One of Bishop Ireton’s goals for the 2020-2021 school year and beyond is to increase our diversity efforts amongst both current families and students as well as alumni. Earlier this summer, we began this initiative with a survey -- sent to all current students and alumni -- whose goal was to solicit feedback from those different parties and provide a safe and secure space where they could share their experiences at Bishop Ireton. We are analyzing all of the results from the survey and plan to provide a summary of results next month.
In early September, the first meeting of the Bishop Ireton Diversity Council was held. This council provides an opportunity for representatives from each area of the Bishop Ireton community to collaborate, research, and support student events, speaker opportunities, professional development for faculty and staff, and school programming to cultivate multicultural knowledge, embrace differences, and build community. The council also provides a forum to communicate and discuss issues, propose initiatives and explore questions of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion in the context of Catholic Social Justice teaching. It is made up of 27 individuals from the Bishop Ireton staff, faculty, alumni, current students, parents and community leaders who will meet quarterly. Below, you can find the members of the council.
We will provide more updates throughout the year but here are some additional efforts on which we have focused since the summer:
A new staff position was created to encourage and manage our diversity efforts on campus. Mr. Milton Powell is our new Diversity Initiative Coordinator, in addition to his role as Advancement Services Manager.
Current students now have an opportunity and ability to securely report incidents of bullying and harassment directly to the Bishop Ireton administrative team through the Resource tab on the My BI Portal, utilizing the “See Something, Say Something” square. Incidents and submissions are logged and addressed as they come in.
Implicit bias training is underway with all faculty and staff at Bishop Ireton. We began training in August and will continue during the year.
Bishop Ireton Diversity Council, 2020-2021
Kathleen McNutt, Chair, Head of School, Alumna, Parent