Community and Inclusion
Belonging for All
Winsor students learn in an atmosphere that is open, curious, thoughtful, and generous. They carry that experience into every other space they occupy after they graduate. The desire to make other places live up to the standard Winsor aims for drives them to improve the world.
Creating an environment of respect, equity, and inclusion is a matter of principle at Winsor.
โI'm inspired by the variety of backgrounds students come from and how they come together to create a vibrant community that embraces differences and celebrates individuals.โ
Math Department Head
Community Engagement
Students
The Student Equity Board (Upper School) aims to amplify student voices in community 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 studentsโ experiences for generations to come, and the Student Equity Board is committed to this work.
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 to experience being in a numerical majority. Open to students in both the Lower and Upper Schools, affinity groups provide an opportunity for students who want to connect positively to their own identity, and cultivate smaller communities of connection within the greater Winsor community. Attendance is voluntary, and students often talk about how their participation in affinity groups has been key to their identity development.
We also offer a wide variety of student clubs for both Upper and Lower School, many of which explore identity.
Faculty and Staff
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) 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 (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 anglesโdiscussing 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.
Board of Trustees
Claire Pasternack Goldsmith, โ01, Co-chair, Trustee
Sidra Smith, โ88, Co-chair, Trustee
Chris Andrews, Pโ26, ex officio
Larry Cheng, Pโ23, โ25, โ28, Vice President of the Board of Trustees
Polly Crozier, โ92, Trustee
Linda Dorcena Forry, Pโ28, Trustee
Mallika Marshall, Pโ27, Trustee
Allison Kaneb Pellegrino, โ89, Pโ21, โ22, President of the Board of Trustees
Sarah Pelmas, Head of School & O'Donnell Family Chair, Trustee
Emily Woods, โ91, Pโ26, Trustee
Julian Braxton, Director Community and Inclusion
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 schoolโs 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 schoolโs DEI work and helps the Board and its committees view their own work through an equity lens.
The Community and Inclusion Team
Julian Braxton
Lisa Stringfellow
Jessica Wang
Guidelines for Gender Inclusion at Winsor
The Winsor School is a girlsโ 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 schoolโs 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.