Community & Culture
PCDS Community & Culture Mission StatementWe are committed to nurturing thoughtful, self-aware, compassionate thinkers who can learn from challenging conversations and who recognize their limitless opportunity for growth, especially when considering perspectives different from one’s own. In addition to gaining essential knowledge and skills, we see education’s ultimate role as developing the intellectual acuity to grapple with complex topics. This holds especially true for vital and profoundly complex issues regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Actual growth can bring discomfort. Rather than retreating from that discomfort, we will nurture and support our community through our continued evolution. We commit to working tirelessly to create an environment that fosters openness and appreciation of multiple dimensions of culture and identity. This responsibility includes:
- Appreciating the identities we share, investigating our implicit biases, and honoring the differences among us
- Working to increase the level of diversity represented in our community at all levels.
- Reflecting on the responsibility of PCDS being built upon ancestral land and honoring those that came before us.
- Evolving our curriculum responsibly to ensure that diverse voices are not tokenized but truly infused across our Pre-K through 12 experiences.
- Recognizing the existence of a systemic privilege, including our School’s inherent privilege, and teaching students to leverage the privilege of education to create positive change beyond PCDS.
Developed with input from a wide array of PCDS constituent groups, the Community & Culture mission statement was designed to support the School's Strategic Plan and to amplify our School's mission statement and Portrait of a Graduate.
From the Director of Community & Culture
Why Focus on Community & Culture?
In a world marked by polarization and tension, the need for kind and supportive communities is more pressing than ever. PCDS is a space where we respect each other's humanity, demonstrate empathy, and hold space for diverse perspectives because we recognize that a strong community enhances our ability to reach goals and surmount challenges.
How do we maintain this environment, even in the face of disagreement? We can help students continue building their toolkits for maintaining emotional stability. We can help students foster curiosity and seek understanding before seeking to be understood. We can encourage deep thinking over quick assumptions or sound bites.
By keeping dialogue at the center of our approach to teaching and learning, we support our students as they grow in courage, compassion, and optimism. These skills help students combat the extremes that they may see on national and social media. Open dialogue creates an ideal opportunity to build bridges and overcome ideological differences that can sometimes push people apart. We are reminded that, indeed, no man is an island.
If you have any questions or are interested in learning more, please contact Mina Bhagdev, PCDS Director of Community & Culture, at 602-955-8200 extension 2263 or mina.bhagdev@pcds.org.
Signature Programs and Initiatives
Diversity Coordinators
Mina Bhagdev
Director of Community & Culture
Contact
Project Excellence
Project Excellence is an elite, award-winning scholarship program with a community outreach emphasis. This program was established by PCDS in 1987. The mission of the PCDS Project Excellence is to enrich, engage and empower first generation college-bound students from local public schools and partnering organizations, their educations, and their parents by providing resources, academic enrichment, and opportunities that encourage intellectual, cultural, and personal growth.
Project Excellence es un programa de extensión comunitario establecido por Phoenix Country Day School en 1987. La misión de PCDS Project Excellence es enriquecer, involucrar y capacitar a los estudiantes de primera generación con destino a la universidad de escuelas públicas y organizaciones asociadas y colaborar con sus educadores y sus padres proporcionando recursos, enriquecimiento académico y oportunidades que fomentan el crecimiento intelectual, cultural y personal.
No Man Is an Island
by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manner of thy friends
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.