Dear CA Upper School Parents/Guardians,
As you may have heard from your students, we have decided to pause PlatFORUM this year, which is an annual student-organized conference that comprises forums, speakers, and performances.
The Office of Inclusivity—Collinus Newsome, Director of Inclusivity, and Miriah Royal, Strategic Recruitment and Community Engagement Officer—reached this decision with the support of the Upper School administrative team. We reflected on the history of PlatFORUM with the faculty DEI Committee and reviewed feedback gathered from students and teachers over the last few years with respect to the current program’s outcomes and impact.
The decision to pause this annual event was difficult for the Office of Inclusivity to make and was informed by many factors.
Pausing PlatFORUM for 2022-2023
While PlatFORUM has had many bright spots, student attendance has progressively declined over the years on this day, making the event feel more optional than communal. It has also been increasingly difficult to find volunteers willing to run the workshops necessary to make PlatFORUM work.
Most importantly, given PlatFORUM’s emphasis on exploring topics where disagreement might emerge, students have expressed a strong desire for a shared discussion framework that might offer us new tools to engage in civil discourse here at the Upper School. Given that our ultimate hope is to foster a generation of students who can probe ideas that differ from their own, listen carefully, and engage respectfully, even when they disagree, we see this desire as one of the most vital pieces of feedback we’ve received.
We know pausing PlatFORUM is not the news some of you wanted to hear.
However, this pause is a great time for all of us to think about how to cultivate the most meaningful experiences for the entire community and the guests we invite to share space with us on campus. To do that, the Office of Inclusivity, the DEI Committee, and student leaders across the spectrum will come together as a committee to design an experience that allows for each of us to begin building the “Beloved Community” that Collinus introduced to the Upper School at the MLK Town Hall. During that gathering, Collinus asked the students to think about how they want to be for and with each other, and whatever is created next needs to build upon that question.
Next steps and updated plans for Thursday, March 9
As you likely noticed, this year, PlatFORUM had been established as a special schedule, which means it was never a letter day in the US—this also means we cannot easily add classes to this day without creating an imbalance in our rotation schedule.
Given this, we will be moving forward with the following changes:- March 9, 2023, will *not* be a class meeting day, meaning we will excuse all US students from school that day.
- March 9 will now be an Upper School Faculty Professional Development Day, with time set aside for faculty to engage in work that supports our DEI commitments.
- US Advisory Conferences will still happen on Friday, March 10, as originally planned—and conference reservations are now open.
Additionally, on Monday, April 24, we will celebrate “The Taste of CA.” This community event will allow us to share our “Beloved Community” initiative with the entire CA community. There will be an opportunity for a team of faculty, staff, and students to plan what that looks like and how we will roll it out.
We hope that in the spring of 2024, together, we will have designed an experience that gets us closer to our goal of being the “Beloved Community” we aspire to.
We know some of you will have questions, comments, and concerns about this decision. We are eager to listen to anyone who wishes to speak with us or members of the DEI Committee.
Our best, |
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