Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Thacher’s mission is to train young people in the art of living for their own greatest good and for the greatest good of their fellow citizens in a diverse and changing world. As we grow and evolve to meet the challenges of today, we must remain ever mindful that only a diverse and changing school can truly prepare its students for a diverse and changing world.
The voices and accounts of our diverse extended community have informed and inspired our efforts to learn important lessons from our past and strive to more fully support present and future students. From the wave of bipoc@ instagram pages that took over independent schools during the Summer of 2020, to the countless conversations stewarded by the Office of Alumni Relations, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, The Thacher School recognizes that our greatest good is dependent on fostering anti-bias anti-racist leaders of tomorrow.
We embrace this mandate in tangible ways—with thriving affinity spaces, culturally responsive teaching, anti-bias, anti-racist curriculum, with the elevation and celebration of the richness of the many identities and cultural traditions that comprise our community, with all-gender advisories and residential spaces. And there is also more subtle, less concrete work to do. We must also scrutinize our culture and confront and contest those attitudes, practices, and assumptions that create barriers to building a fully inclusive community.
We invite you to learn more about the progress that has been made and the work that is being done—both immediate changes and longer-term efforts that we will continue to grow—as we work together to leave Thacher a better, more honorable, inclusive, and just place than we found it.
Mission Statement
Thacher trains young people in the art of living for their own greatest good and for the greatest good of their fellow citizens in a diverse and changing world. To that end, the School augments its highly challenging academic program with profound lessons learned from the care of a horse, regular chores around the School, teamwork on playing fields, outstanding instruction in the arts, the give and take of everyday life with schoolmates and teachers, and adventures shared in the wilderness. The aim is to inspire and encourage hard work, integrity, self-reliance, a lifelong love of learning and truth, self-knowledge, and a deep concern for the world in which we live.
-
Christian Garris and Sepideah Mohsenian-Rahman
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Thacher
Land Acknowledgement
At The Thacher School, we acknowledge that the land on which we live, labor and experience deep community upon was stolen from the Chumash peoples, and that their descendants who survived Spanish Colonization remain in their homeland which extends past what we know to be Morro Bay to the North, Malibu to the South, Bakersfield to the East, and the Channel Islands to the West.
We also acknowledge the unique role educators and student-centered practitioners play in teaching histories that reflect the nation’s founding, which includes reflection on the policies that led to the enslavement, massacre, removal and forced assimilation of the Indigenous peoples across what we now know as the United States.
Together, we must remain curious as we explore the connection between the current social, economic, environmental, and political inequalities experienced by current BIPOC communities and their roots in historical colonial violence that has been exerted for centuries against Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, including Native Hawaiians, Alaskan Natives, Inuits and Indigenous Caribbeans, and forcefully marginalized communities around the globe.
Even as we work to dutifully steward the land, water, and resources in the Valley of the Moon, we remember that the Chumash have been separated from the spaces we call home. While this statement is brief, it reflects the commitment of the office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in supporting efforts that center inquiry and healing, with ourselves, others, and spaces we inhabit.
We celebrate Indigenous Alumni and students, welcome Indigenous scholars, faculty and staff celebrate cultural relations with local Chumash elders, appreciating the faculty and staff who have paved the way and the Chumash elders who have chosen to engage with this relational spirit of the institution.
Recent Partnerships
A college preparatory boarding school for grades 9-12
Notice of nondiscriminatory policy as to students: The Thacher School admits students of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national, and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other School-administered programs.