Director of Diversity, Equity & Belonging and Director of Global Civic Engagement and Service Learning

A Message from the Director of Diversity, Equity & Belonging & the Director of Global Civic Engagement and Service Learning

Dear BFS Families,

Welcome to the 2023 school year. This time of our lives presents milestones for many of us moving into new grades or joining this school community for the first time. Whatever your milestone is, we invite you to relish the moment as it is a meaningful time of growth and anticipation for what’s to come in our school year.

Diversity, Equity and Belonging and Global Civic Engagement and Service Learning represent two core pillars of the BFS experience that profoundly influence the development of our character, partnership, and community impact. As members of the BFS community, our students and their families are important members of this experience. As a school, we create spaces of learning to amplify and parallel the education happening with our students.

As partners in the work of illuminating a vision and framework for our school that is student centered and develops competencies of criticality and humility through community education and reflection, we invite you to be an active learner and participant within our school.

In our community this year, we look toward the following experiences that will serve as opportunities to manifest our commitment to both Diversity, Equity and Belonging and Global Civic Engagement and Service Learning. Indeed, the two intentionally go hand-in-hand and will be led in partnership:

l Centering a focus on who we are as individuals as a critical competency for the work of equity, justice, belonging, bias and anti-racism l Learning touch points for critical engagement with understandings of identities, race, power, privilege, and social impact encompassing the breadth of lived experiences and ways of knowing l Courageous-learning in Restorative Justice practice for continuous community stengthening and growth in brave, and sometimes uncomfortable dialogue l Practice critical service learning as we build global competence and activate our global citizens to be societal change makers and champions of social justice

Our work will utilize a “Fair Trade Learning” model, a global educational partnership exchange that prioritizes reciprocity in relationships through cooperative, cross-cultural participation in learning, service, and impact.

We will engage, in solidarity (not charity), with our local, national and global communities.

We are looking forward to building this work with you, across all divisions and stakeholders.

Wishing you all the very best for an aware, active and engaged school year.

Dr. AnaMaria Correa Kevin Murungi Director of Diversity, Equity, Director of Global Civic Engagement and Belonging & Service Learning