Equity & Community
Diversity Statement
Since 1921, LREI’s commitment to social justice, equity, and activism has ensured that every community member has access to the full LREI experience.
Our 14-year program explores, celebrates, and encourages differences and commonalities, and the challenges and opportunities they present. We view these efforts as integral to the personal and intellectual growth of each member of our school.
LREI is committed to each of its community members, each of whom has a responsibility to both the community and to the wider world. This is as important now as it was when LREI was founded.
— Approved by the Board of Trustees, May 31, 2012
The work of Equity and Community at LREI is multi-faceted and deeply rooted in the history, culture, and mission of our school. This work asks students, teachers, administrators, alumni, parents, and members of the Board for active and engaged participation in the project of sustaining these mission-aligned efforts, contributing to our current program with a culturally responsive lens, and creating an environment in which every member of the community can feel a true sense of belonging.
At LREI, we encourage collaboration and partnership between people who may hold different perspectives, who may hail from different cultures, and who may hold different identities. This is part of our active commitment to building a diverse community. Additionally, we work proactively to ensure that each member of the community is afforded the opportunity to participate fully and to access all that the School has to offer. We know that school is a place where social identities are formed, explored, analyzed, and examined. We make space for this identity work, as we view it as an essential part of the development of young people into active citizens in a democratic society, capable of interrupting prejudice, dismantling systems of oppression, and participating in the creation of a just future.
Equity & Community Resources
Each year, LREI’s Leadership team shares a report on the goals, programs, and initiatives of the School’s Equity and Community Office. This custom was established in a time of great upheaval. In the summer of 2020, we lived through the uncertain early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we witnessed the crescendo of the most significant movement for racial justice in our country’s history. We aim to strengthen equitable and inclusive practices, procedures, and systems across the School and to meet the needs of all LREI community members. Our orientation toward Equity and Community is a necessary precondition for successful teaching and learning. When we cultivate a feeling of belonging, we are best able to meet our progressive mission and to fulfill the promise of LREI’s historic commitment to justice. When we meet the needs of all students, we are best able to support young people in developing the skills necessary to make sense of a complicated, bewildering, and frightening world. To learn more, please take a look at our most recent Equity and Community Report.
At LREI, we are committed to creating a school community where all students are seen, heard, protected, and treated fairly. One important dimension of that commitment is the development, implementation, and ongoing revision of our anti-discrimination and harassment policies. At LREI, we work to mitigate and respond to instances of identity-based bias and discrimination within the School. The LREI anti-discrimination policy and reporting protocol is one formal process we use to address these incidents. This policy is regularly used by community members and is subject to annual revision by the Board’s Committee on Diversity and Community. A report on its use is shared with LREI community members at twice-yearly meetings of the Community Committee. The LREI Anti-Discrimination and Harassment policies can be found on the website and in the Student, Faculty, Staff, and Family Handbooks.
LREI community members may access the Anti-Discrimination and Harassment Policies and Reporting Forms here.
Highlights
Summer Curriculum Working Group
An understanding of the many dimensions of students’ social identities lies at the core of progressive teaching and learning, and LREI students of all ages are engaged with questions of identity in developmentally and age-appropriate ways. LREI teachers refine their progressive pedagogy with an eye toward culturally responsive teaching practices. At LREI, this means that we acknowledge and affirm the impact that teachers’ and students’ social identities have on the classroom experience. Through regular curriculum assessment protocols, collaboration, anti-bias training, and ongoing professional learning, LREI teachers demonstrate their commitment to creating classroom environments where all students can thrive.
ICNY Panel
Every year, LREI partners with respected experts to engage in deeper conversation and learning around the many dimensions of identity. For example, in January and February 2025, LREI students, teachers, and parents participated in three panel discussions with a diverse group of local faith leaders to share their perspectives on what it means to be a community that supports a diversity of religious identities. These sessions were moderated by the head educator at the Interfaith Center of New York.
Affinity Groups
Affinity groups play an important role in students’ lives at LREI. Students who have an opportunity to participate in affinity groups consistently report a stronger sense of belonging, experience fewer mental health challenges, and have greater academic success. Younger students gather in affinity for discussions of big ideas, such as “community” and “the natural world,” while older students come together to discuss their experiences with faculty leaders, join for potlucks and celebrations, and create assembly programming for the entire community. Affinity groups at LREI include the Black Student Union, Asian American Affinity, Latinx Affinity, Muslim/Middle East Heritage Affinity, Jewish Affinity, Multiracial Affinity, GSA, Learning Differences Affinity, Positive Masculinity Affinity, and Women’s Affinity, with the groups changing from year to year as community needs and interests evolve.
Pride March
Each June, LREI students, teachers, administrators, and parents join the NYC Pride March to stand in solidarity and allyship with members of the LGBTQ+ community in New York City and around the world. As the first independent school in the city to participate in the march, LREI has long been at the forefront of Civil Rights activism. Seeing the expressions of joy and pride on the Little Red Float each year affirms and continues this tradition.