SCHout Conference 2025
10th ANNUAL DIVERSITY conference
"Metamorphosis: Spread Your Wings"
On Saturday, February 1, SCH Academy will welcome more than 200 high school and mature eighth grade students from dozens of schools around the Philadelphia region for our annual SCHout Diversity Conference. This year marks the 10th anniversary of our SCH-created SCHout Conference, and we welcome back the facilitators, champions, and leaders from the past 10 years, whose work went into creating this student-led diversity conference.
Attendees will hear keynote speeches from our DEI Council members, participate in a story exchange designed to cultivate radical empathy, and engage in meaningful dialogue throughout the day in a series of social action workshops. The day will be led by our 45 Student Facilitators, who have been working since October to produce an engaging and thought-provoking experience for their peers. We look forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary of this event, created in 2015, with alumni, students, faculty, and all other supporters.
Springside Chestnut Hill Academy is pleased to host our 10th annual multi-school diversity conference:
SCHout 2025 10th Anniversary Theme:
Metamorphosis: Spread Your Wings
Date:
Saturday, February 1, 2025
9:30 AM
Registration Opens
10:00 - 10:45 AM
Welcome + Student Keynotes
10:45 - 11:15 AM
Cross the Line
11:15 AM - 12:45 PM
Story Exchange (for student attendees)
Professional Development Workshop (for adults)
12:45 - 1:30 PM
Lunch Break*
Affinity Spaces Offered to Students Only
1:30 - 2:20 PM**
Social Action Workshops, Block 1
2:30 - 3:20 PM**
Social Action Workshops, Block 2
3:30 - 4:00 PM
Closing (students and adults together)
*Purchase a lunch box or bring your own lunch.
**These sessions are for student attendees only. Adults have free time.
Location: The Willow Grove Commons and The Wissahickon Inn are wheelchair accessible; if you have any other accessibility needs, please email Polly Kimberly, pkimberly@sch.org.
GPS: 500 W. Willow Grove Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19118.
Parking: Stadium Lot. Street Parking on Willow Grove Avenue, or Inn Lot (on Springfield Avenue).
Each year our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, SCH Academy’s most committed student DEI leaders, choose a theme for SCHout. This year, DEI Council coalesced around the concept of metamorphosis, noting in their brainstorming sessions that the ability to stay open-minded, to grow, to change, to metamorphose and spread one's wings, is foundational to the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
The first Springside Chestnut Hill Academy SCHout Conference facilitators in 2015.
Our 2025 Keynote Speakers
In keeping with our mission to center student voices, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s members of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Council and Student Facilitators will deliver a short address in which they share personal stories and messages that align with the theme, Metamorphosis: Spread Your Wings.
Ms. Diane Nichols | professional development speaker
Topic: "Connected Conversations in Divisive Times" | Faculty and Staff Professional Development
Speaker Bio: Diane Nichols has committed her life’s work to integrating diverse, equitable and inclusive practices into all facets of her professional and personal life for over 25 years. She currently serves as the Senior Director of Institutional Equity & Inclusion at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, MD and Principal Consultant with the Glasgow Group, LLC. Diane is a Licensed Counselor and a Certified Energy Leadership Coach. Her educational journey has included a certification in Organizational Leadership from UMass Dartmouth, completed the Train the Trainer program through ADL’s World of Difference Institute, received a Master’s in Community Counseling from Ohio University and Cornell University’s Diversity Certification.
Diane has served as a faculty member for the National Association of Independent School’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference for over 15 years and has presented and/or facilitated sessions at a host of schools around the country. She is a founding faculty member of the National Diversity Practitioners Institute (NDPI). Diane was a contributing author to the NAIS publication, Diversity Work in Independent Schools, the Practice and the Practitioner.
Diane Nichols
Senior Director of Institutional Equity and Inclusive Practice at The Bryn Mawr School
2025 Social Action Workshops
Thank you to all SCH students who designed these workshops!
See you at the Social Action Workshops on Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 1:30 PM.