Commitment to Equity
As a community, Birches School strives to eliminate bias not just in our classrooms but in our practices in all areas of school life including hiring, admissions, and financial aid. We are dedicated to diversifying our faculty, staff, and student body. We believe that children flourish in a nurturing environment where their ideas and feelings are valued, seen, and heard, and we work to build a community where every student feels they can be their full selves. We are committed to preparing students to thrive in a multicultural society, and as such, know that this work is always ongoing, and involves the full Birches community: faculty, administration, students, families, and trustees.
Birches School Inclusion Statement
Birches seeks to create a community where our students experience a sense of belonging and bring their whole selves to their learning. In supporting this goal, we value diversity of opinions and the richness that comes alive in our classrooms when many differing perspectives are represented. Our curricula and classroom discussions will not include perspectives that deny another person's identity. To that end, discrimination in any form, such as that based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status, will not be tolerated. (2021)
Social Action
Social justice and social action are woven throughout our PreK-8 curriculum. At Birches, we work to empower our students to take action to make their community and the world more just and inclusive through small daily actions and larger significant initiatives.
Pridefest at Birches
In 2022, our middle school GSA led an effort to create a school-wide celebration during Pride month. In assembly, students explained the meaning and importance of Pride Month and read stories of LGBTQ heroes in preparation for the event. They proudly presented their hand-crafted Pride quilt as a gift to the school. Middle schoolers organized and planned activities and games for every grade level, and with the support of their teachers, created an amazing annual event, Birches Pridefest!
Following Pridefest, Birches families, faculty, and administration march together in the annual Pride parade in Boston. As part of our ongoing efforts to be a more inclusive and welcoming school, Birches has partnered with OutMetroWest to bring faculty professional development and parent education to Birches.
Second and Third Grade: Food Justice
In second and third grade, students notice more of what is going on in the world around them and teachers encourage them to consider how they can make a positive impact. Every year, the class grows a thriving indoor hydroponic garden. As students learned about the problems of food insecurity and food deserts, they voted to donate some of our harvests to a local food pantry. We partnered with Open Table to drop off harvests every few weeks. This was a project that everyone was involved in, from students growing and tending to the vegetables, classmates harvesting and organizing the greens into bags, and students and parents driving to Open Table to drop off the donations. Our class was proud to help people get delicious, fresh, organic produce.
The 2-3 class also learned about how far their food traveled to reach their table in an extended math unit on Food Miles. Students calculated and mapped the route the ingredients for a simple spaghetti supper would take to reach Lincoln, MA. They were surprised by the results and quickly became impassioned advocates for buying local and eliminating food waste whenever possible. They shared their learning with the whole school community, advocated to expand our composting program at school, and continue to relish their role as the Compost Superheroes at Birches. Learn more about the 2-3’s weekly efforts to eliminate food waste and make Birches greener with our composting efforts.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee
The Birches DEI Steering Committee was founded by a group of administrators, faculty and parents dedicated to making Birches a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive school community. The DEI Steering Committee meets monthly and engages in a variety of initiatives throughout the year. The DEI Steering Committee is committed to sponsoring faculty professional development opportunities to support anti-racist teaching and inclusive practices to ensure that Birches is a welcoming school for all. We are committed to preparing students to thrive in a multicultural society, and as such, know that this work is always ongoing.
The DEI Steering Committee has worked with Jenna Chandler Ward, from the Multicultural Teaching Institute, to craft a strategic plan for our diversity efforts. Our 2022-2023 professional development included work with OUTMetroWest and Rosetta Lee, including aligned parent educational sessions. Highlights of the school year included launching a middle school GSA and creating a DEI scope and sequence in our PreK-8 gradebands and co-curricular classes. In the 2023-2024 school year, we welcomed Rosetta Lee back to campus where she worked with our students and parents on navigating microaggressions and continuing these essential conversations at home. In the coming school year, we are excited to partner with Pollyanna, Inc. to offer their speaker series to our faculty and families to learn alongside one another.