What does a diverse school look like?

[Anonymous]

At least 50% FARMs

[Anonymous]

Would not have to represent the country on every dimension, because that's silly.

The school should have serious numbers of children from different socioeconomic groups, and from at least three different ethnic/racial groups and a non-trivial number of students from a religion that does not celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December, if at all.

The teachers should also reflect a variety of backgrounds. The classrooms should maintain some diversity and not end up creating within-school segregation (although language support makes this a bit harder sometimes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics all represented over 10% but no one group over 50%. Our school has got it.

Schools can be diverse with one group over 50%. More importantly, imo, is a small or preferably non-existent achievement gap. That's what our school has.

is your school socio-economically diverse? The FARMs kids do just as well as the wealthy kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would assume it was around 50% or less Caucasian, and that the other 50% were a mix of AA, Asian and Hispanic kids. I'd assume maybe 20% FARMS and a similar ESOL percent and some international kids. I'd assume that it had a range of HHI's, like a few very wealthy parents, a few very poor parents but most everyone else in the middle. Ideally, you'd also have at least one male teacher per grade and some people of color among the faculty.

We're at a school that is 48% caucasian, with a good mix of AA, Asian and Hispanic that essentially mirrors the mix in our county. We have 21% FARMS and a lot of international students.

Similar to our's, but white % is about 41%. The MS has white population at about 33%. In both schools, the other groups are about evenly split, give or take.

The diversity is one of the reasons we chose that cluster. My kids are mixed race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics all represented over 10% but no one group over 50%. Our school has got it.

Schools can be diverse with one group over 50%. More importantly, imo, is a small or preferably non-existent achievement gap. That's what our school has.

is your school socio-economically diverse? The FARMs kids do just as well as the wealthy kids?

We are at a center school in FCPS and it has 20% FARMS. The low-income students do slightly less well than the wealthy kids, and better than the low-income students at the other nearby ESs. Our achievement gap is small rather than large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics all represented over 10% but no one group over 50%. Our school has got it.

Schools can be diverse with one group over 50%. More importantly, imo, is a small or preferably non-existent achievement gap. That's what our school has.

How much over 50%? How wealthy is the school? Because no school with a significant FARMs rate is without an achievement gap, and I would say that no school without a significant FARMs rate is truly diverse. 50% of kids in this country get free lunch. If it's less than 5% get it at your school, it may look like a Benetton ad but it's probably not representative of the country.