Community

Equity & Inclusion

At Headwaters School, our Purpose is to cultivate identity formation, foster empathy, and embrace diversity to bring more peace to the world. In our PACT, we invite our community members to be Peacemakers, Advocates, Creators, and Thinkers.

Our school's foundation is grounded in the concept of personal agency and active peacemaking, and we work to provide educational experiences for our students to help them grow as individuals in order to actively bring more peace to the world. 

Enid Lee, Canadian Educator and Consultant

I use the term anti-racist education because a lot of multicultural education hasn't looked at discrimination. It has the view 'People are different and isn't that nice,' as opposed to looking at how some people's differences are looked upon as deficits and disadvantages. In anti-racist education, we attempt to look at--and change--those things in school and society that prevent some differences from being valued.

Equity & Inclusion Advisory Group

We have formed an advisory group in the 2022-2023 school year composed of faculty, administrators, and parents from all three campuses to help us move forward in our work on diversity, equity, inclusivity, and belonging. 
 
The Headwaters School Equity & Inclusion Advisory Group will work to ensure that all of our community members (of all races, ethnicities, religions, ages, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities) feel a sense of belonging and purpose, and can recognize and cultivate their personal agency in pursuit of a more just and equitable society. Amy Nylund and Leslie Hirsch are co-leading the group in partnership with Nichole Franks, our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) consultant this year.
 
The group will meet several times each semester, and will focus their work this year on the areas of Admissions & Outreach, Faculty/Staff Recruitment & Retention, and Parent/Community Education. These areas align and connect with each part of our Strategic Priority work, which aims to have DEI progress woven into each initiative (Community & Culture, Talent & People, Programs, Operations, and Finance & Development).  
 
We will report to the community in the spring on our progress, as well as when there are opportunities for engagement and education.

Anti-Bias and Anti-Racist Education:

  • Encourages learning about each other’s differences
  • Invites all students to be proud of themselves and their families
  • Teaches students to respect and honor differences, recognize bias, and to speak up for what is right
  • Encompasses gender, language, religious diversity, sexual orientation, physical and mental abilities, and economic class
  • Takes an active, problem-solving approach that is integrated into our curriculum and environment
  • Promotes an understanding of social problems and invites students to invent strategies for improving social conditions
Credit to City Garden Montessori in St. Louis for some of this language and for being a leader in this work.

We are Inspired by these Anti-Bias Education Resources

  1. Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.
  2. Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections.
  3. Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.
  4. Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.
Teaching Tolerance’s Social Justice Standards
The Social Justice Standards from Teaching Tolerance are a set of anchor standards and age-appropriate learning outcomes divided into four domains—identity, diversity, justice and action (IDJA). The standards provide a common language and organizational structure for anti-bias education at every grade level.

Spring Campus

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Creek Campus

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River Campus

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As a 501(c)3 non-profit school, Headwaters School does not discriminate because of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other classes protected by federal, state, or local law in its admissions, financial aid, hiring, or board membership processes.