An Uneasy Fit

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming book tentatively titled The NAIS Guide to Principles of Good Practice. In this chapter, "An Uneasy Fit," the assistant head of a fictional school, responding to an advisee's concerns about class bias, helps lead community discussions to alleviate the problem — using the NAIS Principles of Good Practice for Equity and Justice as a guide. The chapter is reprinted with permission.

Looking up from her desk, phone propped against one shoulder, Pam signaled to her advisee, Julian, who was pacing just outside her door. "Give me just a minute," she said, mouthing the words softly while reaching for a sticky note on which to jot down the caller's number. Minutes seemed like hours before she could finally put down the phone and stand up to greet the lanky teen, whose signature Red Sox cap was repositioned for sentry duty. It had been more than a year since Julian entered Urban River School and almost that long since she'd seen him look so ill at ease. Sure, when he first arrived at Urban River, he wore his "safety cap" throughout the week-long freshman orientation. But he lifted the brim a bit each day, finally turning it completely backward on the bus ride home. Pam couldn't help smiling at the memory of her first real look at Julian's deep hazel eyes and open smile — neither of which he offered up for view today.

"I didn't want to go on that stupid trip, anyway. It's just a bunch of losers," Julian blurted out. "And who decided that you need to spend $1,100 to help a bunch of poor people in Mexico? Don't they know there are poor people everywhere?" His voice trailed off.

One of the qualities Pam valued most in Julian was the compassion he demonstrated so effortlessly — at least when he wasn't shielding it beneath a carefully crafted, street-wise persona. "What kind of person would I be if I didn't care about my ‘peeps'? " Julian had explained when, during a recent advisee meeting, he was recognized for his active involvement in UR's community service programs. "Helping people is the way I roll, you know. I can't look like a punk about it." He winked and bumped fists with his buddies in the group — the latest adaptation of the high-five.

"Who decided that you need to spend $1,100...

Don't they know there are poor people everywhere?"

It was during that same meeting that advisers announced the service club's Alternative Spring Break trip to Mexico. For 10 days, students would help renovate the only school serving several remote, impoverished villages; they would also tutor and otherwise care for dozens of children while living at nearby farms. The estimated cost of the trip was $1,100, including airfare.

Pam's advisees immediately began nominating Julian for the trip: "You're going to go, aren't you, Julian?" "You'll be great!"

"Hold on, everybody," Pam interrupted, watching Julian shift in his seat. "Each of you needs to discuss this trip with your family first. There are lots of ways to spend time during spring break, including staying home."

"You can stay home, Ms. P, but a bunch of us are going to St. Croix, Max is going on the awesome senior trip to Jamaica, and Julian can represent our advisee group in Mexico," Sean said happily as they filed out for class.

"Yeah, represent," Julian mumbled, darting into the crowded hall. The look on his face that morning left little doubt that he believed the trip was out of reach. Still, maybe his family could get access to some resources of which he was not aware.

In Pam's office today, however, Julian's guarded veneer made it clear that hope may spring eternal, but it fades nevertheless with time.

Watching Julian swallow what surely tasted of humiliation caused Pam to reflect on the social distance she had traveled since her own prep school days. The daughter of a domestic and an unskilled factory worker with a fourth-grade education, Pam had scored a "free ride" to boarding school, a trip similar to the one that now nearly brought Julian to tears. For a moment, she remembered how each day's promise of the highest quality education was tinged by her awareness of the habits and trappings of advantage. School was a world largely foreign to a rough-edged girl who carried her family's hope through the campus's old stone gates. "Study hard, pay attention to your teachers, and don't get in trouble" was her parent's oft-repeated formula for success.

"Simple, but not easy," she sighed, remembering lessons learned in dorm rooms and dining halls, in casual conversations, and in crowds when no one seemed to notice she was there. "I wonder what advice Julian received when he began his journey?" Pam thought. "What besides books and binders are stuffed in his backpack?"

Pam's tenure as assistant head of the K–12 Urban River School, centrally located in a bustling city, had begun three years before. The position carried with it a fair degree of influence with respect to school operations — curriculum oversight, discipline, community relations — but little to no authority to stop the buck that Julian had just placed on her desk. She was first drawn to UR because of its far-reaching reputation as an academically challenging, progressive, coeducational community that prizes student initiative and involvement as well as faculty-staff innovation and collaboration. It did not take long to see that the school's reputation was well deserved.

Still, her allegiance to the institution was forged while observing the head of school, Robert Wilder, who regularly challenged faculty and staff to exercise the school's mission-driven commitment to valuing and leveraging diversity. Although Pam had once viewed limited authority as an unwelcome constraint on her ability to bring about change, she now embraced the opportunity to help lead UR and work cooperatively to advance a model of shared responsibility for building and sustaining an inclusive school. Often it was neither easy nor expedient to pass responsibility and accountability for diversity-related issues to and through UR's wider circle of influencers and decision makers. But, over time, faculty experienced the change brought about by such a process more positively and expectantly. Pam knew her ongoing effort helped ensure that UR's mission served as both a beacon and a measure of educational excellence and community well-being, even when a process or outcome did not mesh with her own preferred course or goals.

So, what of Julian's problem? Certain that "his" issues were systemic failures that only masqueraded as personal problems, she knew she needed to do some thinking before sitting down with Robert.

More than a Numbers Game
Notwithstanding the compassion and enviable financial resources at Urban River, indulging any impulse to "solve or fix" the problem couched in Julian's present circumstance could easily amount to an $1,100 mistake with interest. What was it he said? "Who decided that you need to spend $1,100... Don't they know there are poor people everywhere?" Giving Julian the money would buy him a place on the trip, Pam thought, but would it address his questions, unlock their underlying values, or help students like him feel secure?

She picked up a legal pad and began making notes. "Socioeconomic diversity — as with all forms of human difference — is more than a numbers game," she wrote. For Urban River to benefit from the socioeconomic differences within the community, the school would have to acknowledge and understand the powerful role class plays in society, generally, and within the institution, particularly.

Socioeconomic class is a cross-cutting dimension of diversity. Commonly, though not exclusively, it's measured as a function of education, wealth, occupation, or social position and income. Like its umbrella concept — culture — class provides and transmits to its members a sense of identity, belonging, common language and experiences, political and social views and preferences, aesthetic interests, and consumption patterns. Class is evident everywhere, even in UR's outcomes, Pam thought, allowing her awareness to encompass the school's vast facilities, resources, and inhabitants; its governance and leadership structure; its history and public perception.

Ironically, however, the markers and meanings ascribed to the obvious (and less obvious) class differences that exist at UR are so illusory, so intractable, or so misconstrued that honest conversation among faculty, staff, and parents and guardians about this aspect of diversity is almost as rare as the school's milieu. "Rarified air," Pam scratched on the pad. "Does that description match UR's institutional self-perception?"

Socioeconomic class is a cross-cutting dimension of diversity.

As one of approximately 1,200 American independent schools that in total educate fewer than 500,000 students (less than 1 percent of the school-aged population), Urban River occupies a privileged position. Among schools of its type and size, UR averages an application-to-acceptance ratio of 5-to-1, making it one of the country's most competitive schools — or, as some prospective parents say, "one of the right schools." Urban River's growing financial aid endowment allows the school to award need-based aid to just over 15 percent of its student body. But the lion's share of UR students — approximately 85 percent — come from households with incomes no less than $88,000, placing them in the highest quintile of income earners in the country. And, Pam thought, that's just one measure of socioeconomic economic prosperity.

"Yes, we're a private school, but..." Pam wrote, this time making mental note of an expanding list of attributes, programs, and services that schools like UR undertake to carry out a "public" mission and help counter perceptions of elitism and exclusivity. Yet the very ability of UR and other independent schools to act in the public good is most often a direct function of the affluence that established and sustains them — affluence wrought in a widely accepted economic system that engenders have-nots, have-muches, and have-much-much-mores. Independent schools often mirror the ambivalence about class that pervades our national consciousness. It's a feeling that seems to necessitate a language and culture of class relativism to militate against the discomfort of owning up to our institutional "lot" with the assertion, "We're a private school and...."

Pam played with a list of statements that completed an accurate, but perhaps less liberal, reflection of schools like UR, schools that are sought after by families across the economic spectrum precisely because they the are symbols and slices of the American Dream.

"what far-reaching issue is more appropriate to deconstruct using these principles than our effectiveness in the area of socioeconomic diversity?"

"We're a private school and... we teach habits of achievement and advantage, including personal responsibility and accountability, competition, and perseverance.... We value individual industry, self-reliance, and cooperation.... We support and actively participate in America's economic and political system to help ensure our livelihoods and long-term survival.... We acknowledge that this same system confers unearned advantage on some and unwarranted disadvantage on others.... We are committed to developing positive self-concepts, critical inquiry, and compassion in all members of our learning community.... We value difference, but not at the expense of our core values and mission...."

Pam kept a watchful eye out for Julian throughout the rest of the day, but he did not come back to her office. She checked e-mail and voicemail: no reports from teachers or coaches.

"Good, he made all of his scheduled appointments," she thought. "I'll check in with Julian tomorrow morning." In the meantime, she finished the notes and recommendations she would bring to her meeting with the head of school.

Practice and Principled Action

NAIS Principles of Good Practice EQUITY AND JUSTICE Creating and sustaining an inclusive, equitable, and just independent school community requires commitment, reflection, conscious and deliberate action, as well as constant vigilance based on the overarching principles of inclusivity, diversity, and multiculturalism. The following principles of good practice for equity and justice provide the foundation for such a community. 1 The school establishes the foundation for its commitment to equity and justice in its mission statement and strategic planning. 2 The school respects, affirms, and protects the dignity and worth of each member of the school community. 3 The school establishes, publishes, implements, and reviews policies that promote equity and justice in the life of the school. 4 The school supports the ongoing education of the board, parents, students, and all school personnel as part of the process of creating and sustaining an equitable and just community. 5 The school ensures an anti-bias environment by assessing school culture and addressing issues of equity and justice in pedagogy, assessment, curriculum, programs, admission, and hiring. 6 The school values each and every child, recognizing and teaching to varied learning styles, abilities, and life experiences. 7 The school uses inclusive, anti-bias language in written and oral communication. 8 The school complies with local, state, and federal laws and regulations that promote diversity. 9 The school provides appropriate opportunities for leadership and participation in decision making to all members of the school community. 10 The school includes all families and guardians as partners in the process of creating and sustaining an equitable and just community. 11 The school expects from its students and all members of the community an appreciation of and responsibility for the principles of equity and justice.

Robert's door was rarely closed, and Thursday was no exception. His imposing desk was perpetually stacked with piles of files, the contents of which he could find without a second thought. Pam had learned quickly that Robert's style of inquiry was more than an educational practice; it was how he approached the world. She was prepared to strategize with him about how Urban River could benefit from an exploration of the issues and questions raised by the Alternative Spring Break Trip.

But, more significant, Pam knew that if she helped the school stay its course and apply the standards set by its mission to the diversity challenges the trip raised, then the unique needs and best interests of all Urban River students and families would be served, including Julian's.

One of those standards is adherence to the NAIS Principles of Good Practice for Equity and Justice, which the NAIS board revised and adopted in 2004. When Pam brought up these principles, Robert wasted little time asking about faculty and staff familiarity with the PGPs or offering an answer to his own query. "We published the principles, and we asked administrators and diversity council members to review them, but as a community, would you agree that we have a ways to go?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Pam replied. "And what far-reaching issue is more appropriate to deconstruct using these principles than our effectiveness in the area of socioeconomic diversity?"

For the next hour, Robert and Pam reviewed the eleven principles, noting how each could be used to help illuminate the complex of issues socioeconomic diversity raises. Acknowledging that UR had met Principle 1 by establishing the foundation for its commitment to equity and justice in its mission statement and strategic planning, they quickly began translating Principle 2 into a series of questions aimed at raising awareness of the complex class issues in school and opening dialogue on the topic among parents, faculty, students, and staff. Productive questions could include:

• In what ways are class differences evident in the school community? In what ways does the school demonstrate respect for and affirmation of these differences?
• How does Urban River protect and promote the dignity and worth of each member of the community?
• Do all members of the community feel valued and included, regardless of income, wealth, education, or occupation? If not, what are some of the barriers?

• wealth (including how the school builds, manages, and uses its endowment);
• income (including affordability, financial aid, and demographic trends);
• education (how socioeconomic diversity and its attendant values are defined and expressed in the community); and
• occupation/status (including quality of life issues, relationships, hierarchies, and conflict).