DEIB at Sterne

Female Empowerment, Equity, and Allyship

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) remains a part of the mission and heart center of Sterne school.

A quick fact about Sterne: In our 49-year history, we've had only four Heads of School. Three out of those four have been women! That's all too rare at independent schools.

I bring this up because it's a fact related to last year's schoolwide DEIB initiative which focused on female empowerment and gender equity. (Note: You can read more about last year's initiative in the sections below.) That initiative allowed us to partner with the Girls Leadership Institute, re-launch Girls on the Run, and establish Girls Lunches across divisions, as well as a girl's peer mentorship program.

As we held space for our girls and female-identifying students, we noticed a need for programming for boys and male-identifying students. This year, we have decided to extend our work to include training, activities, and opportunities for our boys to engage positively in the conversation about female empowerment and gender equity. As the year progresses, I will be providing updates on specifically how we are performing this work and the impact it is having; be sure to check back to this page throughout the school year.

Seeing the value of being an ally to girls means making sure that everyone is not only invited to the table but is also heard, acknowledged, and recognized for their contributions.

Melissa Myers
Head of School
September 2024

Gender Equity and Female Empowerment

We are pleased to announce a new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging initiative for the 2023-2024 academic year. The very Mission of Sterne School—to build on the foundation of individual strengths to discover and nurture each student’s version of greatness—embodies our desire for an inclusive and diverse school. And while there are myriad DEI initiatives that schools may choose to take on, it was important to us that we identify one that was highly personal to Sterne School, is data-driven, and is measurable for optimal progress-monitoring. 

With the support of the Board DEIB Committee, the Faculty & Staff Diversity Council closely examined our demographic data looking for trends. We uncovered many areas that will surely inform our future initiatives, but one stood out as stark and pervasive at Sterne: the imbalance between females and males.

At present, females (and female-identifying students) represent about 35% of the school population at Sterne. This makes sense considering some basic facts about this population: In the US, boys are three-times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD; boys are four-times more likely to be diagnosed with dyslexia. (There are a lot of reasons for this disproportionate number of diagnoses, which we will address in future articles and posts. It is a fascinating body of research!)

So what does this look like in the classroom, in the hallways, on the courts and in the arts? In the most basic sense, it means that we are obliged to provide informed, thoughtful support of girls as a gender minority at Sterne. It also means that we need to be very intentional about gender equity for all gender expressions at Sterne; resources, opportunities, rewards and social-value are often unevenly distributed in the world, even with the best of intentions.

Thus, Gender Equity and Female Empowerment is the DEIB initiative that we have chosen to focus on this year. This initiative helps us keep this top-of-mind and of the highest priority. And both boys and girls will benefit from this work because when minority populations are properly supported, everyone learns, grows and succeeds.  

All of this may seem like a tall order, so we have a few goals to keep this work grounded. 

1. Partner with local and national experts in the field whose Mission aligns with our goal for gender equity and female empowerment at Sterne

2. Through these partnerships, provide professional development and resources to educate and inspire faculty, staff, and families

3. Through these partnerships, provide classroom and experiential learning opportunities to students

4. Provide transparency in our process to all constituencies at Sterne; we’ll celebrate our progress and we invite you to contribute in this important work

As the year unfolds, we will update our whole community on new opportunities, activities, and events that support this initiative. We appreciate and value all students and their gender expressions at Sterne, and we look forward to learning more, together, as we examine ways to increase gender equity in all aspects of Sterne School.

Dear Sterne community,

As I noted at Back to School Night in September, there are myriad DEIB initiatives that schools may choose to take on, and it was important to us that we identify one that met the following criteria:

• Highly personal to Sterne School
• Data-driven
• Measurable for optimal progress-monitoring

We selected Gender Equity and Female Empowerment as our DEIB initiative to focus on. Below is an update on some of the ways we have supported this initiative throughout the school year thusfar:

Faculty and staff kicked off the initiative with a summer reading assignment focused on gender equity in the classroom, What’s Wrong With Normal: A Teacher’s Handbook. Faculty and staff are involved in book discussion groups during our Friday Professional Development days.  

Girls groups launched in September, with Louann and Rebecca leading 11th- and 8th-grade girls through activities and discussions focused on empathy, self-advocacy, and equity in the classroom and beyond. Groups meet twice a month; in the coming months, each group will participate in field trips meant to promote collaboration and leadership. 

Sterne also launched the Girls on the Run (GotR) program. GotR coaches work with our middle and high school girls on a structured, curricular program called Heart & Sole. This program is designed to meet the unique needs of 6th–8th grade girls of all abilities, and focuses on the whole person—body, brain, heart, spirit, and social connection. Heart & Sole offers an inclusive place of belonging, where participants feel supported and inspired to explore their emotions, cultivate empathy and strengthen their physical and emotional health. At the end of the season, all team members complete a 5K.

Several members of our Athletic’s Department attended a webinar with Girls Leadership, “Belonging in Basketball.” This webinar explored how to cultivate a sense of belonging for every girl on our teams, so that players can practice effective and sustainable teamwork. With the girls volleyball season recently coming to a close, we were so impressed and inspired by the way our girls supported each other through a challenging and highly-competitive first season in the CIF league. 

This work with Oakland-based Girls Leadership will continue, as they are coming onto campus in February to work with faculty and staff on “Bravespace Groundwork.”  At Sterne, we feel that it is essential to build a  community where girls feel seen, accepted, and loved by peers and adults—in person and online. 

This is important and valuable work we are doing with Sterne girls and female-identifying students. I’ll be sharing quarterly DEIB updates again in the winter and fall, but be sure to follow our social media feeds and stay tuned in The Splash for highlights of our DEIB work throughout the school year.

Melissa Myers
Head of School
November 2023

On Friday, February 2, 2024, the entire Sterne faculty and staff participated in in a long-anticipated professional development workshop with Oakland-based non-profit, Girls Leadership. Focusing on the creation of “Bravespace Groundwork” at Sterne, CPO Ting-Sheng Vivian Liao and California Program Manager Jenelle Nila led our team through several exercises and activities that we could immediately take into our classroom spaces. The day began with a meaningful conversation about what it means to “belong” at Sterne and what it may mean to feel “othered.” Participants identified various forms of belonging at Sterne, ranging from “I display Pride flags and LGBTQ+ inspiration walls” to “celebrating wins,” “calling out best behavior,” and “correct gendering.” A common theme was the idea of providing accommodations and tools for learning—students seeing each other, and their teachers, using accommodations creates an inclusive and level playing field. 

Unsurprisingly, being vulnerable to name situations in which students may feel “othered” was a more challenging task. That said, these small revelations produced big points of discussion: “Not always meeting a student’s learning style,” “the impact of gender, appearance, weight, and intelligence in any given room,” “boys outnumbering girls in my classrooms,” “teachers calling out bad behavior [or this landing on boys].” So many students come to Sterne already feeling othered; we know that it can weigh heavily on a student’s mind whether they are “good enough and smart enough” to be in this class, this group, this school. Our task is to ensure them—in every way possible—that they belong and that they are seen, especially when they might be vulnerable to exclusion. 

Another particularly compelling activity centered around the concept of “comfort zones.” First, we established areas of the room where we might go when given a scenario that challenged our definition of “comfortable.” There was a Relax Zone (“confidence and ease”), a Risk Zone (“may feel uncomfortable, but we can learn and grow”) and the Reckless Zone (“a zone too far outside of our control that we may feel emotionally or physically unsafe”). Next, we were given prompts to make us think about where our comfort zones are and how they shift as we move from lighter to heavier topics: “How comfortable are you with engaging in playful activities with students?”, “How comfortable are you with admitting to students that you are wrong?”, “How do you feel about bringing new ideas to your boss?”, ‘How do you feel about working with a student who doesn’t like you?”.

This was such a great exercise because the objectives, vocabulary, and activity itself is so immediately applicable in our classrooms. We identified a time during Monday Meeting when this could be reviewed, and faculty discussed ways in which they could gauge everything from comfortability with an upcoming math test to students’ emotional response to being called on during class without raising their hands. This is really the intersection of practical classroom instruction and social-emotional learning. It’s what teachers do everyday, and taking time and care to reinforce these concepts and practices is so important.

Melissa Myers
Head of School
February 2024

While we approach the close of another school year, I find myself thinking about beginnings instead. As a classroom teacher, I was often challenged by my own impatience at the start of the year. There was always so much paperwork to complete, files to read through, and HR, CPR, NATO and LOL trainings to attend. I just wanted to fast-forward it all and jump back into the classroom in the middle of Dante’s Inferno. Alas, the beginning truly begins with just small steps–Community Agreements, trust-building, identifying strengths, learning how to collaborate as a class of students and a teacher whose only common thread is that, eventually, we’d all read Inferno together. 

DEIB work is a lot like this. It’s a build-up of small steps–lessons, discussions, research, and action, too. And somehow, this never feels like enough when each day brings the potential for a new challenging world event, whether that’s your world, my world, or all of ours. 

As you know, this years’ DEIB initiative was dedicated to female and female-identifying youth empowerment. Our work on this initiative ranged from teacher training, to launching new student affinity spaces, and welcoming inspiring guest speakers. We discovered that lifting up our girls made all of us better—we listened more closely, we asked questions, we held our boys and gender expansive youth, we applied some of our new experience and knowledge to start to understand how to better support all underrepresented groups; we also found patience in this practice. This is why Sterne has committed to continuing our work as a faculty and staff Diversity Council in the coming years.  As we expand this initiative to reach more groups and to tackle related challenges, we invite families to continue these conversations at home now and throughout the summer.  

To find out in more detail about what the Sterne Faculty/Staff Diversity Council has been up to, click the panel below. And if you're looking for ways to get your girl involved over the summer, here are three outstanding organizations that serve girls and gender expansive youth, and especially girls of color: 

• Cinnamongirl
• Girls Who Code
• Girls Leadership Teen Advisory Board

Happy summer to all of you, as you learn in a different way through travel, reading, summer camping, and spending time with family and friends.

Melissa Myers
Head of School
May 2024

Below are highlights from this school year's Faculty & Staff Diversity Council:

• Professional Development: What’s Wrong with Normal: Champion Gender Equity in Your Classroom; Dr. Sharmila Roy: Understanding and Teaching Atypical Girls; Girls Leadership: Creating Brave Spaces; Understanding Title IX workshop

• Student Groups: Lower and Middle School Diversity Council, High School Student Diversity Council, Lower and Middle School Gender Sexuality Alliance, High School Gender Sexuality Alliance

• Staff Led Student Initiatives: Girls on the Run; HS Girls Group; LS/MS Girls Group; 8th Grade Boys Groups

• Celebrations: El Dia de Los Muertos, Indigenous People's Day at Yerba Buena Center, Ruby Bridges Walk to School, MLK Day Marade, LS/MS Black History Quilt, Women's March, SF Pride Parade

• Curriculum Highlights: LS/MS and HS “Diverse Perspectives” book selections. Examples include: Immigrant farm life (The Circuit); the justice system (From the Desk of Zoe Washington; Just Mercy excerpts); Danish WWII bravery (Number the Stars), and themes of identity (Look Both Ways), homelessness (Crenshaw), and displacement (parts of Persepolis: Book 1,  and Darius the Great is Not Okay); ADA compliant wheelchair ramp design project; Launch of Ethnic Studies HS elective, HS trip to Japantown, HS mochi-making workshop; Panama cultural & language immersion trip (HS)

• Speakers: Michael Hersek, Public Defender for death row inmates; Dr. Ibram X. Kendi on Critical Race Theory; Mr. Dale Minamis: Korematsu vs The United States and its successful overturning

• Artist Visit: Con Brio concert on campus