Media-Providence Friends has a history of being inclusive
Media-Providence Friends School in Media, Delaware County, has a history of being inclusive.
Long before 1954, when the Supreme Court decided Brown vs. Board of Education, MPFS enrolled its first student of color, the preschool-aged son of the McKnight family.
“The school met with its most serious financial crisis, not from the Depression but from the admission of its first Negro student in 1937,” according to “A Century of Love and Learning.”
Despite being a Quaker institution, and living by the Quaker Testimonies: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship (SPICES), a number of families protested and chose to leave the school. MPFS lost about 30% of its enrollment and, yet, did not waver in its decision. The board and faculty stood firm.
This decision directly informed the type of school MPFS would grow to become today: a learning community that not only teaches tolerance, but is committed to evolving our understanding of race and racism to best serve our community.
In the spring of 2020, we knew it was important to share more explicitly how we incorporate our Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity (JEDI) work into our program, across all subjects and throughout the year. Hence the birth of the MPFS JEDI Task Force, made up of teachers, families, administration and trustees.
Teachers have incorporated social justice in a wide variety of ways over many years, and not just in January for Martin Luther King Day and February, which is Black History Month.
Social justice is wide reaching across subjects and is honored throughout the curriculum all year long. This year we are committed to being more intentional about communicating and sharing our JEDI work with our community, as well as bringing more professional development and family events centered around JEDI topics and engagement. Some of these have/will include:
• 2020-21:The MPFS Listening Campaign, facilitated by the Philly Children’s Movement
• The Race Institute (faculty) with Toni Graves Williamson and Ali Michaels
• Feb. 4-11: Access to the film “Virtually Free” by Andre Robert Lee
• Feb. 9: Q&A sessions with Lee for our middle school students (2 p.m.) and our families (7 p.m.)
• April 7: Sonja Cherry Paul joins our faculty meeting after school and presents to families that same evening.
This is a year of intentional purpose and more realistically, years of purpose, in the pursuit of growing our racial literacy and positive racial identities for our students, faculty and families.
Diversity is our superpower, and as Katherine W. Phillps (Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and ethics and senior vice dean at Columbia Business School) wrote in 2014 (republished in 2020) for Scientific American: “Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, learning to better decision making and problem solving.”
During a difficult year that has, more than ever, brought the importance of this work to the forefront, MPFS pledges to be an example to our community that racial literacy and teaching social justice issues are not simply one-off lessons to be completed each year.
In the same way that a Friends education infuses the SPICES across subjects, our work with JEDI is a journey of learning and discovery that must be fostered throughout the curriculum.
Media-Providence Friends School is a Quaker day school for students ages 3 through grade 8 providing a challenging academic program infused with values. Community involvement and service play an integral part in curriculum, connecting MPFS students with the larger world.
The MPFS Admissions
Office remains open during the COVID-19 outbreak and continues to accept applications on a rolling basis. Prospective families are invited to register for our next live Virtual Open House at mpfs.org/rsvp. To learn more, visit our website or contact Angela DiMaria, assistant head of school and director of admissions and academic program at 610565-1960, ext. 104.