Statement to our Bolles Community:
On June 1, The Bolles School posted this message to our official Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages:
"Like so many people around the country have been feeling during the past week, The Bolles School community is horrified by the tragic death of George Floyd and other victims of systemic racism. As a school family, we are not only suffering and grieving but also seeking in earnest ways we can influence real change and stand together for the humanity of all people — at Bolles, in the United States and around the world. In troubling times, we must unite and live out our very important mission at The Bolles School: Pursuing excellence through courage, integrity and compassion. Today, we ask everyone in our Bolles family to live out courage by engaging in meaningful conversations about race and racism; to demonstrate your integrity by showing intolerance for hate and injustice; and to exude compassion by listening, understanding and embracing peace. The Bolles community is deeply committed to this mission and equity for all people."
Many of you responded to this post with painful reflections about personal experiences with racism at Bolles, stories of incidents that occurred in our classrooms or to your friends, challenges to our community to stir real change, and, overwhelmingly, a desire to hear more from Bolles administrators about what concrete actions we will take to make equity and inclusion a priority on our campuses. We are humbly regretful these events occurred in our history and reject racism in all forms. We are listening closely to these conversations, however, as they will help shape our future. We are working on ways we can continue important dialogue, move our community forward and make the tangible, system-wide changes necessary to better address concerns you shared with us online, in-person and through email.
This important work already has begun. We will continue our efforts to promote a diverse and inclusive student body and a faculty that mirrors that diversity, including the refinement and addition of new strategies and programs that promote inclusion. The Student Diversity Committee has actively shared important observations and suggestions. In 2015, math teacher Twyla Ashman was appointed to Director of Cultural Competence for the upper school. Her work has helped bring highly regarded experts to campus for change-making workshops with faculty, students and parents on the Bolles Upper School San Jose Campus. Recognizing the importance of this role, Bolles administrators expanded her position in the spring of 2020 to Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, an administrative position focused on school-wide programming for faculty, students and families in Pre-K through Grade 12. Our Black Student Union is active, respected and supported. Designs on change have been occurring on broader planning levels as well. In the School's most recent five-year strategic plan, endorsed this past May by the Bolles Board of Trustees, diversity and inclusion play a major role. This summer, we plan to put together a task force, led by Mrs. Ashman, to help identify the strategies and tactics necessary to realize this portion of the plan. We will begin new columns in our faculty and staff and alumni newsletters about diversity and inclusion. We know there is much work ahead — and we will need your support to approach and manage it.
Our work will be framed by the vision and experience of our Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, administration and feedback from our community. Planning will address long-term themes of understanding our community's cultures and blind spots, enhancing Bolles' faculty and student diversity and better communicating cultural competencies within our curriculum. We will continue to seek ways Bolles can be a safer and more inclusive environment for students of all backgrounds and dedicate financial resources toward these efforts.
We know we have an important responsibility in the moment to act. We can do better when it comes to making Bolles a more inclusive place for all students, particularly black students and people of color. We are committed to a process of change and to producing student leaders who live each day with the highest ideals of courage, integrity and compassion as their compass. I invite you to add to this important conversation by sharing your insights and ideas. You may contact me at headofschool@Bolles.org or Twyla at AshmanT@Bolles.org. We want to make our community stronger by taking these steps together. Thank you for being part of this important work, I look forward to hearing from you and making change together.
Respectfully, Tyler Hodges President and Head of School
The Bolles School utilizes "global emails" to communicate with parents and alumni. To streamline communications, these emails are sent on Tuesdays only, except in urgent cases. |