Belonging Is How We Build a School
Children and adults do their best growing when they feel known, respected, and valued for exactly who they are. They are more willing to take risks, use their voice, share their ideas, stretch themselves, and become more fully who they are capable of becoming.
At WHPS, that is what belonging is really about. We want children, families, faculty, and staff to feel genuinely at home here and to love being part of this community. We also want school to expand the world around them, introducing people, perspectives, cultures, identities, and experiences that may be different from those they encounter in their own homes or in the dominant culture.
Belonging means being secure in who you are while becoming more curious about everyone else.
Children should see themselves in their community and curriculum, feel loved and respected for exactly who they are, and grow curious about people whose lives and experiences may be different from their own.
Belonging Is Built Into the School
That commitment reaches across curriculum, school practices, faculty learning, family partnership, community relationships, and hiring, all with the same goal: a school where children can understand themselves, learn from others, and know they belong.
Curriculum With More Than One Perspective
Our curriculum introduces children to diverse voices, histories, cultures, and perspectives, encouraging students to consider whose stories shape our understanding of history, whose voices may be missing, and how the same events can be experienced differently by the people who lived through them. One of the most meaningful ways this comes to life is through our upper elementary Finding Your Roots Project, an in-depth exploration of immigration in which students investigate historical push-and-pull factors, interview family members, research their own family histories, and share personal stories that connect their lives to broader American history.
Books & Materials That Expand the Story
Representation goes beyond what hangs on classroom walls or occasional lessons about diversity. It is woven into everyday school life, including the books children encounter as they first learn to read. Even our earliest phonics readers pair carefully sequenced reading skills with meaningful stories and characters reflecting different identities, abilities, and family structures. These aren't necessarily lessons about difference. They are opportunities for children to see themselves and others naturally represented while learning something else.
Developmentally Appropriate Anti-Bias Learning
Through books, conversations, classroom experiences, and age-appropriate learning about fairness, identity, history, and social justice, children develop the language and confidence to understand difference with curiosity and respect.
Policies & Practices That Support Belonging
We continue to examine school policies, traditions, systems, and everyday practices through the lens of access, equity, inclusion, and belonging for students, families, and staff.
Families as Partners
Our parent organizations play an important role in making belonging visible throughout school life. Through thoughtful research, planning, and financial support, they help bring cultural celebrations, visiting speakers, and meaningful learning experiences to our community. These efforts introduce traditions, holidays, histories, and perspectives that may be unfamiliar or less represented in the dominant culture. They also create opportunities for children and adults alike to learn from real people, hear authentic stories, and build connections across our community.
A Commitment to Growth
Creating a community where everyone feels respected and valued requires ongoing learning. We have invested significantly in Responsive Classroom training, establishing consistent practices across classrooms that give children a voice in shaping their community while providing clear expectations, accountability, and constructive ways to resolve conflict and repair relationships. Our partnership with Private School Village, along with professional resources from organizations such as NAIS, brings additional perspectives that help us examine assumptions and strengthen our practices.
Kindness Gets Noticed
Our Bucket Filling tradition invites children and adults to recognize one another for everyday acts of kindness, inclusion, and care. Each note names something someone actually observed. At Friday pep rallies, a few are drawn so the community can celebrate those moments together.
A Community With Many Stories
WHPS families bring a wide range of racial, cultural, religious, linguistic, and family backgrounds to our school. Our community includes multilingual and international families, families of many faiths and no faith, LGBTQ+ families, adoptive and blended families, multiracial families, and families raising children whose racial or cultural identities may differ from their own. That diversity is part of everyday life at WHPS, shaping friendships, conversations, classroom learning, celebrations, and the perspectives children encounter as they grow.
Our Students & Families
A current snapshot of WHPS family racial and ethnic diversity.
Our Faculty & Staff
A snapshot of racial and ethnic backgrounds represented across the WHPS team. Percentages are rounded.
Diversity Is More Than a Demographic Snapshot
Race and ethnicity tell only part of our community's story. Families and educators also bring different identities, abilities, languages, faiths, family structures, and life experiences that cannot be captured in the demographic data above. Each contributes to the perspectives and relationships that enrich WHPS.
For neurodivergent learners in particular, belonging also means being understood as a learner. WHPS invests in professional learning and practical strategies that help teachers understand different learning profiles and create environments in which children can build on their strengths, receive support where they need it, and reach their fullest potential.
Belonging Can Mean Finding People Who Understand
Families and faculty have consistently shared how valuable BEARS, Black Enrichment & Resources for Students, has become within the WHPS community. The group creates space for Black families and families raising Black children to connect, celebrate identity and culture, share resources, and build relationships. More than half of participating families include at least one parent or caregiver who is not Black, making that community especially meaningful for multiracial families and for parents raising children whose racial identity differs from their own.
The Adults Keep Learning, Too
Our faculty's professional learning extends beyond Responsive Classroom to include anti-bias education and a deeper understanding of neurodiversity, helping teachers respond thoughtfully to the different identities, experiences, and learning needs children bring to school.
Responsive Classroom
Shared approaches to classroom community, relationships, student voice, and social-emotional learning.
Anti-Bias Education
Professional learning that helps educators create thoughtful, inclusive learning environments and facilitate developmentally appropriate conversations.
Neurodiversity-Informed Practice
Continued growth in understanding different ways children think, learn, communicate, regulate, and experience school.
Belonging Grows Through Connection
Families and community partners deepen connection, representation, and learning across WHPS.
Private School Village
WHPS participates in Private School Village, which connects Black and African American families across Los Angeles independent schools through community, cultural enrichment, family leadership, and shared experiences.
Explore Private School Village →Affinity & Family Spaces
Family-led affinity spaces create opportunities for connection around shared identities and experiences while also helping enrich the larger WHPS community through traditions, perspectives, speakers, and shared learning.
Explore Affinity Spaces →Who We Hire Matters
WHPS is committed to inclusive hiring and a workplace where people are respected across race, ethnicity, national origin, religion or nonreligion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, age, family structure, and other aspects of identity and lived experience. That includes natural hair, protective hairstyles, personal expression, and the many ways people show up as themselves.
We welcome educators from diverse backgrounds and seek talented people who share our commitment to children, thoughtful teaching, collaboration, and belonging.
Community & Belonging Stories
Throughout the year, children encounter new people, stories, traditions, perspectives, and experiences. See some of the ways community and belonging come to life at WHPS.
A School Where Children Know They Belong
We want children to know who they are, feel secure in who they are, and grow up curious about people whose lives and experiences differ from their own. That is the kind of belonging we work to build every day.