AFFINITY GROUPS AND OPEN SPACES
The DEIB team uses affinity groups, open spaces, faculty collaboration time, parent coffees, and alumni meetings to amplify voices and create places of belonging, and to partner with all members of the community to ensure that community members feel seen and heard.
For Parents and Guardians
Parent Affinity Groups are designated spaces, where everyone in that group shares a particular identity. This identity can be based on race, gender, sexual orientation, language, nationality, physical/mental ability, socio-economic class, family structure, religion, etc. Affinity groups can be a place for people in a community to come together to learn more about their identifiers and to feel more connected based on those identifiers. During affinity groups, parents might share and talk about their experiences or focus on working towards a particular mission or goal.
For Students
Student Affinity Groups provide a “brave space” in which Windward students can explore issues of shared identity and experience and affirm their emotional and intellectual responses to being part of a distinct subset of the larger Windward community. These groups are an important tool for reducing the sense of isolation, discomfort, and marginalization many children can feel even in the most progressive and well-intentioned school communities. Affinity groups are one layer of intervention and accommodation we provide for certain cohorts of students that help students feel connected and a sense of belonging.