Alma del Mar Charter School strives to be an anti-racist institution. We seek to dismantle racist and white supremacist structures in pursuit of justice and racial equity. We will fight against racism when we encounter it both within and outside of our school community. We will actively work to ensure that all of our community members, including scholars, families, and staff, feel included, celebrated and empowered. By resisting racism and white supremacy, we will lay the foundation to challenge all forms of oppression.
Being an anti-racist organization is inextricably linked to Alma del Mar’s mission. We are working to empower all of our scholars to be bold thinkers and service-minded leaders, prepared to solve complex community issues. We will only achieve that mission by ensuring equitable access to opportunities, providing rigorous academics, strong support, and removing oppressive systems that would limit those opportunities.
We commit to investing the energy and resources necessary to continue to make Alma an anti-racist institution by:
- Engaging in ongoing Anti-Bias Anti-Racist professional development with all of our staff with the goal of equipping all staff members with the resources to resist racist attitudes, people, structures, policies and practices that exist in our school.
- Examining our hiring and talent practices in order to build a staff that reflects the diversity of New Bedford.
- Building stronger relationships with and between scholars and families through Crew practices and regular communication.
- Examining our curriculum and instruction to ensure that they are culturally competent and support our scholars in building critical consciousness.
- Continuing to hold scholars to high academic standards and providing them the support they need to reach those standards.
- Providing scholars with opportunities to discuss and analyze racial injustice on the individual level and at the institutional or systemic level while also providing them with opportunities to take action in their community.
- Empowering and seeking input from families.
- Addressing racist policies and structures when we find them.
- Checking in regularly to ensure that scholars, families and staff of all backgrounds are succeeding at Alma.
Alma del Mar’s anti-racist work will be daily, ongoing and never ending.