BHDS Enhances Diversity Curriculum
Posted April 16, 2012
As part of our commitment to making BHDS a safe and welcoming community for all, we are launching an integrated diversity curriculum designed for grades K-5 with some components adapted to middle school. This new curriculum will include teacher training and parent education opportunities, in addition to student learning modules.
“We are thrilled to offer this strengthened and updated training for our entire community,” said Mairin Weiner, school counselor. “Few issues connect so clearly with our core values of integrity, kindness and service than teaching about diversity, tolerance and acceptance,” she added.
The program is being adapted from the Welcoming Schools Guide, a very cohesive approach to diversity education produced by the Human Rights Coalition and used by Our Family Coalition, which includes San Francisco public schools. The curriculum was so successful that it's now being used by other districts and adapted by several local independent schools.
The K-5 curriculum includes topics such as family diversity, gender stereotyping and name-calling.
The curriculum is also enhanced with cooperation with Our Family Coalition, an organization that promotes equality and wellbeing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) families with children. In middle school, for example, our existing sex education curriculum, “Teen Talk,” will cover new LGBTQ identity and awareness units, and our eighth grade students have watched and discussed the documentary about gender identity bullying It Gets Better.
Our teacher training will take place over two sessions - on April 23 and 30 - and the parent sessions, which will be similar to the teacher modules, will cover the basics of the Welcoming Schools Guide and address biases and how to answer questions children ask about family and gender diversity.
“We look forward to implementing parts of this curriculum focusing on understanding family diversity as early as May and more fully next academic school year, when we anticipate implementing the Welcoming Schools curriculum to educate students about gender stereotyping and preventing name-calling,” said Bruce Werber, head of campus.
BHDS is committed to appreciating and respecting all families through promoting inclusivity and diversity.
Save the Date for Parent Education Opportunities!
Supporting Welcoming and Inclusive Schools with Tarah Fleming
In order to make the workshop as accessible to as many families as possible, we're delivering identical presentations on two different days and times:
Thursday, May 3, 2021, at 8:30 a.m.
Thursday, May 10, 2012, at 6:30 p.m.
