Our History

This is our journey

 
 
21.png

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

- James Baldwin

 
Website Redesign Part 2 (42).png
 

In the summer of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic and a growing uprising against anti-Black police brutality, the founder of our school began to question the contradiction of advocating for an antiracist school system while sending her children to a school where the teachers did not look like her children, the overwhelming majority of the student body did not look like her children, and the curriculum did not reflect her children. This was the bargain she had made, that parents of children of color make every day, to sacrifice racial representation in her children’s school for an education the matched her philosophy of what education should look like. It was in this moment that she came to realize that this bargain was a false choice. Alternative, student centered, education should be open to everyone and that a school that offers progressive education can be reflective the of the ethnic diversity of our community. Recognizing the fierce urgency of the moment and the need to create what she wanted to see rather than waiting for the rest of society to catch up, she decided that while an ethnically diverse progressive school did not yet exist, that did not mean it could not be created. So, in the summer of 2020, she reached out to parents and teachers with similar concerns. This group of parents and teachers came together to form The Angela Day School for Liberation and Progressive Education because the time for waiting is past. And the time for action is now.

[Original size] boldlogoAD (10).png
 

This is Our Declaration

“As parents of children who currently attend a progressive independent school, we recognize the importance of providing children a rich and supportive academic environment. While there are parts of the education we appreciate and value, like the warmth of the environment and the attention to the well-being of the whole child, we can not reconcile the lack of ethnic representation amongst the faculty and staff, student body, and in the curriculum as well as the problematic views of its founder with the antiracist education we would like our children to receive. We want more than a Eurocentric curriculum that often centers whiteness. We also want our children to be educated in an environment that reflects the diversity of the city and isn't reliant on a tuition-based system that can exclude families based on their ability to pay. We wanted something different for our children and knew that every child regardless of ability, ethnicity, or socio-economic class could benefit from a wholesome environment and rich and varied curriculum modeled after progressive educational theories. So, we set out to design a community school to meet the needs of all children, utilizing progressive education and antiracist principles as its framework and adding in the rich and varied experiences of humankind to come up with a truly equitable and inclusive community school.”