Prep for Prep Launches Student Affinity Groups

Recognizing a need for affinity spaces after Prep for Prep students enter independent schools, Prep launched affinity groups to create supportive places for students to gather based on shared identities. Hosted remotely over Zoom, year-round affinity groups create opportunities for students to connect across contingents and from both day and boarding schools. Prep alum Xiomara Hall (P9 I), the Director of Enrollment Management at The Chapin School and Trainer with the Center for Racial Justice in Education, conducted training sessions for all staff facilitators. 

In these safe spaces, students can engage with their identity, discuss current events, and reflect on their relationships with their communities and each other. The launch of affinity groups was enthusiastically received by Prep students. Over forty students and ten Prep staff met before the Thanksgiving break to get to know each other at the first sessions and set up community guidelines. Some students in the South Asian heritage group shared that Prep’s affinity group was the first one they encountered that recognized and disaggregated their identity from a monolithic Asian group, and they are excited to engage with others over shared experiences. Groups offered to students include: LGBTQIA+, Black and African Heritage, Latinx Heritage, Asian and Asian Pacific Islander Heritage, South Asian Heritage, and Multiracial Heritage groups. Sessions are held on different dates and times so that students who identify with more than one group can attend multiple gatherings.

Ivan Tatis, Director of Counseling at Prep for Prep, remarked that this initiative was a direct result of listening to student feedback and redirecting resources during an unprecedented year. “Usually, the Counseling team hosts middle school weekend activities, boarding school retreats, holiday parties, and other programs that created and enhanced connections between students. With the pandemic, we were unable to welcome all contingents back into a common physical space. We shifted our focus and our funding to create meaningful virtual spaces to encourage connection in a time of isolation and stress for many of our students.”