LAST MONTH'S EGGING!

The Eggs experienced Cerro Santa Lucia (St. Lucy Hill), the seaport city of Valparaiso, visited the Patagonia Region, and saw the penguins at the Los Pinguinos Natural Monument! They even met a new friend named Eduardo. They learned some Spanish words like "casa" and "feliz" and of course, "huevos!"

When they enter our doors, they are of different races, ethnicities, religions, socio-economic statuses, abilities, political persuasions, and more. As a Sisters of Mercy school, one of our core values is being a voice for dignity and respect and also living that value in our daily interactions. To do this, we set goals and follow initiatives from our multi-faceted strategic plan.

• We evaluate and update the curriculum to best reflect and represent our student body

• We have updated and reviewed our school handbook policies through the lens of equity and inclusion

• We train our staff and students to have courageous conversations

  about race and other difficult topics

• We train our staff regularly around DEIB and how to apply it in their respective roles

• We also celebrate the diversity in our community with student-led

  school-wide events that are included yearly in our calendar

• We have affinity group clubs for students

• We are intentional when hiring to get the best candidate who is also reflective of our student body and supportive of our school mission

So, any DEIB challenges one sees in society are seen in schools.

Likewise, when an organization decides to implement a DEIB program, as in society, there will not be a unified positive response from all stakeholders.

Cultural changes are hard to make. One challenge would be resistance to change; some can feel as if the focus is unnecessary and irrelevant. As a result, this can lead to a lack of buy-in in the workplace.

Another barrier can be a lack of leadership support. Here at Mercy, the Administrative Team and Board of Trustees support DEIB efforts. The DEIB Strategic Plan is owned by all, starting with our Board of Trustees, Administration, Teachers, and Staff. We have even partnered with our alumnae to increase buy-in. Our goal is to make our program a part of who we are as an organization so that it is sustainable and regularly measured for progress. Without the supportive leadership we have at Mercy, this level of implementation is very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Many schools and organizations struggle to get leaders on board.

At Mercy, we are not there yet, but a feeling of belonging has steadily increased within our student body and our culture overall. As a result of our steady culture change and commitment, we have hired more teachers of color and increased the enrollment of students of color as well as the students of color enrollment in Advanced Placement courses.  We’ve also increased the numbers of students from historically marginalized communities in positions of school-wide leadership. Students feel more empowered to speak up when they see something wrong and have increased confidence that adults will hear them and respond accordingly.