Although the current plan does not involve hiring a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) director to replace Dina Levi, who resigned in December of 2015, this summer teachers, administrators, consultants, and students put their heads together to work on DEI initiatives for the upper school.

Vice Principal and Interim Head of the Upper School Ruth Jurgensen was central to this work. In March she, with guidance from other administrators, hired Derrick Gay, a renowned DEI educator, to speak August 19 to the administrative team of the upper school–about 30 people, including administrators, Upper School diversity coordinator Allyson Weaver, and Bob Haugh, the CFO of Parker.

Gay is “an internationally recognized consultant to schools and educational organizations around the world on issues of diversity, inclusion, and global citizenship,” according to his website. Gay is widely recognized, and his visit to Parker was highly anticipated by the administrators who would be attending his workshop.

Gay began his workshop by asking each of the members of the admin team about his or her identity. This included heritage and how each one identifies to the public.

He later began to talk about what he sees as the eight basic principles of community–based on an excerpt from a book by Howard J. Ross that he required all of the participants to read.

The workshop aimed to educate the team, according to Jurgensen, to “try to establish common values and norms in the upper school.”  Jurgensen said that in order for all students to interact better in an academic environment, they must be “culturally competent,” which Gay emphasized as well.

Upon Gay’s arrival on campus in August, Upper School english teacher Stacey Gibson gave a seminar to faculty and administrators in June. The workshop was meant “to form a common, responsible language to speak about race and race-based oppression,” Gibson said. Gibson called the workshop “Race-ing Pedagogy.”

Gibson, who has become a known race educator in Parker and beyond, wants those who participate in her workshops to “understand that the diversity model is flawed because it is antiquated.”

“The model continues to to be upheld because when diversity is used as an umbrella, it’s easy to take race out of the conversation,” Gibson said.

On August 23 Gibson gave a workshop to the entire “Weekly” staff, hoping to make the group more aware of inherent racial biases and racial norms. The workshop consisted of large and small group discussion, a number of short videos, several 90-second writing periods, and analysis of a 2014 “Chicago Reporter” article entitled “Crime Coverage in Media Perpetuates Racial Stereotypes.”  

Summer work in DEI didn’t stop in the upper school. Senior Kindergarten Grade Head Kirkland La Rue has brought his expertise in Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) to Parker. La Rue said, “The National SEED Project is a peer-led professional development program that creates conversational communities to drive personal, organizational, and societal change toward greater equity and diversity.”

Conversations in these SEED groups include topics such as identity, gender, and race. This upcoming school year, La Rue will be offering a SEED group for Parker parents who want to speak about these topics and how they see them in Parker.

Jurgensen hopes to use seminars to instill DEI values in students.  Jurgensen said, “Seminars are scalable, learnable, teachable, and a way to dismantle privilege.”