Letter to Parents

June 25, 2020

Dear GA Parents,

In recent weeks, global protests have erupted in response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd and highlight the long overdue necessity for citizens across the world to grapple with the legacy of systemic racism and the solutions required to heal the racial divide. Throughout the U.S., Black graduates of public and private K-12 schools and colleges/universities are pushing for change within their alma maters, including GA, via a social media movement (@blackmainlinespeaks) in which they have and continue to lay bare their firsthand experiences with racism in these environments. These pages have grown exponentially to also include the stories of current Black students, parents of Black children, and school employees.

We want to acknowledge the pain and struggles that are expressed in these stories and apologize for the impact that our Black community members have experienced during their time at GA. The voices of our community members, including yours as parents of Black children, have called and continue to call us further into a period for truth and reconciliation. As a result, we recently sent a letter to GA’s Black alumni to invite them to a Zoom forum on Tuesday, July 28 to provide space for them to share their stories more directly and also to engage in strategic conversation that will allow them to shape GA’s equity and inclusion strategic plan currently in development, prior to the opening of school.

True change cannot happen without the voices of our parents, and so we invite you to engage in the first of a series of ongoing conversations via a Zoom forum on Wednesday, July 15 at 6:30pm to share your concerns and to provide perspectives that will help us to ensure alignment of our current work with the necessary next steps that will be most impactful in eradicating the issues that stand in the way of GA being the inclusive school community that it strives to be. A future discussion for current Upper School students will be set up shortly.  

If you would like to attend this Zoom forum, please respond to this letter. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Rich Schellhas, Head of School
Anika Walker-Johnson, Director of Equity & Inclusion