Speaker 1: Diversity is about inputs in terms of just getting the numbers there and then once people are there having them feel like everyone feel like this institution is a place of belonging you know who's going to direct that work and so the most concrete thing is to have a director of diversity or inclusion to sort of be full-time, that's their number one job. I think sometimes schools have this as an add-on. Oh, you're a full-time teacher, you talk about diversity in your classroom, we wanna give you this extra role. But to have a full-time director, like sort of seeing sort of the systems level and being able to sit full-time. And when I say seat at the table, it's more than just presence there. I think acknowledging in terms of how much weight your voice has at that table is equally important.

Speaker 2: I think that a lot of schools look at this work and think that it's difficult and think that, you know, not knowing where to start. First and foremost, they have to have a sense that this is something that they believe in and something that they want to do and be very intentional about it because I don't think the work ever stops. A lot of the populations that they serve today were not the populations that they were designed to serve when they were created. And so understanding that tradition and innovation do not have to be mutually exclusive and that changing has to be a key feature of our schools today. We have to admit and own the fact that we cannot stay the same.

Speaker 3: Not many schools that I have seen or have worked with are really looking at what are the cultural competencies of the community so that when families of color come in, they really hear an awareness and they see themselves in teachers and in leadership. The starting place would be for schools to come to places like DLI, go to places like the POCC, and really begin to hear the stories and to raise the awareness so that they're able to build that diversity at a more authentic place?

Speaker 4: Well, I think they just have to open the dialogue. I think it's really easy to get lost in the everyday and really that diversity work is in the everyday. And so it's in all of the nuances. And so the lens at which we see the school through this is really important. Just like we would look at our admissions practices or our advancement practices or our finance practices, we wanna look at our diversity practices. We wanna look at the inclusion that is happening within our community. Everybody has value at the table, even the folks that you would assume don't want to be on your path with you.

Speaker 5: I honestly believe you do need to have a lot of training for all of your stakeholders, top down, bottom up. And then I think you have to allow people to make mistakes. Because if you're afraid of trying because you might fail, then you don't try. A school has to be clear to everybody that some of this will work, some of this won't work, but it doesn't mean we're gonna abandon it because we made mistakes. I think it's important to pull people in that can do the training, that can give the support, that can be the mentors, and then allow everybody to make mistakes in the journey.