Justice, Equity, Diversity, and
Inclusion

Divisional Curricular Focus

We are committed to ensuring that the themes and ideas of social justice and equity are present throughout our PreK–12 curriculum. We believe these ideas must be embedded authentically across divisions and disciplines to foster in-depth, self-reflective, and community-oriented conversations and learning. Experience examples of the ways this manifests in our lower school, middle school, and upper school curricula.

Social-emotional Learning

Our social-emotional learning curriculum includes units on discrimination, unconscious bias, and privilege. Students complete projects that include investigating their own identities and reflecting on the privilege they hold.

Thrive Program

The effort to diversify our community continues to be a key priority. Diversity—socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender, and religious, among others—enriches our school and deepens our understanding of each other as human beings. To that end, the school seeks to provide support for all students and families as they join our community. The Thrive Program specifically supports historically underrepresented students and families within the independent school community. Its aim is to increase the diversity of our community by making programmatic elements more easily accessible to families, clearly defining areas of support and onboarding, providing advocacy and mentoring to Thrive students, and supporting students and families to make stronger connections within the community. Learn more about the Thrive program.

Student Programming

Throughout the year, we offer assemblies and school-wide events that promote empathy, perspective-taking, and thoughtful engagement with the issues of social justice, equity, and inclusion. Every year, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a full day of programming at the Upper School—themes have encompassed intersectionality, solidarity, and faith. Across all divisions, we host assemblies that speak to diverse topics such as environmental justice, Pride Month, Black History Month, and Asian American History Month. We also work with student affinity groups to hold authentic cultural celebrations for the entire school community.

Affinity Groups

Affinity groups in all three divisions are spaces for community members to discuss a shared identity, celebrate cultural events, and build community. These groups offer safe spaces for minoritized groups to share experiences and create a sense of pride around their identity. By having these spaces for community members to come together, we hope to help minoritized groups feel visible and have a platform to advocate for themselves.

We offer student and family affinity groups; family affinity groups are run through the Nueva Parents’ Association, while student affinity groups are led by students and advised by faculty members. Example affinity groups include Koreans At Nueva, Jewish Affinity Group, Black Student Union, South Asian Affinity Group, Chinese Affinity Group, Japanese Affinity Group, Latine Affinity Group, Neurodiversity Affinity Group, and Queer Student Union.

External and Internal Speakers

Teachers are the backbone of the school. For any significant change to happen in the realm of equity and inclusion, teachers must be on board and prepared to engage with students around these issues. Accordingly, we offer relevant professional development workshops. Topics include cultural competency, understanding gender, engaging in difficult conversations, talking to kids about race, racial identity development, and more. Taught by our Social Justice, Equity & Inclusion team, we also feature outside speakers such as Derrick Gay and Gender Spectrum.

SOUL
(Strengthening Our Understanding and Learning)

SOUL is an intimate study group of educators joined by their common desire to deepen their teaching practice as it relates to social injustice and inequity through examination, collaboration, introspection, and dialogue. It provides teachers with an opportunity to evaluate their practice and curriculum through such theoretical lenses as critical race theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory, and critical pedagogy.

SOUL meets once monthly and typically involves responding to a given reading, group discussion, reflective writing, and sharing challenges and successes within one’s own teaching. We create a safe space for teachers to ask questions without fearing judgment, to explore and experiment with new pedagogies and ideas, to identify hidden biases and blind spots, and to foster a sense of shared purpose and vision as we consider our role as teachers in addressing the great injustices and inequities of our time.

Conferences

Our teachers are encouraged to attend conferences and workshops related to social justice, equity, and inclusion. We send a cohort of faculty and students every year to the People of Color Conference, allowing our teachers a chance to connect, learn, and engage with other teachers invested in this kind of work. Teachers also attend the Creating Balance in an Unjust World STEM Conference, the Teachers for Social Justice Conference, and the Othering & Belonging Conference.

Equity & Inclusion Institute

The Equity and Inclusion Institute is a supportive and brave space for educators that provides 1) foundational knowledge around issues of social justice and equity that will inform their teaching practice, 2) concrete strategies and tools for implementing a social justice educational model within their classroom and pedagogy, and 3) a learning space for educators to explore their own identities, biases, and processes in this realm.

Institute goals are to promote personal and pedagogical growth, encourage innovative approaches to implementing equity-minded education, and embolden educators to seek discomfort and to disrupt the status quo in the service of creating transformational change.

Learn More

Parent Education Workshops

We offer a parent education workshop series called “Common Ground” to support parents in navigating difficult conversations and cultivating their relationships with their children. The workshops provide concrete strategies and ideas for approaching often charged topics in developmentally appropriate ways. We also host parent sessions (both in-person and online) ranging from "Learning About Gender" to "Let's Talk About Digital Wellness".