Our children are growing up in a world that demands an ability to work collaboratively with increasingly complex networks of people. At St. Michael’s, we believe that a diverse community is a healthy, challenging, and enriching community. A diverse community provides our students with the experience they need to be successful in a global community. We are intentionally designing a school that is welcoming and embracing to families from all backgrounds. We accomplish this through thoughtful admissions practices, through welcoming and reflective programs, that opens our community to a broad range of socioeconomic diversity.
Board Diversity Statement
St. Michael’s Country Day School was founded on the principles of establishing high academic and high character expectations for students in PS through 8th grade. We are a community dedicated to a vision of positive change in the world.
In order to promote these values, the School embraces diversity as a sign of a healthy, balanced community. Diversity is good for our children- we want our children to continue to learn how to work and live in, and with, diverse communities in which all people are valued. As a school community, we seek to model tolerance and acceptance in an environment where students learn from and value their differences.
The Board at St. Michael’s Country Day School envisions a racially, socioeconomically, and culturally diverse community that celebrates our differences and fosters a culture of inclusion and multiculturalism..
- We are thus committed to enrolling and supporting a diverse student body and to growing a diverse faculty, staff, and Board.
- We are committed to weaving diversity into the fabric of who we are, what we do, and what we value..
- We aim to engage mindfully in open and frequent dialogues to ensure that each and every member of our community is valued and respected..
- We believe that all of us contribute to, and benefit from, the similarities and differences we bring to our community.
Approved by the St. Michael’s Board of Trustees
Here are few other ways our students take part in supporting our surrounding community.
3RD GRADE
Supports the MLK Center
Each spring students learn about seeds and plants in science class and take this knowledge into our community garden. In the fall, when it’s time to harvest the crop, the students sell their goods to the SMS teachers. With this funding in hand, they donate to the Martin Luther King Community Center Food bank. The culmination of this project occurs when the MLK Center visits the school and the students learn how their hard work and donation can help benefit those in our community.
6TH GRADE
Partnership with Clean Ocean Access
St. Michael’s is proud to partner with Clean Ocean Access to educate our community about plastics in our oceans and ways we can take action to create a healthy ocean, here on Aquidneck Island. Under the leadership of science teachers Mimi Carrellas and Lauren Magruder, the 6th grade has begun to research this environmental concern within their science curriculum. They presented these startling facts at the Middle School Monday morning meeting, and will continue to educate the community and offer specific steps that we can all take to do our part in improving the situation.
As part of this collaboration St. Michael’s has adopted Easton’s Beach (First Beach) and with this comes great responsibility. Staying in line with Clean Ocean’s Access’s vision to create “a healthy ocean that is free of marine debris with water that is safe for all ocean activities and a shoreline that is accessible to the public”, our 6th graders take part in monthly beach cleanup. They collect trash and analyze data based on their findings.
8TH GRADE
Community Service Program
Before our students graduate from St. Michael’s, we feel that it is important that they first give back to the community that helped to get them this far in life. As a requirement, each eighth grader completes 20 hours of community service before June. This ranges from participating in walk-a-thons, to serving meals at soup kitchens, to working with younger students at the Martin Luther King Center.
