Upcoming Community-Wide Inclusivity & Multiculturalism Assessment

It is essential that a school’s leadership team not only recognizes the importance of diversity and equity work, but also recognizes that the work is ongoing and is never truly finished. With this being well understood here at Aidan, the administration welcomed its first Diversity Coordinator onto its team at the beginning of 2022. Julian Denizard has taken this past year to immerse himself in our community and culture in order to develop a genuine sense of appreciation for Aidan’s faculty, staff, students, and parents and all they bring to school every day.

Julian’s commitment to meaningful diversity work, along with the school’s current strategic plan, has led him, the ADIE Committee, and me to move forward with the purchase of the National Association of Independent School’s Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM). This tool will serve as a means of measuring our school’s climate and culture as they relate to diversity and inclusion, along with providing a platform for all members of the community to voice their perspectives on these topics.  

The framework of this assessment is broken down into two phases: the Online Climate Survey and the School Self-Assessment. The Online Climate Survey will be a questionnaire provided directly from the NAIS team that will include demographic-based questions, 1-5 rating response questions pertaining to participants’ personal experiences at Aidan, and open-ended questions for participants to go in-depth with their answers. The results of this survey will only be viewable by the NAIS team and will be aggregated into data for the Diversity Coordinator to dissect and share with the leadership team.

The School Self-Assessment will be a series of dialogues held between the Diversity Coordinator and various constituent group members at Aidan on the topics of school governance, staff involvement, and parent involvement. These dialogues will be facilitated in a way to bring about meaningful, insightful conversations on the experiences of these constituents, their views on equity and inclusion, and what they feel is best for our community’s climate and culture. The findings of these dialogues will be recorded by the Diversity Coordinator and, combined with the results of the survey, will lead to the formation of Aidan’s first DEIA Strategic Plan.

This DEIA Strategic Plan will provide a framework for Aidan’s diversity and inclusion journey over the next few years. Great things are in the works for Aidan Montessori school, and I am grateful for the strength and competence of our administrative team and our Diversity Coordinator to evaluate the climate at our school and create and implement a plan and strive for constant improvement.  

This will be a wide-spread effort, inclusive of all of Aidan’s constituents. Thank you, in advance, for participating in this process.

Sincerely,

Kevin Clark, Head of School