DEI events at The Willows, Private School Los Angeles

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

The Willows Community School Inclusivity Statement

The Willows Community School is dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion as integral to our mission, school culture, and educational program.

We are firmly committed to nurturing and sustaining a safe and open environment that empowers individuals and groups to discover and celebrate their identity. We embrace the many facets of diversity including race, ethnicity, religion, culture, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, family structure, and socioeconomic status.

We strive to build and cultivate our multicultural community by celebrating what makes each of us unique while continuing to foster the universal values that we share. We do this to equip our students with the perspectives and skills necessary to thrive in a complex, multifaceted, and increasingly interconnected world.

We acknowledge that diversity, similar to democracy, is an ongoing process, and believe in the importance of committing to this work through engagement in ongoing dialogue, openness to learning and growing to increase our understanding, and the nurturing of equitable relationships at all levels across our campus based on respect and empathy.

These values strengthen our community, promote collaboration, enrich our thinking, reflect our core values, and remain essential to the life of our school.

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The Willows is an intentional community. Each child is recognized as a unique individual and a valued contributor to our community. We celebrate each member of our community and want all individuals to feel that they belong, are respected, and treated with dignity.

Diversity enriches the lives and learning experiences of all our students, families, faculty, and staff. We teach our children to embrace different viewpoints, beliefs, perspectives, and cultures and value the rich mosaic of our world.

We are strategically focused on infusing diversity, equity, and inclusion into our community, classrooms, and curriculum. These efforts are led by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee established by our Board of Trustees and our DEI Consultant Bridgette Blue.

We acknowledge that as our Inclusivity Statement states, DEI is an ongoing work in progress. We continue to envision and work toward a world free from bias, hatred, and prejudice. We are committed to being upstanders in a global society as we model for and teach our students.

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DEI Resources

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DEI Events

Middle School students at DEI event at The Willows, a private school in Los Angeles

Bollywood dancers perform for the willows. Students participate on stage.

We were all blown away by the inquisitive students and their insightful questions. In a world where critical thinking is at a premium, especially amongst our youth, it was heartening to see the students asking the “tough” questions.

Jason Cohen, Director of Facing Fear

Futa Toro DEI event at The Willows, a private school in Los Angeles

in the fight

The Willows stands united in the fight against hatred, bigotry, prejudice, brutality, racism, and violence in all its forms. We stand in solidarity with all communities facing this type of hatred and denounce the rise of hate crimes within our society.

The Willows is an environment where all people are respected, included, and treated with equity. We promise to continue our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work, as a community, to combat the systemic racism, violence, and hateful divisions gripping our nation. We are committed to actively be a part of the solution to these issues and to teach our students that we embrace multiculturalism and that we respect and treat everyone with dignity and empathy.

We sincerely want our students and community to be steadfast agents of change, who will lead the way to a nation and world free of racism, hatred, and violence. We will continue to lend our voices to eradicating systemic racism in all its forms.

In Solidarity

The Willows stands in solidarity with all communities facing abuse and bigotry, and denounces the rise of hate crimes and prejudice within our society. We are outraged and condemn the hatred of and rapidly escalating violence against all communities, whether Black, Jewish, Asian Pacific Islander, LatinX, LGBTQIA+, Indigenous, or any other race, culture, or group facing senseless violence.

We stand in solidarity with our Black Americans who have long faced systemic racism, racial behaviors, and violence. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We believe that all people should be respected, included, and treated with dignity. To remain complacent in the face of racism or inequities is not acceptable, and The Willows supports our community members by engaging in conversations and actions to combat systemic racism and live up to our core value of inclusivity. We are listening, learning, and loving. There is much work to do, and we want to be part of the solution for our children, our community, our nation, and the world.

We stand in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islanders within our community, our city, and nation and denounces the rise of hate crimes, systemic racism, hate speech, misogyny, and violence towards the AAPI community.

The Willows stands in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community...

DEI in Action

Black History Month

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