“...I HIRED TEACHERS THAT WERE ALL VERY WELL EDUCATED AND WHO BELIEVED STRONGLY IN BROAD EDUCATION. I HIRED PEOPLE WHO WERE INDIVIDUALISTS AND WHO HAD TO LOVE KIDS AND LOVE EDUCATION.”
ON DIVERSITY AT EPISCOPAL SCHOOLS & CATHEDRAL: David Forbes: One of the contributions that Episcopal schools made around the country was in encouraging and promoting diversity. When I was on the board of the National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES) in the early 1960s, one of the first things that we did was to produce a report called “Sermix” (Social, Economic and Racial Mix in Schools). And we adopted it as part of the charter for the NAES and required any school who wanted to be a member to subscribe to that charter, which meant that you could not be a segregationist school and join. The report didn’t have to do only with the kids, but the faculty. We were very concerned that these schools would be schools of rich kids and women who couldn’t afford to live in the community where the schools were and would need to commute or be two-income families. And even back in the 60s, we were concerned about things like sexual identity. So all those things were in this report, which is quite remarkable for its period of time. And I’ve always been proud of the Episcopal Church that became part of our guiding policy.
I’ve been on the Board’s DEI Committee and the Boys Study Committee for a long time, and I never have felt more proud of the School and the spirit with which the board approaches issues around diversity and inclusion. But this must be seen as being more than racial: I’m very concerned that we maintain the measure of tuition adjustment that will satisfy the needs of your freedom to accept kids that belong in the School, especially given the changing demographics of the city. I’m also really, really impressed with the efforts the School has made with going into the community even more aggressively to maintain the diversity and richness of the student body. This is something that we began very early on. The mother of an early student at the School was a very well-respected and senior Latin teacher at Lowell, and she helped us go into the public schools and talk to counselors about getting promising students into our school. And again, that’s one of the things that we do now. And I love it.
FALL 2021 • RED & GOLD | 29
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online