We want to better serve all young people to pursue life-long learning and critical thinking. We know we are not serving all children equitably. We made a decision to participate in a year-long racial equity training with Center for Equity and Inclusion and are taking action to address and counter all forms of racism at Saturday Academy.
Equity* in our organization means education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. When we provide equitable learning communities where children can explore their curiosity, they feel heard, respected, and safe. Racial equity means race is a differentiator that we must address in our classes, camps, and internships.
Our vision of inclusion means that we communicate openly with one another and the community to form valuable partnerships. With partners’ voices we evaluate what it really means to include people. We invite feedback to specifically change our programs to welcome people of color who face systemic disadvantages.
We come into this work offering supports for wider access and greater diversity: camps and classes in more locations, financial aid, help for internship applicants, and joining community events. We need to go deeper.
As we move toward a more equitable and inclusive Saturday Academy, we use and apply our Equity Lens to decisions we make internally and externally. Using this tool, we identify and amend the ways white privilege and implicit bias occur in places such as our workplace culture, recruitment and training of our community experts, and educational spaces. We know there is a lot of work to do and this list will change and grow.
All of Saturday Academy’s community benefits when our programs are more racially equitable.
*Saturday Academy consciously works to support racial equity while also supporting groups and individuals who are disadvantaged based on ability, age, gender expression and identity, national origin, religion and sexual orientation. We recognize that these identities can intersect and that advocating for all is essential in working towards equity.
Saturday Academy was founded in 1983 to engage young people in hands-on, in-depth learning by connecting them with community experts as instructors and mentors. Our founders believed “income, race or gender was not to be a barrier.” Our Equity Statement is intended as a guidepost to strengthen and continue our founding vision.
For more information regarding our equity statement, see this blog post from Saturday Academy's Executive Director, Dr. Jeri Janowsky.