School Norms

For the Individual

• Stay Engaged
• Speak Your Truth
• Experience Discomfort
• Accept and Expect Non-Closure
• Accept and Expect Ambiguity

​For the Collective

• Pay Attention to Patterns of Participation
• Contextual Confidentiality
• Go to the Source (or let it go)
• Recognize that we are all on our own path of inner and outer work
• Hold everyone in their highest light
• I am because we are

Social Justice Committee

Launched in 2014, the Golden Bridges Social Justice Committee is an advisory and inquiry body made up of parents, faculty, and administrators committed to supporting Golden Bridges in becoming a truly beloved community.
The essential question that guides our work is:

What do we need to know, do and be to bring an anti-racist, intersectional social justice lens to every aspect of our school community?
​

Meetings

​Any adult member of our community (a parent of a child currently enrolled at Golden Bridges School or faculty or staff member) is welcome to attend a Social Justice Committee meeting at any time, without any expectation that they will continue to attend meetings. 

Before your first meeting, we ask that you first read this article, which discusses our approach to communication: Changing the Discourse in Schools

Meetings are typically held monthly on Tuesdays from 7:00pm-9:00pm.

---

GBS Social Justice Priorities

In September 2021 we reaffirmed priorities for the Golden Bridges School community in our ongoing quest to become more inclusive and socially just. These priorities inform the work and planning of the Social Justice Committee.

​Read our Priorities Memo

Committee & Governance

It is a priority of the Golden Bridges Social Justice Committee that our decision-making reflects our values, norms, and goals. We strive not to replicate systemic oppressive patterns that give white, cisgendered, heteronormative, and/or Judeo-Christian people more authority and power than people of color or other marginalized peoples.

We practice full transparency about decision-making and hold accountable the people who make decisions that impact the committee or the school community at large, as it relates to issues of social justice. Committee members or school community members who believe a decision made by the Social Justice Committee is harmful are invited to bring their concern to group facilitators/moderators.

​Read our Governance Document.

Contact

Please contact Allyson Ritger for questions related to the Social Justice Committee.

---

Anti-Racist Curriculum Committee

The Antiracist Curriculum Committee (ARCC) was formed in the summer of 2020 by a group of Golden Bridges School teachers inspired to action by the national uprisings in response to George Floyd’s murder and police brutality against BIPOC.

The ARCC is faculty committee that meets bi-weekly to study a text and address living questions brought by faculty members relating to curriculum and/or classroom dynamics.

The committee started its work with several essential questions:

• What is inherently racist and what is inherently antiracist in Waldorf curriculum?
• ​How do we bring an antibias/antiracist (ABAR) lens to all of our curriculum at GBS?

• How do we put ABAR work at the forefront of our work as educators?
• How do we create a space where teachers can bring what’s living in the classroom (dilemmas, inquiry, questions, research, etc.) related to social justice?  

ARCC facilitates text-based conversations in monthly faculty meetings.  Last school year, we read bell hooks’, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.  This school year we are currently reading and discussing Liz Kleinrock’s Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in Your School Community.

Resources

Articles for Adults

• Liz Kleinrock's TED talk on How to teach kids to talk about taboo topics
• What White Children Need to Know about Race by Ali Michaels
• ​Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Out About Race  by Sam Alder-Bell​
• Understanding White Privilege by Francis E. Kendall, Ph.D.
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
• Why "Human" is not an appropriate answer to the question, “What is your race?” by Dr. Gregory Peters
• Racial Micro-aggressions in Everyday Life (from Columbia University Teachers College)
• Teaching White Students about Racism: The Search for White Allies and the Restoration of Hope by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Detour-Spotting for White Anti-Racists by Jona Olsson​
• Combatting Stereotypes: How to talk to your children
• Can Racism be Stopped in the Third Grade? by Lisa Miller
• White Guilt is Actually White Narcissism by Emma Lindsay
• White Supremacy Culture from "Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups", by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork
• How Well Intentioned White Families Can Perpetuate Racism (The Atlantic) 
• White Progressive Parents and the Conundrum of Privilege, LA Times 

Children's Literature

• Sujei Lugo Vazquez and Alia Jones' updated booklist on Black Culture and solidarity for ages birth to 12
• The Conscious Kid
• Do I need to buy different books for boys and girls?
• How Do I Include Diversity In The Literature My Child Is Exposed To?
• Raising Race Conscious Children 

Partnerships

Golden Bridges School has partnered with SF-CESS since 2015 in order to train and facilitate faculty and parent conversations, and guide us in creating an equitable, inclusive and culturally competent school that challenges the hegemony and discourse found in schools. We are grateful to the Small Change Foundation grant for awarding GBS the funds for this vital training of two faculty and two parents every year. 

 People of Color in Independent Schools

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences." 
-Audre Lorde