Village School Diversity Statement
At the Village School, we welcome families of all backgrounds. We are committed to building a community that values diversity, including culture, race, ethnicity, family structure, gender, sexual orientation, ability, religion and socio-economic status. As a learning community, we are continually working to acknowledge and explore our personal and societal differences, and our common humanity. We aim for children to understand and value multiple perspectives, and identify and challenge stereotypes and prejudices.
From the very first day at school, every class is building classroom community. Affirming our commonalities and respecting our differences, we learn to value and accept one another, reinforcing individual identity and personal sense of belonging, thereby creating a stronger community. Classroom libraries are curated to contain books with multiple perspectives, including race, culture, family structure, gender and more.
Classrooms listen to age appropriate read-aloud books to share in the group experience of the joys and sorrows of another culture and to cultivate critical thinking skills. These read-alouds explore issues such as hunger, bigotry, poverty and more, providing opportunities for both mirrors and windows, for children to see themselves and their experiences reflected in books, and to see and understand experiences outside their own world.