Circle time, the only time we spend indoors these days

We’ve been spending a lot of time at MCPC discussing diversity and inclusion and how to make our school more accessible for all Oakland families.

You might wonder, how can a co-op preschool that requires a big time investment from families, and is located in Montclair, a traditionally white, hills community, address diversity issues of race, socio-economics, family structure, disabilities and more? We are asking these same questions and it’s true that there are some things we can’t change (our location, the fact that we don’t offer a full day or free meals, and that the work component is a big hurdle for families with two full time working parents or single parents).

Our school has a parent-run diversity committee whose sole job is to address these issues. We also have a really strong parent education foundation because parents work daily with kids in the school and we all have to be on the same page when it comes to conflict resolution and problem solving with 3-5-year-olds.

Our teachers already employ a strong anti-bias curriculum and are increasingly addressing social justice at a level that is accessible for preschoolers. It’s already a part of our school philosophy that our differences are to be celebrated and our commonalities as human beings are to be explored. No child is ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’ and no behavior is ‘wrong’ even when it comes to hitting and pushing. This is where having a high ratio of adults to kids comes in handy! We step in immediately to make sure everyone is safe and then model our own restorative justice conversation at a preschool level. We are reminded that every kid has things to learn at MCPC and we can all help.

So in terms of diversity, we started with some things that are tangible! We already offer financial aid to those who need it and our school is fully inclusive (we currently have several kids who are neuro-atypical, including one who attends with an aide).

Last year, the diversity committee hosted two book parties (more were planned, but COVID happened) where we culled a lot of outdated or problematic books and edited others, discussing as we went (that was the most fun part), identified areas where our library needed better representation, reviewed book recommendations, and ended up purchasing 28 new books for our collection with money allocated by the Board.

In non-COVID years, each day the working parents and teachers sit down together for a noon meeting where we review both the positive aspects of our day and the challenges that came up. For each day there is a questionnaire and a note-taker as we collectively review the day.

Last year, at the behest of the diversity committee, we added a question regarding diversity and inclusion to that review where we all took time to reflect on anything that came up, how we handled it, and, if necessary, how we could have done better. This year our COVID practices have made our noon meeting much shorter and less formal (can’t have a bunch of adults sitting close together at a table eating and chatting!), but this is still a daily consideration.

This year, we have added dedicated time to each of our monthly general meetings (GM) for discussion around specific diversity topics, both within our school and our greater community — and especially, how do we talk about these things with our kids at home?!

At our October GM we asked everyone to watch this FB Live video on talking to kids about racism, and then had a vibrant discussion during the meeting. In the November GM we talked about evolving the views of "Thanksgiving" that we were taught as children, with one family sharing conversations they had with Native American friends, and this article sent around beforehand.

So in short, diversity is on our minds. Our goal at MCPC is to help raise little people who will go out into their community with the skills to better our world — and have fun doing it!

A handful of the books purchased by the 2019-2020 Diversity Committee

Diversity & Inclusion at MCPC

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