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Equity & Belonging

Our children are growing up in a world that demands an ability to work collaboratively with increasingly complex networks of people.

group of students
boats

At St. Michael’s, we believe that a diverse community is a healthy, challenging, and enriching community. A diverse community provides our students with the experience they need to be successful in a global community. We are intentionally designing a school that is welcoming and embracing to families from all backgrounds. We accomplish this through thoughtful admissions practices and through welcoming and reflective programs that open our community to a broad range of socioeconomic diversity.

Board Diversity Statement

St. Michael’s Country Day School was founded on the principles of establishing high academic and character expectations for students in Toddler through 8th grade. We are a community dedicated to a vision of positive change in the world.

In order to promote these values, the School embraces diversity as a sign of a healthy, balanced community. Diversity is good for our children - we want our children to continue to learn how to work and live in, and with, diverse communities in which all people are valued. As a school community, we seek to model tolerance and acceptance in an environment where students learn from and value their differences.

The Board at St. Michael’s Country Day School envisions a racially, socioeconomically, and culturally diverse community that celebrates our differences and fosters a culture of inclusion and multiculturalism.

  • We are thus committed to enrolling and supporting a diverse student body and to growing a diverse faculty, staff, and Board.
  • We are committed to weaving diversity into the fabric of who we are, what we do, and what we value.
  • We aim to engage mindfully in open and frequent dialogues to ensure that each and every member of our community is valued and respected.
  • We believe that all of us contribute to, and benefit from, the similarities and differences we bring to our community.

Approved by the St. Michael’s Board of Trustees

St. Michael’s in the Community

Each year, the St. Michael’s community gets involved with various organizations in Rhode Island and around the globe. The students might raise money or collect food for these organizations. They host bake sales, dress down days, and even book sales to help the community. The concept of community service begins as early as the preschool. By lower school, students have started to work regularly with organizations such as the Martin Luther King Center, Lucy’s Hearth, St. Jude’s Hospital Math-A-Thon, Heiffer Project, and the Potter League.

Student Council

Many community service initiatives begin with the Student Council. This organization made up of sixth through eighth grade volunteers, and headed by two faculty members, coordinates many of our school-wide community service efforts. At Thanksgiving and the holiday season, the students organize food and clothing drives as well as a collection for Christmas presents for the Martin Luther King Center and Ronald McDonald House. The SLB has held a trick-or-treat drive for UNICEF, raised money for a plaque at the new Potter League Animal Shelter, and sent books to Africa.

Here are few other ways our students take part in supporting our surrounding community.

garden

3RD GRADE

Supports the MLK Center

Each spring, students learn about seeds and plants in science class and take this knowledge into our community garden. In the fall, when it’s time to harvest the crops, the students sell their goods to the SMS teachers. With this funding in hand, they donate to the Martin Luther King Community Center Food Bank. The culmination of this project occurs when the MLK Center visits the school and the students learn how their hard work and donations can help benefit those in our community.

7TH GRADE

Partnership with Ocean Hour Farm

This year, our 7th graders partnered with Ocean Hour Farm (OHF), which is a center for education, scientific research, and regenerative agricultural practices. During their visits, they studied the topography of this Newport property as well as the natural systems this farm contends with. 

In between their trips to the farm, 7th grade students were busy in Innovation Lab workshop building a massive topographic map that shows the two OHF properties and the surrounding area. This project had students thinking through the lens of project management while continuing to stretch their skills and tool knowledge in a workshop setting.

The map was commissioned by OHF and is designed as a teaching tool for when other schools visit the farm.

toy drive bus

8TH GRADE

Community Service Program

Before our students graduate from St. Michael’s, we feel that it is important that they first give back to the community that helped to get them this far in life. As a requirement, each eighth grader completes 20 hours of community service before June. This ranges from participating in walk-a-thons, to serving meals at soup kitchens, to working with younger students at the Martin Luther King Center.