Professional Community Dedicates In-Service Day to Centering Joy in DEI Work

St. Margaret’s professional community engaged in an in-service day on Tuesday centered around joy in diversity, equity and inclusion work at the school.  

 

St. Margaret’s Equity Team, led by Director of Equity and Inclusion Victor Cota, organized an engaging in-service day designed to meaningfully explore St. Margaret’s core value of Equity and Inclusion. 

 

The day started with insightful presentations to the entire professional community. The first was a panel by Special Camp which featured camp staff, counselors and campers. Special Camp is a program for youth with disabilities which strives to provide an unforgettable summer experience while eliminating the stigma commonly associated with the disabled community. It is sponsored and hosted by St. Margaret’s, and Upper School students were among the counselors who shared their experience working with campers in a one-to-one camper-to-counselor format. 

 

Three Upper School students also presented, sharing the work being done by the Tartan Inclusion and Diversity Education (TIDE) student leadership group around the upcoming election. That included two recent student-led TIDEtalks designed to encourage respectful and civil discussion around a number of policies being discussed within the national discourse. 

 

Afterward, professional community members could choose from a number of different workshops centered around joy in DEI work. It included a panel conducted by TIDE students, who spoke of their experience and took questions from professional community members about TIDE. Other options touched on different topics within this core value, including sessions on implementing restorative practices, supporting neurodiverse students, teaching mindfulness practices, and joining optional affinity groups where communities of professional community members could come together and discuss their shared experiences. 

 

To learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion at St. Margaret’s, click here.