JULY 2024

LOOKING BACK

AISAP's Annual Institute in Salt Lake City

Thank you AISAP for us to your Annual Institute. And thank you to our incredible facilitators for the following informative and important workshops by Jan Abernathy: The Culture War's Front Lines: A Gender Policy at a Boy's School, Jaci Nelson: From Gatekeepers to Gateways: Elevating the Admission Process via Equity Assessment, and Joanna Lovett: Uncovering Implicit Bias in File Reading and Admissions Committees. It was a whirlwind!

Summer Series Launches with a Splash

In the final week of June, we kicked off our 2024 Summer Workshop Series with three workshops for admin, faculty, executives, and BIPOC trustees. Thank you to Pankti Sevak, Patrice Wakeley, Shernice Lazare and Ivy Alphonse-Crean for a great start to summer. You may have missed the live workshops but it's not too late to view the recordings. July and August bring a great group of facilitators and excellent topics. Join us live on Zoom or watch at your convenience.

Pollyanna Teen Council Planning Kick-Off

Our Teen Leaders met to begin planning for the upcoming school year. It was great to see everyone and welcome our new leaders. We are thrilled for the incredible line-up of guests and topics, and the connection that will take place in the academic year ahead. We hope your school will join us as a School Member for these informative monthly meet-ups, specifically designed for 13-18 year olds eager to engage in meaningful discussions on today’s most pressing topics.

Building Community Driven by Equity

Devin LaSane's top takeaways from our last 2023-24 workshop:

revisit your mission statement to articulate who the ‘mission-aligned’ student or family is
explicitly describe your Admissions policy to identify ways in which “inclusivity is a central tenet”
identify areas where some applicants/families might be advantaged or disadvantaged

LOOKING AHEAD

July Summer Workshop Series

Our 2024 Summer Workshop Series is in full swing! July features an incredible line-up of eight informative and powerful workshops featuring Pollyanna Facilitators discussing topics ranging from Commenting on Current Events to Build Trust at Your School to Building Alliances: Connecting Our Shared Legacies of Trauma and Resilience and much more. Please take a look at the entire schedule and register here. The workshops are on Zoom and also recorded to be viewed later. And stay tuned for August!

AISNE Election Workshops with Jason Craige Harris

This August, the Association of Independent Schools of New England (AISNE) will present Pollyanna speaker Jason Craige Harris as he leads Pre-Election Clinics: Workshopping Responses to Challenging Scenarios. This two session workshop series will introduce participants to a framework for navigating challenging conversations and situations involving different constituency groups with clarity, conviction, and compassion. For more info and to register.

RESOURCES

Happy 10th Birthday to the Race Institute

Co-Directors Ali Michael and Toni Graves Williamson invite you to join the Race Institute Community. The Race Institute for K-12 Educators is a collaborative skill building laboratory where growth mindset and relationship building are key elements of learning about race. Educators come to the three-day institute to build their own racial identities so that they can support the healthy racial identity development of students in their schools. They leave with a stronger sense of self, concrete skills, informed empathy, systemic understanding, and an ongoing learning community. All institutes to be held at host locations in the Philadelphia area on 11/14-16/24, 2/6-8/25, 5/1-3/25, 8/6-8/25, 7/30-8/1/25 (for administrators). Learn more at raceinstitute.org.

ENDORSEMENT

"Pollyanna’s initiatives and their commitment to promoting and fostering inclusivity has been evident with the workshops they have done with AAIE. By creating spaces where everyone feels valued and heard, Pollyanna is not only building stronger communities, they are also laying the foundation for a more compassionate and harmonious world. Their leadership in the international school world has been noticed. Pollyanna is making a difference in the world."

- Laura Light, AAIE, Executive Director

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