At the JICS Lab School, we celebrate our differences as well as our similarities. The idea that individuals bring a unique and valuable dimension to our shared experience drives the relationships in our community. To us, growing and learning among individuals who share widely divergent life stories, and appreciating their respective cultures, is an invaluable aspect of a true education. 

                                                                                                                                 

Nurturing a respectful and inclusive school culture means paying close attention to individual experiences, our curriculum, admission work, and our daily lives at the JICS Lab School. We partner with families to help children broaden their view of themselves and others by ensuring that they encounter mirrors of their own background and experience, as well as windows of difference. 

 

We teach, practice, and appreciate open-mindedness and awareness, explicitly developing respect for many aspects of diversity, including race or ethnicity, socioeconomic situations, religion, gender, national origin, family composition, sexual orientation, physical/health or psychological difference, and political affiliation. We encourage our students to be active citizens, questioning and countering various forms of prejudice.  

 

We enable students to experience, understand, and support the notion that idea diversity is essential to the development of knowledge advancement, just as biodiversity is essential to the success of an ecosystem. To understand an idea is to understand the ideas that surround it, including those that stand in contrast to it. Idea diversity creates a rich environment for ideas to evolve into new and more refined forms. 

 

Throughout the school year, we invite parents to enrich our learning by sharing their culture with us. Parents work with classroom teachers to help us celebrate/acknowledge special events such as Orange Shirt Day, Jewish holidays, Black/Islamic/Hindu/Asian Heritage/History Months, Lunar New Year, Diwali, Eid, PRIDE, and other festivities and commemorative days. 

 

The JICS Lab School is committed to equity and inclusion, and we acknowledge the importance of proactively and re-actively addressing all forms of racism/discrimination in developmentally appropriate ways with children throughout the year. We know that we often get things wrong.  We know we need to hear and deeply listen to the voices of our students, parent community and staff, and make sure our diversity and equity efforts are informed by these voices. We invite parents to reach out and inform us about your experiences, thoughts, concerns, and suggestions.