About
Episcopal Identity
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
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Families of Color Gathering
St. Andrew's Diversity Statement of Purpose
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is committed to building a beloved community of learning that embraces diversity, champions justice, and honors the dignity of every human being.
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Local Partnerships
- Breakthrough Central Texas
- Con Mi MADRE
- Out Youth
- Posada Esperanza
- Austin Interfaith
- Annual Black Composers Concert
- El Buen Samaritano
- Austin Peace Academy
- Asian American Resource Center
- Refugee Services of Texas
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Beloved Communities Small Groups
Read MoreBeloved Community small groups meet throughout the year with the intent to bring together St. Andrew's families with shared experiences and to foster relationships.
Read on to view our 2024-25 Beloved Community Small Groups.
Interested in joining a small group? Contact Kendall Evans! -
Celebrations
Honoring the culture and heritage of our own community and the community at large is one of the many ways that we live into our diversity mission statement. Below is a sampling of some of our community events; our monthly division-specific newsletter will inform you of these during the school year.DiwaliLas PosadasBlack History MonthAsian American Heritage MonthRamadanPride WeekLunar New YearRosh Hashanah -
Sample Projects and Curriculum
Read MoreOur Lower and Middle School curriculum is guided by the principal qualities that distinguish us as an Episcopal School. Our Baptismal Covenant upholds us, and Episcopal Schools are created to “strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.”Kindergarten: A few grade-level outcomes might include knowing when people are treated unfairly and joining with classmates to make our classroom fair for everyone.
First Grade: A few grade-level outcomes might include feeling good about themselves without being mean and seeing that the way their family does things is both the same as and different from how other families do things.
Second Grade:A few grade-level outcomes might include knowing that groups of people believe different things and live their daily lives in different ways and being around people who are like themselves and different from themselves and being friendly to everyone.
Third Grade: A few grade-level outcomes might include feeling good about one’s own identity without making someone else feel badly about who they are and knowing people who are like me and different from me, and I treat each person with respect.
4th Grade: A few grade-level outcomes might include knowing how to advocate for what is right and just in our world and learning to ask questions respectfully while actively listening.
5th Grade: Project Impact is a year-long band that studies different aspects of global issues and encourages students to develop some ideas and solutions to them. A few grade level outcomes are leaning into difficult challenges and learning from failure as well as engaging in creative problem solving.
6th - 8th Grade: Through advisory, our Middle School students engage in monthly programming around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. For example, a topic explored might be Combating Antisemitism. The 6th graders might discuss different forms of antisemitism, 7th graders might engage in role-playing to think through recent incidents of antisemitism, and 8th graders might read through recent incidents and statistics of antisemitism and discuss ways that they can make a positive impact on their own community.9th Grade: Courageous Conversation training (with ongoing practice in the Freshman Seminar class)
10th & 11th Grade English: Examples of books that make up the SAS canon include, but are not limited to, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
11th Grade Data Project: Examples of investigated topics include everything from The Rodney King Trial to The Evolution of Birth Control; from The Effects of Desegregation in Texas to The Protests of the Miss America Beauty Pageant by Women of Color.12th Grade Senior Project: Previous examples of senior projects with a DEIB theme include, but are not limited to, Project DOC (Diversity of Campus); The Young Black Male Mental State: An Interview Series; Ramadan: A children’s book written and illustrated for youth at the Islamic Center of Lake Travis; and Faith Through A Lens: Using photography to capture the overlaps and variances of multiple belief systems. -
Parent Inclusion Committee (PIC)
This group, formerly known as FOCUS, was started in 2015 to serve as a place for members of the school community to connect over a common goal; namely, to thoughtfully engage in the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). If you are a parent or guardian who believes that the holistic development of your child should involve an intentional ‘focus’ on the work of DEIB and that learning based on academics, art, athletics, and service alone do not a whole child make, then we invite you to reach out to us so that you can find out how to get involved.Several school-sponsored PIC events and receptions take place each year, but more frequent gatherings initiated by parents are encouraged as well. Additionally, there are several DEIB education groups on campus that are doing great work to help actualize the DEIB mission. Whether institutional or grassroots, planned or organic, PIC is a place for anyone who considers scholarship, inquiry, and active participation related to cultural literacy as vital to the health of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Episcopal Identity
At St. Andrew’s, our Episcopal Identity is rooted in the pursuit of Jesus’ encouragement to “Go and do likewise.”
The Parable of the Good Samaritan, occurring in the Gospel of St. Luke 10:25-37, recounts the origin of the “Golden Rule” that we recall as “Treat others as you want to be treated.”
An excellent sentiment, but not quite accurate, and not quite as excellent as Jesus invites us to be.
In a conversation with a lawyer educated in the Law (the laws of the covenant with God), Jesus answers the scribe’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” with two questions. His first is “What does the Law say?”
The scribe recites Scripture, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’”
“Do this, and you will live,” Jesus replies.
In a conversation with a lawyer educated in the Law (the laws of the covenant with God), Jesus answers the scribe’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” with two questions. His first is “What does the Law say?”
The scribe recites Scripture, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’”
“Do this, and you will live,” Jesus replies.
The imperative to love as abundantly and graciously as God does is not a stumbling block for the man. However, he can’t resist asking, “But who is my neighbor?”
Jesus relates the parable of a man who is left behind and ignored by all those who should care for him when he is most in need. It’s the surprise candidate of a Samaritan man who cares for him abundantly - addressing his immediate needs, those of his near future, and promises to return and keep caring for him.
After the story ends, Jesus asks the lawyer his final question: “Who was a neighbor?”
The man correctly answers, and Jesus says “Go and do likewise.”
The man correctly answers, and Jesus says “Go and do likewise.”
The pursuit of love, the initiative to care for others, and the moral impetus to do all the good we can whenever and wherever we can is not about living into the lawyer’s question of “Who is my neighbor?” It’s about living into Jesus’ question, “Who’s neighbor are you?”
At St. Andrew’s, our Episcopal Identity is rooted in the pursuit of Jesus’ encouragement to “Go and do likewise.”
To discover a life of purpose and our purpose in life, we must look first to the gifts we have to share with each and every person and understand that each and every person we encounter has life-giving gifts to share with us.
In our faithful attempt to go and do likewise, we are educating and caring for students who will uphold and respect the dignity of every human by being good neighbors and global citizens.
- The Reverend Whitney Kirby
- The Reverend Whitney Kirby
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$3 million
awarded in financial aid to 135 students -
32%
of students self-identify as racially diverse -
Over 28
religious affiliations
