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.

Learn about community connections at Winsor

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

Community Engagement

Students

The Student Equity Board

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 students’ experiences for generations to come, and the Student Equity Board is committed to this work.

Affinity Groups

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.

Student Clubs at Winsor

Faculty and Staff

Colleagues of Color

Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED)

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.

Board of Trustees

Board of Trustees Equity Committee 2024–25

Claire Pasternack Goldsmith, ’01, Co-chair, Trustee
Sidra Smith, ’88, 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
Mallika Marshall, P’27, Trustee
Allison Kaneb Pellegrino, ’89, P’21, ’22, President of the Board of Trustees
Sarah Pelmas, Head of School & O'Donnell Family Chair, Trustee
Emily Woods, ’91, P’26, Trustee
Julian Braxton, Director Community and Inclusion

Board of Trustees Equity Committee 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.

The Community and Inclusion Team

Julian Julian is a staff member at the Winsor School

Julian Braxton

Director of Community & Inclusion

Lisa Lisa is a staff member at the Winsor School

Lisa Stringfellow

English Faculty, Lower School Community and Inclusion Coordinator

Jessica Jessica is a staff member at the Winsor School

Jessica Wang

Mathematics Faculty, Upper School Community and Inclusion Coordinator

Guidelines for Gender Inclusion at Winsor

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.