GDS claims 30% non-white students but I didn't see them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is ignorant to narrowly define diversity as something you can see -different colored students. Often mixed race students are not very visably non-white. Further, most private school students who are brown or black come from very high SES households and have very privileged backgrounds. Diversity includes things that you can't see: children of any race on FA, people from different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds.

This.

People always think of our private as fairly homogenous, but it really isn't. When I started up my PTA gig I did a little survey to figure out who's who and we have 34 home languages in a school of 700, and 17 different religions, and that is without splitting protestants. That's pretty mindblowing, and cool. Diversity goes beyond skin color or household income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is ignorant to narrowly define diversity as something you can see -different colored students. Often mixed race students are not very visably non-white. Further, most private school students who are brown or black come from very high SES households and have very privileged backgrounds. Diversity includes things that you can't see: children of any race on FA, people from different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds.

Yes, diversity can include plenty of things you cannot see, such as different economic backgrounds. But where some posters lose me is when they try to suggest that racial diversity is not "real diversity" if it's not also accompanied by economic diversity. If it's ignorant to limit yourself to just differences you can see, it's just as ignorant to pretend those visible differences don't count. That's especially true because so much of what we do as parents is teaching our children to appreciate and respect those who seem different from us. If the differences are invisible ones that no one even knows about, then children are not learning much about diversity, are they?

Agreed 100% but in fairness to OP, s/he indicates that the school claims 30% non-white students, not a more general statement about "diversity" (which of course means more than just race or ethnicity). The school we toured and are most interested in publicizes slightly higher students of color, and I was surprised when we toured to see a single AA kid and a single Indian kid (for the record, I'm white; my spouse and kids are not. I was noticing racial/ ethnic diversity when we toured schools). That said, I'm assuming that it was simply an anomaly the day we were there. I don't think they were inflating numbers, just happenstance. I imagine the same thing happened to OP.

[Anonymous]

Are they counting Hispanic children in that number? My friend's blond children don't "look" the part but they are registered as such, as are several other families I know with one Latin American parent or grandparent.

[Anonymous]

A relative goes to another private school in the area. She is considered minority - half Hispanic. You'd never know by looking at her - fair skin, brown hair and freckles.

[Anonymous]

I cannot speak for the HS, but we are new GDS LS parents this year and I can say comfortably that of all the schools we have visited in hte past couple of years, it is by far the most diverse, at both the student and faculty/staff levels.

[Anonymous]

If a big percentage of kids and their parents (and teachers) are left-of-center in many/most DC schools, then why aren't POLITICAL BELIEFS a factor in diversity??

Or are there some schools that seek out more conservative students to help add balance?

[Anonymous]

Private schools' diversity numbers are based on non-white kids. So, not just A/A, but also Asian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic. So, those Asian kids and Saudi Arabian prince's kids -- they likely are counted by GDS and other DC privates.

[Anonymous]

A few years ago I found that almost every independent school in the DC metro area asserted it had a student population of roughly 30-39% nonwhite. Is this pure coincidence? Statistically what one would expect given the racial and economic demographics of the area? Or the product of some tacit or explicit coordination between schools?