Update 6/15: I have responded to Dr. Scheckelhoff's brief and non-specific to our requests email (below my response) with this --

Dear Terrie et al:

We will look forward to hearing about the accountability process that will guide that action plan.

I have attached the most recent list of signatures of White Former Faculty and Staff who support this initiative's addition to your work.

Best of luck. We're excited to be a part of St. Catherine's forward motion. - Cynthia

This from Dr. Scheckelhoff today --

Dear Cynthia (and others),

As you saw in our June 9th letter, we outlined an action plan informed by many people to guide our work this summer and beyond. We have kept the Board, Lila, and Cindy in the loop.

We plan to continue our work with several of the national leaders and to expand our work in other areas. Please watch for the developments in the coming weeks and months.

Sincerely,

Terrie

Terrie Hale Scheckelhoff, Ph.D.

Head of School

804.288.2804

twitter.com/TScheckelhoff

Update June 12: We've met our goal! New signatures will be sent weekly to St. Catherine's leadership. Thank you, everyone. We're in it for the long haul, willing to serve St. Catherine's as accountability partners through the Interim Head year and beyond, willing to build with the White St. Catherine's community authentic compassion for the BIPOC community and knowledge of and responsibility for our own White identities.

Update: June 9 -- The recommendation and offer of assistance in this letter remain. The plan outlined by the St. Catherine's communication today will need accountability beyond the current crisis. Objective review and sustainable ways to implement their stated goals can only be strengthened by the St. Catherine's White community's unwavering support of the St. Catherine's Black community. Please see below and sign if you feel moved!

*Note that the word "White" is capitalized in this document. "To not name 'White' as a race is, in fact, an anti-Black act which frames Whiteness as both neutral and the standard. In sociologist Robin D’Angelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, she writes, 'White people get to be ‘just people,’' without having their race named, whereas people of color are often described with their race." -- from the Center for the Study of Social Policy

*By signing this letter, you commit yourself to the assistance offered below. If you are not a White, former faculty or staff member of St. Catherine's School, you can support our support of our Black community by passing along the link and encouraging any White, former faculty or staff to consider the commitment and sign! While inclusivity is important, the creators of this letter believe White people must investigate their own roles in inequity and invite other White people into that work before we can ask Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color to partner with us in growing the more just world we hope to achieve.*

Dear St. Catherine’s School Board and Heads Current, Interim, and Incoming:

We, a group of White, former faculty and staff of St. Catherine’s School, urge you to fulfill the requests of the recent Stronger Support for Black Students at St. Catherine's petition, and we offer the following strong recommendation and a commitment to help.

We, with deep urgency, propose:

• that St. Catherine’s School hire for a year-long review an independent Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice consultant, reporting to the Interim Head and the Board of Governors, who will observe all aspects of the school, partner with the existing Inclusion team, and recommend scaffolding for the school to permanently and substantially enact the reasonable demands of the Stronger Support petition.

We, as White, former faculty signatories on this letter, pledge our time, love, and effort:

• to work with the DEI & SJ consultant and the permanent program and staff they put in place, as ongoing partner-mentors to current White faculty and staff of St. Catherine’s, working to interrogate, take responsibility for, and do better in our roles as White people, with the goals of being a part of breaking the cycle of a larger system that allows for the tragic disenfranchisement of Black people and of growing within St. Catherine’s sustainable skills for faculty to see out the mission of the office of DEI & SJ.

As White people we must use the capital of our privilege to speak, to make amends, and to build anew a more just world. As former faculty and staff of a school we love and for whose mission we labor still, we know what more we can do, and we will not dodge our calling in the name of avoiding partisan statements. We see the approaching Interim Head year as the perfect opportunity for review of the school’s DEI & SJ practices, providing the Incoming Head with the good data and expert recommendations necessary to carry out decisive action.

Please join us in this concrete, clear, and long-overdue commitment to look squarely at how we have failed and to trouble our White complacency in constant pursuit of better serving Black faculty, Black students, and Black families.