Members of the Durham and Chapel Hill Friends Meetings founded Carolina Friends School (CFS) in the early 1960s as a racially integrated school in a climate of pervasive racial segregation and widespread hostility. CFS was one of the first schools in the South to pursue a policy of racial integration. The School’s founders drew on a long tradition of justice-seeking Friends. Quakers in North America were among the first white people to speak out against the great moral crisis of their time, human slavery. As early as 1676, George Fox, the man whose personal search for religious truth began the Quaker movement, opposed slavery out of a love “which accepts not nor despises any for their complexion.” By the late 1700s, North Carolina Yearly Meeting was the only anti-slavery society south of Virginia, and before the Civil War, North Carolina Friends provided shelter to African-Americans escaping slavery on the “Underground Railroad.” Many Quakers freed their slaves, advocated that they receive “civil privileges,” provided them with education, and offered back wages. As early as the 18th century, Friends schools were established in North Carolina, and some of these taught not only boys and girls but also black and white children together. Quakers recognize danger when “any idea of superiority” becomes rooted in the human intellect. John Woolman, a notable 18th-century Friend, explained, “Where false ideas are twisted in our minds, it is with difficulty we get fairly disentangled.” Friends have historically opposed the false idea that divine gifts are bestowed on one racial or cultural group as opposed to others. Belief in the intrinsic worth of each human person and in the uniquely valuable heritage of every cultural group guides the understanding and practice of multiculturalism at Carolina Friends School.
We affirm that Quaker commitments to building community, seeking justice, and promoting peace and good will inform our teaching and our daily interactions. The School’s climate is based on respect for every person and for the traditions of diverse racial, cultural, and religious groups. The School’s curriculum—in which issues related to racial, ethnic, economic, and gender bias are examined in age-appropriate ways in light of the CFS philosophy—seeks to prepare students to live in an increasingly multicultural and globalized world. We emphatically acknowledge that issues of race relations and prejudice are among the most important problems to solve, and we commit to facing them directly. CFS seeks to teach students that pride in the strengths of their own cultures provides the springboard for appreciating the cultures of others. CFS offers students knowledge about the dynamics, history, heritage, and value systems of various cultures and helps them to appreciate the many ways in which cultural diversity and gender differences contribute to the strength of the nation. Given the School’s history and geographic setting, the contributions of African-Americans and Native Americans are emphasized in the CFS curriculum, as are women’s history and issues. Understanding self and others, the belief that the individual achieves identity in relation to community, a shared resolve to promote tolerance and address issues of prejudice (within the larger community and here at CFS), the view that differences (both individual and group) are a source of strength rather than danger, and a commitment to resolving conflicts non-violently are central to the School’s educational mission.
Carolina Friends School seeks to become representative of the wider community’s racial, ethnic, and class patterns. Recognizing that many factors shape our students’ families, CFS honors a variety of family structures. The CFS board of directors values diversity in its own composition and supports efforts on the part of the Principal to search actively for, to hire, and to retain staff of color. The CFS board and administration are also committed to recruiting and re-enrolling students of color, particularly African-American students, since this racial group is the largest minority group in the School’s geographic area. Teachers at CFS maintain high expectations for all their students in terms of academic development, social, emotional and moral growth, community responsibility, and career goals. We see ourselves as working in partnership with public schools and other independent schools to offer inclusive education of the highest quality for all children in the geographic area we serve.
Recognizing that minority groups, particularly African-Americans, are under-represented at CFS, the School’s board of directors established a special endowment in 1991 to provide supplemental tuition aid to families who bring diversity to the School community. In that same year, the board also established a Multicultural Education Committee comprised of board and staff members, School parents, and older CFS students. This committee is charged with assisting in ensuring that a focus on multiculturalism is nurtured and maintained in all facets of the School’s policies and practices, curriculum, demographics, and decision-making processes. The Multicultural Education Committee promotes efforts to help CFS be better known in local minority communities. It has also fostered the development of support groups for African-American students and for African-American parents at CFS, where multicultural education is a recurring theme of staff development activities and parent education programs. Assessment of the School’s diversity in terms of composition, educational programs, and quality of experience is an ongoing responsibility of the staff and board.
The challenge and goal of Carolina Friends School is to help each student participate fully in the life of a dynamic community of learners. Through this process our students strive to understand their own gifts as well as the gifts of others—and to use these gifts to serve and empower, to seek truth and justice, both at CFS and beyond. |
