SCHout Conference Returns for 10th Year: Spreading Wings and Connecting Conversations

SCHout Conference Returns for 10th Year: Spreading Wings and Connecting Conversations

A signature event in the SCH winter calendar will take place on Saturday, February 1 when more than 200 high school students are expected to attend the school’s 10th annual SCHout Conference. Drawing from more than 30 schools across the Delaware Valley, this student-led, full-day program features personal messages from student leaders, a story exchange, and student-designed workshops. 

Each year, SCHout also offers adult attendees professional development related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging issues. Committed diversity practitioner and author Diane Nichols will deliver the adult workshop, entitled "Connected Conversations in Divisive Times." Nichols is the senior director of Institutional Equity and Inclusive Practice at The Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland.

The SCHout conference is distinguished by its student leadership. For this year’s conference, the DEI Council, SCH Academy’s “varsity squad” of student diversity leaders, coalesced around the theme of metamorphosis. In their brainstorming sessions, they noted that the ability to stay open-minded, grow, change, metamorphose, and spread one's wings is foundational to the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. All aspects of the conference program have been designed to cultivate empathy and spark meaningful dialogue throughout the day.

In preparation for the conference, Student Facilitators spend the fall designing Social Action Workshops, which represent their passions within DEI work. This year’s SCHout attendees can choose from among 13 workshops such as:  

Polly Kimberly, the school’s Upper School diversity coordinator and associate director of college counseling, advises SCH’s student diversity leaders and has spearheaded all of the past conferences.  She notes, “While schools like ours are always striving to create the most inclusive spaces and most excellent educational experience, I have seen, over decades, the way that the wisdom, insights, and passionate advocacy of our student diversity leaders does critical grassroots work to move our schools forward. We hope that the electric energy of the SCHout conference inspires student attendees to use their voices to push for positive change in their own schools.”   

This year, in recognition of the event’s 10-year milestone, we look forward to celebrating with past champions of this work—alumni, students, faculty, and all other supporters.

Learn more about the SCHout Conference.

 

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