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diversity, equity, and Inclusivity

A Collective Sense of Purpose and Commitment

 

At Hewitt, diversity, equity, and inclusivity stand as foundational commitments that guide every aspect of teaching and learning. These institutional values inform our pedagogy, foster personal growth, and cultivate belonging. We believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community is essential to educating girls and young women to be positive contributors and citizens of the world.

Hewitt empowers and expects our community members to embrace multiple points of view, to engage others with empathy and integrity, and to champion equity and justice in all areas of our lives.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusivity Programs

At Hewitt, we recognize that the work of creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community is ever evolving, never completed, often difficult, and deeply rewarding. All diversity, equity, and inclusivity initiatives at Hewitt ask the community to remain fully present, develop empathy, establish a collective purpose, and employ research-based practices for educating girls in a richly varied and globally interconnected world.

An Inclusive Continuum

Hewitt maintains a proportional, curricular, and interactional commitment to diversity. Our enrollment demographic increasingly reflects the diversity of New York City, our classes engage vital questions of inclusion, equity, and social justice, and our intimate community ensures proximity to difference, inspiring students to form meaningful relationships with students from other schools and every walk of life.

K-12 Anti-Racist Summer Reads

A selection of book covers from Hewitt's curated list of K-12 Anti-Racist Summer Reads

This June, The Hewitt School introduced Anti-Racist Summer Reads, a K-12 initiative designed to inspire and deepen conversations about equity, racial injustice, and racism among our students, parents and guardians, and faculty and staff. Like our newly established Anti-Racism Task Force, Hewitt’s Anti-Racist Summer Reads program was inspired both by our new mission’s focus on equity, and by our commitment to working individually and collectively to make Hewitt an anti-racist institution. 
 
After working alongside administrators and members of our Parents’ Association to develop the Anti-Racist Summer Reads program, Hewitt’s grade-level deans and faculty members curated a list of Anti-Racist Summer Reads that are both developmentally appropriate and appropriately challenging for lower, middle, and upper school students. Students in grades K-12 have been assigned a specific book or invited to choose from a curated list of books. To help facilitate meaningful conversations around these texts, parents and guardians will read the same books as their children, and teachers will choose books from the list of texts assigned to the students they will teach in September. “We are glad that every member of our community is participating in this summer read because books bring people together. Conversations about these important books will give students, teachers, and families a common ground for exploring ideas and experiences that are deeply familiar to some people and new for others,” said Middle School Head Launa Schweizer.
 
We look forward to engaging in discussions about and learning from our Anti-Racist Summer Reads. This fall, we will host a variety of gatherings, including grade-level book talks for students and teachers and a series of community conversations for parents, guardians, faculty, and staff, so that members of the Hewitt community can discuss their reading, ask questions, and commit to actions that address institutionalized racism at Hewitt and in the world. 

To join the Hewitt community in our K-12 Anti-Racist Summer Reads, we invite you to explore the titles below.
 
Families in grades K-4 will read at least one book from the list below.

 
Students in grades 5 and 6 will choose one book from the list below. Parents and guardians will read the same book their students have chosen. 

 
Students, parents, and guardians in grades 7-11 will read the book assigned to their grade.


Students, parents, and guardians in grade 12 will choose at least one book from the list below.