June 4, 2020
Dear Members of the Greene Street Friends Community,

Last night I had the opportunity to gather with members of our school community, representing Lower School students to grandparents, for a Worship Share to reflect on the international uprisings we are witnessing in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, and of so many other Black and Brown people over the course of centuries in American history.  

As a white man, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and mourning of so many families right now--both in our immediate community and across the nation. I am committed to listening and to my own development towards becoming an anti-racist educator and towards Greene Street Friends School becoming an anti-racist institution. I, along with Greene Street Friends School, hold fast to the following beliefs:

We Believe That Black Lives Matter. Black lives should have always mattered. Black lives will always matter  in our community, and we work to dismantle the systems that oppress and devalue people of color.

We Believe That White People Have a Moral Obligation to Engage in Anti-Racism Work. If you would like to learn more about how to do that work, please click here .

We Believe That Racial Identity Education and Empowerment is a Central Part of our Curriculum.  Providing students with historical facts and vocabulary to address the patterns of racial injustice, while creating space to engage in courageous conversations that get emotional, is a powerful part of our mission to inspire and cultivate world changers, seekers of knowledge, equity and social justice. 

These beliefs, to borrow some words from our Quaker heritage, move us to speak. And act. I want to share a few ways that Greene Street Friends School feels moved to recommit to racial justice:
  • We are committed to increasing the diversity of our faculty and staff. We are examining how Greene Street Friends can better recruit, support, and retain faculty of color. 
  • We are partnering with external consultants to bring additional professional development for all faculty and staff, especially white colleagues, in the upcoming academic year. We will continue to send faculty and staff to The Race Institute, the White Privilege Conference, and support those attending the NAIS Diversity Leadership Institute and People of Color Conference and other professional development opportunities.
  • We are critically examining and updating our Racial Identity Programming this summer  to affirm and satisfy the deeply felt needs of our students and our families, especially through the important work of P.A. CARES.  
We know that we have work to do, individually as an institution. Please let me know if you have ideas about how we can do this work together.

In partnership,

Ed Marshall
Head of School