Our Board of Trustees has a standing Committee on Inclusion and Diversity (COID) with a mandate to oversee, inspire and generate progress on diversity and inclusion. The COID was created by the CDS Board of Trustees during the 2006-07 school year to develop a strategic plan to increase the diversity of students, faculty and administrators at CDS and to enhance an environment of inclusion, with a particular focus on increasing the recruitment and retention of under-represented racial and ethnic groups at CDS. The COID has articulated a number of specific goals around diversity and inclusion that have been adopted by the Board of Trustees. These goals include:

• Increase the diversity of the student population so that no racial or ethnic group will be a majority of the student body, and no child will be the sole representative in his or her grade of any major racial or ethnic group
• Increase the diversity of the faculty and administration so that we have a racially and ethnically diverse staff with no single staff member as the sole adult representing a major racial or ethnic group
• Continue to develop anti-bias curriculum, and continue to train and support faculty in using this curriculum with students
• Actively recruit trustee candidates of color, and annually evaluate trustees and the Head of School on diversity and inclusion

Faculty members regularly participate in diversity-related events, workshops and professional development opportunities. Recent diversity-related events attended by our teachers include:

• The Teachers 4 Social Justice conference
• The People of Color Conference sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
• “Hear It from Us,” a youth panel co-hosted by CDS and Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE)
• A diversity training day held jointly with CDS faculty and Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco staff members

We are a member of Bay Area People of Color in Independent Schools (POCIS), an organization that supports teachers, administrators, parents/guardians and students who believe that diversity and multiculturalism are essential to quality education.

The school also has successfully partnered with the San Francisco-based Schools Mentoring and Resource Team (SMART) and with the I Have a Dream Foundation (IHAD) to recruit high-achieving middle school students from economically disadvantaged families.