Why Is Developing a Community of Belonging Important?
Garden Gate has placed diversity, equity and inclusion at its core since our school was founded in 1999. We have always provided an inclusive model of education that gives a voice to those who might otherwise struggle to be heard, always supporting each child’s right to full participation. Our emphasis on a strong social and emotional curriculum supports the needs of all children and families without exception. But the events of recent years have prompted us to take a broader, proactive approach to ensuring diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility within our programming.
How Does This Help Families?
One of our goals is to maintain an equitable culture of belonging, where teachers, families and children from diverse cultures, ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds feel safe and supported, heard and seen. We have developed an Equitable Tuition Model that will provide tuition subsidy and/or scholarship in order to make Garden Gate programming more accessible and equitable. We offer workshops for staff and parents that will help us explore social identities and look deeper into how our context creates these identities. Partnering closely with parents will ensure that we support each other in this work as we continue through the three year project and beyond. We'd love to hear your ideas of what social and cultural identity means in your home and in raising your children.
Why Is This Important For Our Children?
Most importantly, we work together to foster children’s self and group identities, promote learning about each other’s similarities and differences, introduce critical thinking about pervasive stereotypes and teach skills for dealing with hurtful behavior among themselves. We use anti-bias resources for educators and for children and art-based experiences as a vehicle for social change and empowerment. We will continue to develop a thoughtful curriculum that supports Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in all aspects. Garden Gate will invest in classroom materials and equipment that reflect the diversity in our community and will provide activities and experiences that help children see and respond to a diverse range of people as well as to inequity and injustice.
What Can You Do?
We continue to welcome committee membership composed primarily of families, staff and board members from diverse backgrounds to provide a variety of perspectives and feedback as we move forward. Please consider helping us form a robust and diverse committee. Let us know if you are interested in joining us. And if joining the committee is not an option for you, we invite you to please engage in the conversation about this project with us.
At Garden Gate we have created a Safe Space Policy to ensure the well-being of our children, our staff and the families we serve. We care about immigrant families’ wellbeing and are taking steps to ensure their safety. Effectively implementing our safe space policy goes beyond developing a set of procedures; it also means ensuring all staff are trained on the policy and prepared to implement it. Our policy is designed to communicate that all families are welcome and safe.