About
Diversity

Equity and Inclusion Inquiry

Equity and Inclusion Inquiry

Our community is comprised of people with varying cultural, economic, linguistic, political, racial and religious backgrounds, gender identities, learning styles and  sexual orientations.  Our school teaches and encourages awareness of cultural differences in an open, safe, equitable environment.  We help each student learn what it means to be fully human in all of our complexity, difference, and unity.

DEI Audit

St. Stephen's DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) task force is committed to upholding and advancing our founders’ bold, progressive vision for a diverse and equitable school community.

In order to examine our current curriculum and its alignment with St. Stephen's mission, we conducted an audit as an inquiry and review of our current DEI practices in order to:

  • Examine how well we live into our founding mission 
  • Reaffirm our commitment to our bold, progressive vision.
  • Recognize full scope of core cultural identifiers
  • Uncover and correct misalignments in school culture.
  • Close the gap: where we think we are vs. where we actually are.
  • Measure how well we live the core values/principles that have distinguished our school.
  • Determine what “diverse and inclusive” will mean in the years ahead.

Moving Forward

The inquiry and work of having a diverse, equitable, and inclusive school is never done. Moving forward, St. Stephen's will continue to grow and improve our practices and curriculum school-wide.

List of 5 items.

  • Create DEI education/training programs for all constituencies

    • Ensure integrating DEI into curriculum is central tenet of curriculum planning; ensure DEI training is central to employees’ professional development 
    • Educate all constituents on accepted language and definitions of identifiers
    • Require employees to participate in community-wide DEI education and training to build connections and improve communication
    • Train faculty and administrators on emotional health issues; heighten awareness of this identifier
    • Ensure DEI training includes personal bias, identity development and validation, effective handling of DEI incidents 
    • Expand DEI work to include wider scope of cultural identifiers
  • Focus on Shared Sense of Belonging

    • Make students of color and non-teaching staff priorities in this work.
    • Bring student voices into decision-making
    • Investigate creating a 9th-grade orientation program for greater support of marginalized students.
    • Educate/train community members on allyship and ways to actively disrupt, handle incidents in a restorative manner.
    • Provide training on ESL and issues hindering success of transitional English speakers.
    • Find ways to integrate non-teaching staff into campus programs and activities to foster more authentic, meaningful interactions and  eliminate biases.
  • Build Shared Understanding of the impact socioeconomic status has on the school experience for students and families

    • Develop policies and practices to address inequities in daily campus life.
    • Make student socioeconomic status central to discussions of academics and campus life.
    • Educate administrators on intersection of socioeconomic status and race.
    • Realign enrollment management and financial aid as needed to provide greater support for low-income families, resources for students.
  • Invest in School-Wide Communications specific to DEI Education and Outreach

    • Reaffirm DEI as a core value to help address tensions among community members around our DEI work
    • Show link between DEI curriculum and academic excellence
    • Explicitly communicate the importance of DEI in institutional decision-making and affect on constituencies when they are not included in process
  • Strengthen HR and Admission recruitment and retention efforts

    • Conduct audit of hiring and admission processes, recruitment and retention strategies for students of color and faculty of color.
    • Increase student financial aid and transportation offerings to improve socioeconomic diversity from local areas.
    • Ensure HR and Admission decision-making is more transparent with respect to DEI efforts.
    • Ensure HR and Admission communicate with DEI representative to increase DEI efforts and increase retention of students and faculty of color.
Address: 6500 St. Stephen's Dr., Austin, TX 78746
Phone: (512) 327-1213