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Communications directors are finding themselves on the firing line as DEIB issues take center stage--whether within the schools’ walls or as part of national conversation. Now more than ever, schools are expected to highlight equity and inclusion in their curriculum and hiring, and communicate well about events such as George Floyd’s murder or violence against the AAPI community. At the same time, a focus on DEIB has engendered backlash that terms these efforts divisive or symptomatic of “woke culture” and critics often have no connection to independent schools at all.
In order to be successful, today’s communications professionals must have a deep relationship with the DEIB office that goes beyond approval of public statements on anti-Semitism or an Instagram lesson on Pride Month. How do you make that happen? What are the pitfalls and opportunities? And where do you start? This workshop, facilitated by independent school communications leader Jan Abernathy, will answer these questions and more.
The Zoom room will open at 11:50AM ET. We will begin at 12:00PM ET and run until 3:00PM ET.
Cost is $100 per person. The registration link will be open on October 18 until 9:00AM ET.
If you have any other questions, please email Claire at clairehr.pollyanna@gmail.com
Jan Abernathy is Chief Communications Officer for The Browning School (NY) a K-12 all-boys school with 400 students. She is also the president of the New York City Independent School Communications Professionals, co-founder of Black Advancement Networking Group (BANG) and principal of a consulting firm, Jan Abernathy Strategic Communications.
Jan is a trustee of the Grace Church School (NY) and is chair of the CASE-NAIS 2022 conference. She has written for Independent Schools magazine on crisis communications and how schools responded to the “Black at” movement and has been featured in the recent CASE Currents article “What is Equity?” Jan has presented and facilitated at many conferences including NAISAC, the NAIS’ New Heads Institute, CASE-NAIS, the NYSAIS Advancement Conference and the NJAIS Diversity Conference. Her two children graduated from the Dalton School (NY) in 2016 and 2020.