King Inclusion and Diversity Committee shares passion and insight

Earlier this week, the PA King Inclusion and Diversity Committee (KInD) sponsored a breakfast meeting with Head of School Karen Eshoo, who offered insight about the definitions of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Miranda Linders, Co-Chair, comments, "Dr. Eshoo began the morning with a telephone text poll to see what words came up in the audience when certain questions were asked. It was interesting to see how our audience defined words like race or ethnicity and how they thought about diversity at King. Dr. Eshoo continued with a presentation on the understanding of diversity and talked about the eight "big" identifiers; ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. She added even more identifiers; body image, educational background, academic achievement, family make up, geographic/regional background, language, learning styles and beliefs (political, social, religious)."

According to Dr. Eshoo, inclusion is harder to define, 'Most families and staffulty usually perceive their school communities to be characterized by safety, comfort and integration. Preserving these cultural elements - 'the culture of nice' - is a top priority. Often there are some barriers to full inclusion for certain groups who are in the minority. There is some evidence that these students (and families and staffulty) feel more like 'welcome guests' than 'home owners.' Dr. Eshoo also commented that creating a 'culture of nice' is not enough, and actually said she wants to continue working with students, parents and staffulty towards our shared goal of building and maintaining a kind community.

"The meeting was a tremendous success and we will surely keep our members posted on follow up sessions," adds Miranda.

Libby Mattson, Alumni and King parent attended the meeting and comments, "I love this group of intensely interesting and passionate King parents. It was wonderful to hear Dr. Eshoo embrace the education approach regarding diversity while engaging the different perspectives and citing current research. So impressive! We are a blessed group of King People!"