Diversity

Brooke's Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We believe in the power of diversity and inclusion, including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, socioeconomic status, citizenship, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, and physical abilities. We believe that diverse working teams make better decisions that strengthen our Brooke community. We want our students and staff to be people who seek to understand the perspectives of others and who constantly seek to walk in the shoes of others across lines of difference.

With 93% of Brooke students identifying as Black or Latinx, we prioritize uprooting racism through academics, equipping our students with tools to advocate for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive future. By equipping a racially diverse staff to set high expectations for our students and deliver culturally competent instruction, we aim to counteract the pervasive presence of societal racism that our students encounter as a condition of their daily lives.

We believe great teachers of color have a unique contribution to make in the ways they serve students, uphold a culture of achievement, and build strong staff culture. It is important for our scholars to have a diverse staff because they need to see people who look like them as successful professionals who share some of their lived experiences. We are committed to sharing the responsibility of fostering an anti-racist culture where all staff members are empowered to boldly share their lived experiences and perspectives.

Using our organizational values as a foundation, we seek to build an organizational culture where our efforts in building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community are all recognized and valued.

Brooke is committed to Creating

Inclusive School Cultures

We believe diversity, defined broadly, is important and leads to better teams that make better decisions. Given the fact that our students identify overwhelmingly as Black and Latinx, we are most concerned with the critical shortage of Black and Latinx teachers, and therefore focus most intently on that priority. For more details on our progress on fostering diversity at Brooke, we hope you’ll review the attached recruitment and retention report, which we produce annually.

Read Our Recruitment Report

The initiatives we have undertaken in the last few years have helped us make progress in the racial diversity of our staff. In the last five years, the overall proportion of staff of color at Brooke has risen from 18% to 55%, and specifically the proportion of Black, Latinx, and multiracial staff has risen from 14% to 52%. We believe that if we continue to focus on the initiatives described in our recruitment report, we can reach our goal to have two-thirds or more of Brooke's staff identify as people of color.

Apply To Join Our Team

Our commitment to diversity is anchored in our

Organizational Values

Recruiting Diverse Candidates

Our Associate Teacher Program seeks to attract and develop a diverse group of aspiring teachers. In addition to a competitive salary, our Associate Teacher Scholarship targets candidates who have experienced adversity in their lives and could most benefit from additional financial support, by providing an added stipend. Finally, we have some key partnerships with Generation Teach, Teach for America and other like-minded organizations to support recruiting associates and lead teachers of color.

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Retaining Staff of Color

Brooke’s high overall staff retention, which is consistent across racial groups, is driven by a number of factors. For Black and Latinx staff, we have created a Diversity Initiative Group, led by three former Associate Teachers, which provides small-group social, networking, educational and professional experiences dedicated to promoting conversation and fellowship with teachers at Brooke. We conduct a twice-annual staff satisfaction survey and continually monitor results for all staff and people of color more specifically.

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Teachers and leadership work together to create an anti-racist learning environment. Our goal is to cultivate class cultures where student’s academic and cultural identities are developed simultaneously. The power of diverse backgrounds students bring to the classroom is our foundation for collaborative, yet rigorous learning environments. Brooke strives to consistently highlight and affirm the diversity of staff and students; those practices permeate the school’s culture.

Dareon Stacker Assistant Principal, Brooke Mattapan

Great teaching relies on great people with high expectations.