and implemented.