Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Alumna-Parent Launches Faculty Diversity Fund

by Meaghan Mancini '03; P'30
I began my diversity, equity and inclusion work as an educator at White Plains High School in New York a few years ago with the initial focus on strengthening an appreciation for diversity among my students and school community. This coincided with my daughter beginning her first years at NCCS, and so I did my best to bring home many new inclusive books and began very important conversations around DEI with Ella at an early age.
Through my efforts, I discovered that NCCS was already doing a fantastic job beginning these conversations at school. In fact, one day Ella came home to tell me about a visit that Kojo Clarke, the NCCS Director of DEI, made to her kindergarten class. I was so thrilled that Kojo’s efforts to expand his program had trickled down to even the kindergarten classes!  

Furthermore, I began to also take a special interest in the DEI opportunities at NCCS.  While I valued the work I was doing at White Plains High School, I realized that by expanding my efforts and participation among the NCCS community, I could have an even larger impact. NCCS is such a special community that I had the fortunate opportunity to belong to as a child. My days were filled with joy, rigor, and beautiful friendships that I still have to this day. However, I do recognize that this was not always the experience for all of my classmates. When I attended the recent Pollyanna Conference, a formal meeting for DEI discussions among a variety of independent schools, I had the opportunity to hear from other alumni who had different experiences from my own. By participating in this conference, we realized as a group that NCCS would benefit tremendously from an expanded effort to recruit more faculty of color, students of color, and from an ongoing effort to improve and expand on the DEI curriculum across all grades. Creating a more diverse environment among faculty and students at NCCS would benefit every single member of the community. NCCS students of color and faculty of color need a welcoming environment to feel secure and appreciated. All NCCS students need to be in an environment where diversity is prevalent and celebrated in order to become informed and contributing members of society when graduating and entering the world. It is incredibly exciting to see the Faculty Diversity Fund take off! We hope the impact will be monumental. 

I am truly excited to continue working with Kojo and participating in many more DEI Parent Task Force opportunities. I want to thank the DEI Parent Task Force for the book discussions from this past year and for creating a very welcoming, inclusive, and enlightening environment to learn and grow together. 
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New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.