ACHIEVING OUR PURPOSE
During the 2023-2024 academic year, we recognized an internal need to clarify and communicate our position on all aspects of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice related to our mission and vision. We assembled a representative team to achieve our purpose. As a team, we committed to exploring our mindsets, biases, and intersections of our identities. Following that exploration, we established a clear position on aspects of belonging at RIS. We developed a position statement for each area, presented here. Each statement is linked to more detailed systems that elaborate on how they are operationalized.
We trust that our work will serve RIS, ensuring that everyone at our school feels they truly belong.
Belonging at RIS
Our Systems for Building a Community of Inclusion and Compassion
Diversity is a source of strength and creativity for our community. Our Belonging at RIS framework is designed to build and sustain an open and equitable school culture where our shared values are deeply felt and clearly communicated and where every member of the RIS Community feels that they belong.
We embrace the richness of a community that includes a diverse faculty, staff, and student population that includes but is not limited to identity markers of age, gender identity, sex, culture, race, body size, citizenship, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marriage, pregnancy, disability, and neurodiversity.
This framework brings transparency to our purposes, policies, and practices regarding diversity so that all learning stakeholders can confidently choose our school.
DIVERSITY OF LEARNING
Inclusive Systems for Supporting All Students
All children learn differently. Our Student Support Services are intentionally designed to ensure every child in our community is optimally supported and challenged. Our goal is that by valuing neurodiversity, every learner will be successful in their own right and in their own way. Every individual has unique strengths that contribute to the collective success of our community. All community members benefit from inclusion.
Recruiting for Our Professional Community
Inclusive Systems for Recruiting
We are committed to an intentional and consistent system for hiring faculty that does not make an unjust or prejudicial distinction based on identity markers. Our first criterion for recruiting is the quality of teaching and learning. We also value a diverse faculty. We use recruitment platforms committed to good governance of diversity, Child Safeguarding screening, and systems for building portfolios of credentials and confidential references throughout candidates’ careers.
RECOGNIZING GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Our Systems for Respecting Individual Identities
RIS is committed to supporting the development of each person’s identity. Personal identity lies at the heart of each individual’s sense of well-being. We believe that the clearest, most rational way to establish equitable policies and practices is to recognize both the biological definition of ‘sex’ and the sociological definition of ‘gender.’ As we support each individual in forming their identity, we are forming our collective identity as a thoughtful, caring community. Clarity and communication are vital to achieving our goal of helping every individual and every family feel safe, secure, and successful. Therefore, we have worked within Thailand’s legal boundaries to develop and share clear policies on confidentiality and inter-stakeholder communications.
RECOGNIZING ETHNIC, CULTURAL, AND RACIAL IDENTITIES
Our Systems for Celebrating and Championing Ethnic, Cultural, and Racial Diversity
Being part of an international school community allows us to benefit from various ethnic, cultural, and racial identities. Acknowledging the strength that comes from being diverse, we are committed to celebrating and learning from one another and challenging implicit and explicit biases stemming from history. The power of learning in a community where various accents, cultural backgrounds, experiences, and belief systems prepare our students for the diversity of their current world and impact their future.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIVERSITY AND SERVICE LEARNING
Our Systems for Supporting Social Balance
Our community is enriched by socio-economic diversity, providing our students with a more authentic learning experience and better preparation for a life as a successful individual and a contributing citizen in a diverse world. We are committed to providing opportunities to experience socio-economic equity both on and off campus. As a matter of principle, every child deserves access to a high-quality education. To play our part, we offer a fair, managed scholarship program. We also engage in service learning on and off campus to provide authentic experiences for students to reflect on economic privileges and responsibilities as global citizens.
We hope these broad position statements contribute to the evolution of Ruamrudee International School as a school in which diversity is respected and embraced, a school in which we constantly strive for equity, which is consistently just in its decision-making, and in which everyone is included and successful. It is a school where everyone in our community feels they belong.
THE BUILDING BELONGING TEAM:
Dr. James O’Malley
Head of School
Ms. Madeleine Bystrom
Elementary School Principal
Mr. Mark Dominguez
Middle School Principal
Dr. Nathan Meisner
High School Principal
Khun Piyapong (Bond) Siriviriyanun
School Manager
Ms. Claudia Mora
Director of Student Support
Ms. Deneene Ricketts
High School Counselor
