Anti-Racism Action Plan

Packer’s Board of Trustees and Head of School Dr. Jennifer Weyburn made the following key commitments to foster an anti-racist culture at the school. 

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For the complete list of actions and details, see our initial June 2020 announcement of the Action Plan. 

For news about our progress since June, scroll down to Current Status of the Plan.

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Immediate Commitments (0-3 months)

• Require active accountability for anti-racist behavior among community members

• Enforce consistent faculty/staff mandatory reporting of race-based harassment as defined in the employee handbook

• Create clear system for reporting race-based harassment with option of anonymity

• Mandate annual anti-racism training for all faculty, staff, and trustees

• Develop anti-racist evaluation processes for curriculum and teaching practices

• Expand resources to support these initiatives

Ongoing Commitments (3-12 months)

• Require active accountability for anti-racist behavior among community members

• Increase diversity of our faculty, staff, and administration

• Increase racial diversity of our student body

Accountability and Transparency

• Establish an anti-racism advisory group

• Create a webpage to track the school’s anti-racism efforts

For resources, events, and trainings specifically designed for Packer  families, please look under “How we are engaging all Packer constituents in our anti-racism work.” 

• In fall 2021, we will again hold proactive meetings with students to discuss community norms, drawing particular attention to recent changes to our student handbooks.
  Our 2021 Summer Reading program for all students in Grades 1 through 12 is modeled on the Reading Without Walls Challenge, created by Gene Leun Yang, cartoonist and teacher.
• Throughout the year, Packer has collaborated with Eastern Educational Resource Collaborative (East Ed) to enhance our data analysis related to student achievement and community demographics (students, faculty, and staff) to evaluate success and set goals for the future. That process identified areas for improved data collection and more explicit and informative demographic reporting going forward. 
• In April 2021, students, school professionals, alumni, and parents heard from athlete and activist Schuylar Bailar, who focused on his intersectionality intersectionality of being Transgender and Asian American. 
• In March 2021, our school-wide Packer in Action program focused on “The Movement for Visibility, Inclusion, and Racial Justice.” Read story.
  • Activist and scholar Dr. Bettina Love was the keynote speaker for Middle and Upper Schoolers; she also led an Upper School master class on prejudice, self-examination, and Black joy.
  • Through the lens of identity, a panel of Middle School students spoke about their lived experiences noting both moments of tension among peers and ways in which the school has affirmed their identities.
  • Other workshop topics included environmental and climate justice; visibility and inclusion in the music industry (with trustee Richard Story P’17, P’19); and storytelling about global identity in film (including a screening of Sela and a Zoom meeting with its South African student filmmakers).
• In January and February 2021, the Diversity and Equity team collaborated with the Health and Wellness team to offer divisional parent talks on the connection between social emotional learning, anti-racism, and healthy relationships.
• In August 2020, a faculty and staff orientation provided guidance on the mandatory reporting of race-based harassment as defined in the employee handbook.

• The testimonies from the BlackatPCI Instagram page (one of over 230 “Black at” accounts nationwide) were analyzed to identify areas for institutional improvement, and current students and faculty were contacted to follow-up on incidents mentioned. Analysis was shared with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Board and the Packer Anti-Racism Council (PARC). 
• Our 2021-22 student enrollment contract includes language related to all of our roles in working toward an anti-racist, anti-biased community.

• In 2020-21, the Diversity and Equity Team conducted a cross-divisional review of disciplinary procedures regarding hate speech. The group identified areas for change, including an annual review of our systems and structures to repair harm experienced between community members. For an update on the Upper School Student-Faculty Justice Committee, please continue to the next category below — “How we are supporting faculty, staff, and trustees.”
• In Winter 2021, revised hate-speech policies for Middle and Upper School were developed by administrators and faculty, with input from students and families, and implemented. 
• New protocols were developed and reviewed for students to report race-based harassment (student to student, adult to student, and student to adult). In the Upper School, this has involved a year-long process involving students, faculty, administrators, and counsel to develop a new set of boundaries guidelines for 2021-22. Regular updates on this process were given to the students and families across the 2020-21 school year. 
• In September 2020, the reporting protocol for acts of discrimination and harassment was shared during faculty/staff and student orientations. 

• The Upper School’s Student-Faculty Justice Committee (SFJC) was reconceived — a process initiated in 2019-20 — and all members received training in restorative justice practices from Nicole Lavonne Smith. The design of our disciplinary structures in our other divisions was also reviewed through a restorative lens.
• In 2020-21, all administrators, faculty, and staff participated in three sessions with Liza Talusan, a strategic-change partner specializing in diversity and equity. Through this work, participants will learn the difference between “diversity and inclusion” and “justice and equity.” They will also examine what needs to change regarding diversity and inclusion at Packer and how they can apply an equity approach to their own work. 
• In Fall 2020, Packer’s Trustees participated in a mandatory day-long anti-racism training with the Center for Racial Justice in Education. In Winter 2020, the Alumni Board and the Parent Association Board participated in the same training.
• In Fall 2020, the Eastern Educational Resource Collaborative (East Ed), a non-profit centered around the pursuit of academic excellence via equitable teaching practices and healthy school climates, is aggregating and analyzing data to help Packer determine further action steps that will lead to a long-term anti-racism strategy.
• In November 2020, Adeyemi Mchunguzi ’09 of ASMT Solutions coached Packer administration in establishing culturally responsive hiring practices so we can build a more diverse and equitable workforce.
• In August 2020, Jackson Collins, executive director of educational access program Prep for Prep, led a workshop titled “Understanding the Experiences of Academically Talented Students of Color in Independent Schools,” which helped attendees better understand the racial stress, climate, and encounters that impact the experience of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) at predominantly white institutions like Packer. Participants included all divisional leadership teams and deans, department heads, grade-level coordinators, college counselors, diversity and equity coordinators, and community engagement coordinators.

• Throughout 2020-21, academic leaders studied Coaching for Equity: Conversations that Change Practice, which addresses supporting teachers in bringing an equity lens to their pedagogy. Coaching for Equity is a practice that helps teachers bring an equity lens to their pedagogy. In February, they worked with the author, Elena Aguilar of Equity Coaching, in a Q&A session on developing racially and culturally inclusive classrooms. 
• Educational leaders developed a comprehensive set of anti-racist and anti-bias review rubrics for curriculum and school culture. The rubrics address the materials used in classes; the lived experiences of students in those classes; the PreKindergarten through 12th Grade learning scope and sequence, with attention to key entry years; and more.
• Through our professional development program, Teacher Growth Tuesdays, each faculty member using these rubrics to evaluate a unit in their curriculum for future development. 
• Over the course of the 2020-21 school year, various academic departments partnered with students from the recently created Change Committee, plus experts Marie Michael of Embodied Coaching and Consulting and Aamera Siddqui of DeepSee Consulting and Exposed Brick Theater, to review curricula, modifications implemented, and the teaching targets going forward.
• Marie Michael provided ongoing training for department heads on facilitating curriculum design and teaching practices that incorporate a racial equity lens.
   

• As of June 2021, the school is seeking an Employee Relations Manager, who will work with faculty, staff, and school leadership to help us adopt a restorative approach to employment policies and procedures. The goal is to create and maintain an equitable workplace environment and enhance relationships among school employees.
• Conversations about the staffing, structure, and resourcing of the Diversity and Equity program took place throughout the 2020-21 year. When the school’s new strategic plan is launched in 2022, these issues will be revisited and adjustments identified to accommodate existing and future community needs and curricular needs. 
• Substantial additional funds were allocated in 2020-21 to ensure the success of our anti-racism initiatives this school year. The annual budget and resources will be reviewed to ensure it reflects our commitment to support diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and offerings beyond the 2020-21 school year.

• Throughout 2020-21, the Parent Association (PA) created and supported multiple family affinity spaces: PA Black Alliance Group, White Accountability and Affinity, Packer Asian Family Alliance, and an LGBTQ+ group.
• Throughout 2020-21, the PA hosted events where students and school professionals were in dialogue with families directly about changes implemented, their own racial biographies, the role of student affinity spaces and clubs.
• In May 2021, the Diversity and Equity Office partnered with the Parent Association to host a Fireside Chat with Renee Tajima-Pena, producer of the PBS docuseries “Asian Americans” open to all community members, including incoming Packer families.
• In April 2021, students, school professionals, alumni, and parents heard from athlete and activist Schuylar Bailar, who focused on his intersectionality intersectionality of being Transgender and Asian American. 
• In January and February 2021, the Diversity and Equity team collaborated with the Health and Wellness team to offer divisional family talks on the connection between social emotional learning, anti-racism, and healthy relationships.
• In January 2021 as part of its annual Martin Luther King Jr programming, the Parent Association leadership participated in and hosted an anti-racism workshop on the history of racism in the United States, led by Ayo Magwood.
• In Fall and Winter 2020-21, we conducted 15 focus groups to learn more about how our families, alumni, students, and faculty/staff experience Packer’s diversity and equity programs and initiatives. These focus groups were facilitated by East Ed.
• In Fall 2020, we piloted an anti-racism workshop series for families in each division, designed by our outside consultants and Packer’s Diversity and Equity Team.
• In October 2020, the Parent Association hosted a discussion of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds and This Book is Antiracist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewell. These books were also read and discussed by students and faculty in the Middle School and Upper School.
• In September 2020, the Parent Association hosted a book talk with the author of Born Ready; The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope by Jodie Patterson P’17, P’24.  The conversation highlighted the importance of healthy identity development for our children and detailed her family’s experiences with gender identity and race.
• In August 2020, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Board established the Packer Anti-Racism Council (PARC), co-chaired by trustees Jamillah Hoy-Rosas ’94 and Eric Ryan P ’28, ’30, a group including all of Packer’s constituents — trustees, students, parents, alumni, administration, staff and faculty. Over the course of this year, the group has been building understanding by meeting with various stakeholders, reviewing current programming and providing feedback, all with the aim of advancing our anti-racism commitments. View PARC members.

In Fall 2020, we created this public webpage to provide updates on steps taken to fulfill our Anti-Racism Action Plan, including programming, community data, and accountability measures.

The Communications Office launched the newsletter IMPACT to share our anti-racism efforts with the entire Packer community. (The next issue will be published in mid-June 2021.)

This page was updated in August 2020, November 2020, December 2020, February 2021, and June 2021.