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
We review curriculum so children encounter a broad range of voices, histories, cultures, identities, and experiences. In practice, that can be as simple as learning to consider whose perspective they are hearing, whose might be missing, and how another person might understand the same event differently.
Books & Materials That Expand the Story
Our classroom and library collections are reviewed and expanded so children can see themselves reflected in what they read while also encountering lives and perspectives beyond their own.
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
Families broaden the life of the school by sharing traditions, perspectives, community connections, and ideas that help shape authentic experiences across WHPS.
A Commitment to Growth
This work is ongoing. We listen, learn, revisit our practices, and make changes as our community and our understanding grow.
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 are only part of the story. WHPS includes LGBTQ+ families and educators, neurodivergent children and adults, multilingual and international families, families of many faiths and no faith, and many different family structures, cultures, abilities, identities, and life experiences. We do not attempt to quantify all of these dimensions in the demographic data above, but they are important parts of who we are and bring perspectives and experiences that enrich our community.
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
WHPS invests in ongoing professional learning that helps educators recognize bias, understand different identities and learning profiles, and build classrooms where every child feels respected and known.
Professional learning has included Responsive Classroom, anti-bias education, neurodiversity-informed practices, and other training connected to the needs of our students and community.
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.