Our Shared Work Together

• Increasing the diversity of Board of Trustee members
• Having diversity and inclusion training for all members of the board

• Linda Boyd, Co-Chair
• Alecia Pridgen, Co-Chair
• Nina Booth
• Lucy Neale Duke
• Janet Hartman
• Shari Lawson
• Liz Lenrow
• Carroll McGill
• Chip Smith

• Caroline Blatti

It is critical that as a society, we strive to better understand one another. Identity is pertinent to who we all are. As such, RPCS offers various professional development offerings for both faculty and staff. A few examples include:

• Jen Cort
  • Jen Cort leads professional development with faculty and staff, as well as administration, considering topics such gender inclusion, talking about SES, and implicit bias.
• Carlos Duque
  • Carlos Duque is a lower school librarian at Capital City Public Charter School. He regularly comes to serve as a resource for lower school teachers. As we know that children learn so much about the world around them in the early years, his expertise and consultation with lower school educators helps to ensure that we are discussing, in age-appropriate ways, identity, society, and more.
• Zaretta Hammond
  • This past summer, all RPCS faculty read the book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond. Sara Rollfinke, Director of Teaching and Learning, is leading three sessions throughout the school year with faculty in all three divisions to discuss and unpack this book and to help teachers identify their own cultural identity and biases and become more culturally responsive educators. Sara is thrilled to lead this professional development with the faculty and is encouraged by everyone’s commitment and enthusiasm to dig into this work.
• Rosetta Lee
  • Rosetta Lee is a renowned diversity practitioner who visited RPCS both in the 2018-2019 school year and in the 2019-2020 school year. She discusses inclusion in the early years, girls education, and more.
• Carlos Duque
  • Carlos Duque is a lower school librarian at Capital City Public Charter School. He regularly comes to serve as a resource for lower school teachers. As we know that children learn so much about the world around them in the early years, his expertise and consultation with lower school educators helps to ensure that we are discussing, in age-appropriate ways, identity, society, and more.

In the past, we have also brought experts to work with math and science educators to consider diversity in this classrooms, as well as Alex Myers and Jabari Lyles to discuss supporting LGBTQ students. Furthermore, we have presentations by various faculty staff members who are well versed in DEI topics and offer presentations for their peers, such as: "Teaching the N Word," "Supporting LGBTQ Students," "Authentic Relationship Building," "Micro-aggressions in the Classroom," "What to Do When...," "Implicit Bias," and much more. 

This year, we continued to work with employees throughout the whole school who commit to meeting regularly throughout the school year to discuss and reflect upon our own white socialization, living in our racially inequitable society.  For more information on why white anti-racism spaces are necessary, please read AWARE-LA’s Why a White Space.

We aim to build the capacity for strong racial analysis through shared historical knowledge, vocabulary and literacy. We will reflect on a range of texts (articles, videos, etc.) and engage in challenging conversation about how whiteness operates on a personal, institutional and societal level.

This effort is in the service of building a group of RPCS employees who will be better equipped to address how racial inequity manifests itself in our institution: in curriculum, pedagogy, the experience of members of this community and other aspects of school culture.