About

Equity and Inclusion

Creating an environment of respect, equity, and inclusion is a matter of principle at Winsor.

Join the Conversation

We are pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with New Roads School and their Critical Conversations speaker series, founded by Winsor’s former Director of Diversity Luthern Williams. Created in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, Critical Conversations includes virtual interviews with leaders who are driving dialogue around issues anchored in equity, justice, and wellbeing.

Mark your calendar:

March 14, 2024 | 8:00 p.m. EST
Critical Conversation featuring
Richard Louv
REGISTER HERE

Luthern Williams' Video Invitation

Living Our Principles

Every day, we engage in conversation and calls to action to bring about learning and support belonging at Winsor and our wider community. We believe that every voice should be heard, that stories should be told openly, and that Winsor should be a resource.

Renewal, intentionality, accountability, and action are all part of the roadmap moving forward. The Equity Task Force has embarked on our next steps in this ongoing, important work for anti-racism and social justice.

Thank you for partnering with us!

Guidelines for Gender Inclusion at The Winsor School

The Winsor School is a girls’ school that values diversity, intellectual curiosity, authentic engagement, and personal integrity. Winsor is unwavering in its commitment to preparing young women to pursue their aspirations and contribute to the world. We seek applicants who further the school’s mission and feel they belong in our community dedicated to celebrating and empowering girls and women. Winsor will consider for admission any applicant who identifies as female or any applicant assigned female at birth who does not identify as male. Winsor will always be committed to knowing, valuing, and supporting students throughout their time at the school. Should a current student identify as a different gender while at Winsor, the school will support the student and their family as members of the Winsor community; the student will always have a home here.

Lift Every Voice

DEI News

List of 4 news stories.

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Community Engagement

Students

List of 3 items.

The Student Equity Board

The Student Equity Board (Upper School) aims to amplify student voices in diversity, equity, and inclusion conversations at Winsor in order to ensure that all community members feel safe and supported. The Board is composed of four committees, each focused on improving an aspect of student life, particularly for students of color. The committees include: curriculum, Lower School engagement, community relations, and mental health. As a school and a community, during this time when our nation is addressing issues of race, institutionalized racism, and ongoing racial violence, it is not enough to be not-racist. We must work to be actively anti-racist, and to raise the bar in our diversity and inclusion initiatives in order to improve Winsor students’ experiences for generations to come, and the Student Equity Board is committed to this work.
Affinity Groups at Winsor
Currently, we have seven formal affinity group programs at Winsor specifically designed to create a space for students who identify as part of an underrepresented group at Winsor experience being in a numerical majority. These affinity groups provide an opportunity for students who want to connect positively to their own identity. Attendance is completely voluntary. Students often talk about how their participation in affinity groups has been key to their identity development.
- SISTERS is an affinity group for Black and African American students.
- AsIAm is an affinity group for students of Asian and South Asian descent.
- SOMOS is an affinity group for Latinx students.
- MOSAIC is a safe space for those with two or more identities in how they navigate the world. If you want to go to (or have already attended) another affinity group at Winsor, but feel that it is only part of your identity, this is a place to share your experiences.
- The First Generation Experience will focus on the challenges of the Immigrant Experience. The group is meant for Winsor students who are immigrants and for people whose parents immigrated to America. The group strives to create a safe and respectful environment where immigrant and first-generation students discuss and unpack their identities.
- SASA (South Asian Student Alliance) is an affinity group for students who identify as South Asian. SASA strives to create a safe environment in which students feel comfortable sharing their experiences with South-Asian culture to promote a sense of belonging and sensitivity among South-Asian students and others.
- UMMAH strives to serve and support the social and spiritual needs of Muslims at Winsor by providing a space where they can share the particular experiences that come with their religious identity.
Note: SISTERS/SOMOS and AsIAm have groups in the Lower School.
Clubs Exploring Identity

Jew Kids on the Block serves to foster a sense of community among Jewish students and allow these students to feel connected to their religion and each other through an exploration of Judaism. The club also provides a way to teach the Winsor community about the many different aspects of Jewish culture including but not limited to traditions, holidays, and Israel.

SPARC (Students Promoting Acceptance of Religious Communities) aims to create a safe space in which students feel comfortable sharing their experiences with faith and are able to learn about and become more sensitive towards their peers through interfaith dialogue. Through these discussions, SPARC hopes to precipitate a greater sense of respect, empathy, and understanding in our community regarding students' identities as they pertain to religion, spirituality, or the lack thereof and to better inform students as global citizens.

Spectrum’s goal is provide a safe space for queer students and allies and create a trusting community. We will speak about LGBTQ topics and current issues along with planning ways to spread the importance of the LGBTQ community. Spectrum is a club welcome to all people. For LGBTQ students, it is a valuable space to talk about pressing topics or just share stories about the LGBTQ community that they have. For people who are not queer, it is also an important space to know what they can do as allies.

Girls of the World (GOW) provides Winsor students with a safe space to discuss gender-related issues that they may personally have experienced or have witnessed both in their own communities and on a larger, global scale. It is essential that Winsor, especially being an all-girls school, give its students the opportunity to partake in meaningful discussions around gender. In these discussions, students learn from their peers so as to empower one another to become agents of positive change.

Upstander Club (Lower School): the goal of this club is to create community by understanding more about our own identity, hearing other’s identity stories, and learning what it means to be an upstander within the presence of injustice. The club challenges students to have courageous conversations about race, racism, and anti-racism.

Anti-Racism Club: In this club, Lower School students read This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell to discuss issues of race and and everday racism. They learn about identities, true histories and anti-racism work in 20 lessons. The idea behind the club is to empower students to use their voices to understand and actively fight against racism.

Faculty and Staff

List of 3 items.

Colleagues of Color

Colleagues of Color was formed in 1999 to give faculty and staff of color at Winsor a place to meet, to discuss and celebrate our work as we support and sustain each other throughout the year. We have speakers and recently started a collaboration with faculty and staff of color at Boston Latin School.
Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED)

Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) is a discussion group, organized to provide adults in the Winsor community with a forum to discuss topics of social and cultural importance. We share perspectives, challenge assumptions, form connections, and enrich ourselves both personally and as colleagues, educators, and contributors to the experience of our students and the school.
White Colleagues Challenging Racism

White Colleagues Challenging Racism (WCCR) is a forum for white members of the faculty and administration to consider issues of racism and privilege. We address these issues from many angles -- discussing current events, sharing the history of our individual identities, considering institutional racism, getting feedback on experiences we have had at Winsor or in our lives outside of school, identifying micro-aggressions, listening to speakers.

Alumnae

List of 2 items.

Alumnae For an Inclusive Community (AIC)

Alumnae For an Inclusive Community (AIC) is a working committee of members of the Winsor Alumnae Board and Winsor alumnae at large. By creating educational and enrichment opportunities, the AIC seeks to inspire the alumnae community to promote an awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Alumnae Board

The Alumnae Board is committed to becoming more racially and regionally diverse. Historically, the demographics of Winsor’s older alumnae and the general need for close proximity to the school in order to participate has meant that the Alumnae Board has struggled to be as culturally diverse as intended. Improved access, in the form of online participation, will help ensure that the board nominations for 2021-2024 will reflect a more geographically diverse alumnae community (members will no longer have to live in Massachusetts to volunteer their time). What began as GOLD (Graduates of the last decade in 1997) is now a group of young alumnae from the prior 15 years (Young Alumnae Committee 2005). This group holds special events and acts as support for each other as they navigate the years post college. A feeder for the Alumnae Board, this committee assists in the development of more diverse representation on the Board to better reflect the current student population.

The Equity Task Force

The Committee’s Charge

The Equity Committee of the Board is responsible for ensuring that the school is building and sustaining a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and connected learning community. The Committee is charged with benchmarking the school’s DEI efforts and partnering with the Head of School to fully realize the DEI goals of the Strategic Plan. The Committee reports to the Board about the nature, direction, and needs of the school’s DEI work and helps the Board and its committees view their own work through an equity lens.

2022–2023 Equity Committee
Claire Pasternack Goldsmith, ‘01, Co-chair, Trustee
Mallika Marshall, P’27, Co-chair, Trustee
Chris Andrews, P’26, ex officio
Larry Cheng, P’23, ’25, ’28, Vice President of the Board of Trustees
Polly Crozier, ‘92, Trustee
Linda Dorcena Forry, P’28, Trustee
Lisa Jackson, P’23, Trustee
Allison Kaneb Pellegrino, ’89, P’21, ’22, President of the Board of Trustees
Sarah Pelmas, Head of School & O'Donnell Family Chair, Trustee
Sidra Smith, ‘88
Emily Woods, '91, P’26, Trustee
Julian Braxton, Director Community and Inclusion

A Report on DEI at Winsor from the 2021–2022 School Year

We remain steadfast in our commitment to belonging. As a dynamic and responsive community, Winsor continuously evaluates and seeks to strengthen our diversity, equity, and inclusion work. The Lift Every Voice report is an outcome of that self-reflection from the 2021–2022 school year.

By collecting and synthesizing the practices, policies, and initiatives that exist in each department of the school, we sought a wider and deeper understanding of the totality of our DEI practices. The report serves as a touchstone for the Winsor community and a blueprint for the work ahead.

DEI Report