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Meet Amy Marks
Equity and inclusion work is at the heart of everything I do,” says Amy Marks, Shore’s new President of the Board of Trustees. “It’s central to me; it’s central to how I see the world.” A professor and the former Chair of the Psychology
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Department at Sufolk University in Boston, Marks is a developmental psychologist whose work focuses on understanding youth development in marginalized and oppressed social groups. “When I was approached about taking the board president role, I thought it was a great opportunity to help move the school forward strategically—from admissions to fnances—while weaving equity and inclusion into everything.”
With two daughters at Shore, in grades fve and seven, Marks admits she has a deeply personal interest in doing this work at
Shore: “I want to help build an environment at the school that they can be proud of.” A native of the
North Shore, Marks has experience working on issues of equity and inclusion with other nonprofts in the region. “I love it here, but we have a long way to go when it comes to building more access and opportunity into what we’re doing, whether it’s at Shore or other organizations around the North Shore.” Growing up multicultural— white on her mother’s side, Native American on her father’s—Marks saw and experienced racism and discrimination frsthand. That experience, combined with a lifelong love of science, gave rise to a career dedicated to research around issues of social justice and children. “I’ve been studying “ things like discrimination and racism for about 20 years. I’ve always been motivated by questions like, what are the impacts on children’s health? What are the impacts on children’s well-being or their educational outcomes?”
Similar questions come to mind when Marks surveys the independent school landscape, including Shore. “These are institutions that were largely built to sidestep the public school system or to serve a client base that could aford to send their often white male students to private school—creating a separate class of institution. And so what we’re trying to do now in 2021 is chip away at that system by asking hard questions of ourselves: In what ways have we caused harm?
—Amy Marks, President of the Board of Trustees
In what ways are we still causing harm? Are there institutional policies or practices that we uphold that might be causing harm or excluding some? Is there repair work to be done?”
Marks sees Shore as at the beginning of this process, “planting seeds, looking critically at ourselves, trying to hold ourselves accountable. That’s how we can make improvement.” One important sign of progress is the decision to create a new Director of Instruction and Inclusion position, an outcome of an audit of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Shore completed in 2019. The way the position is built, says Marks, means that it will be integral to the innovation that is happening in the curriculum as a result of the strategic planning process that spanned 2019-2021. “It’s not a siloed position. It’s visionary, and diferent. The new director is going to be a leader within the school who will touch the core of what our children are learning in the classrooms and inspire our innovative teachers in new ways.” The position will “drive us forward in becoming more inclusive and equitable in what our children are reading and how they’re reading. That’s a huge piece of what we need to change.”
Still, says Marks, the year of the pandemic has already spurred change. “I think Shore grew tremendously this year in its ability to be fexible and make rapid change. Consider what it took to scrap in-person learning in the spring and move everything online, and then scrap that and move everything back to the classroom in the fall. I think about the bravery it took to open Shore before other schools had committed to doing that—we had to look outside of the U.S. to fnd examples in Europe where they had done it safely. That rapid change, fexibility, bravery, and innovative spirit—it was like a fre had been lit under us. Those traits will serve us well as we seek to align our new normal with our strategic planning.”
If strategic planning will help guide the next three to fve years for Shore, so will the creativity and commitment of the school community, Marks argues. “As we rally together with an eye toward equity and inclusion, I sincerely hope that people will feel comfortable approaching me and reaching out to me when they see or think of new ways that Shore can be its best. I’m grateful to be part of this community—it takes everyone to do this work. It takes all of us to kindly love each other
Shore is at the beginning of this process, “planting seeds, looking critically at ourselves, trying to hold ourselves accountable. That’s how we can make improvement.” through this process. Kindness is key, because no one is perfect. The more supportive of each other we can be, the more we can help each other through this experience, and the more lasting change we’ll create.”
