Bringing a Core Value to Life: The Upper School TIDE Student Leadership Group

TIDE students speak at a parent panel in February.

By Ryan Wood

St. Margaret’s junior Abby Sun, a member of the Upper School’s Tartan Inclusion and Diversity Education (TIDE) student leadership group, was asked about the hard work TIDE students have embraced this school year during a recent parent-education panel with the St. Margaret’s community. 

“The only way to make change,” she said, “is to be actively involved in it.”

“Actively involved” is certainly an apt description for those in TIDE, one of seven student leadership groups in St. Margaret’s Upper School. Led by Director of Equity and Inclusion Victor Cota, TIDE is made up of 17 Upper School students who represent many different backgrounds and identities. For many of them, their desire to join TIDE is personal—a unique background compared to their peers, a passion for spreading empathy, a pursuit of a sense of belonging not only for themselves but for all St. Margaret’s students. 

TIDE students have invested fully in their work this school year, something Mr. Cota calls inspiring.  

Mr. Cota shares, “For years, the young people who have joined TIDE have done so because they believe deeply in honoring the dignity of every human being and the shaping a school experience where every Tartan is known and loved. This year’s group is no exception, but they have taken this charge to a whole new level. I am utterly amazed by their passion for impacting their Tartan community, including parents and younger peers. It’s a special thing to watch young people extend beyond themselves to make a change in others’ lives.”

While TIDE meets with Mr. Cota during a regular block to discuss current events, social-justice issues and conduct dialogue about important equity topics, TIDE makes a more visible impact when it reaches out to the school community. And this year, there are plenty of examples. 

TIDE students partnered with a grade 3 class to engage in a three-part workshop series on kindness, compassion, and belonging. The TIDE students shared scenarios that they remember from their own elementary school experiences and processed the skills of resiliency and upstander behavior. In grade 6, students took part in a heritage feast day, the culmination of an interdisciplinary unit where students learn more about their family history and culture and prepare a family recipe as part of a grade-wide potluck. This year, senior and TIDE leader Luciana Varkevisser joined the festivities, sharing her family’s heritage and celebrating the work grade 6 students were doing. And in grade 8, TIDE students partnered with digital mentors and a subset of Upper School student leaders to visit the Middle School advisories and engage in a scenario workshop.

A TIDE Talk in the Upper School.

TIDE students also participated in a panel with professional community members as part of an in-service session around DEI and social justice in September. They have led ongoing “TIDEtalks” in the Upper School, which are student-to-student discourse opportunities centered around certain topics in the news. There was a parent-education panel in February, in which a majority of TIDE students participated and shared their perspectives and experiences around DEI work at St. Margaret’s and beyond.  

TIDE students also lead programming around various cultural events, including holidays like Diwali and Lunar New Year and annual celebrations such as Hispanic Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Pride Week. 

Away from St. Margaret’s, six TIDE students traveled to San Antonio to attend the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference in December, and two more joined a St. Margaret’s delegation at the Pollyanna Conference in San Diego.

It is all part of TIDE’s ongoing effort to bring to life St. Margaret’s strategic focus and core value around equity and inclusion, in which the school strives to “embrace and celebrate the identity of every human being while advocating for equity, inclusion and justice.”

 It’s a core value that TIDE students have embraced—and have worked hard to see realized.  

“It brings me so much joy to see people feeling like they belong here at St. Margaret’s,” TIDE student Leo Kitaen said at the parent-education panel. “That’s a community that I want to be a part of.”