Pride Month: Shining A Light On KIPP Philly’s LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group
Kira White has made an impact inside and outside of their school building since they joined the KIPP Philadelphia team. Kira is a social worker at KIPP West Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School and helped create KIPP’s LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group (ERG) to further enhance KIPP Philly’s commitment to effective and diverse teams. Kira uses the pronouns they, them, and theirs.
Kira says the group works to create a safe space for KIPP’s LGBTQIA+ community because “it still is difficult to come to work and have to come out to people making assumptions about your gender or sexuality.” The group is not just about supporting staff and teachers, but students as well. This year the ERG helped support and grow the Gay Straight Alliance Club at our high school KIPP DuBois Collegiate Academy.
With nearly a dozen employees in the group, they are bringing together KIPP teachers and staff who identify under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella and those who support the community. KIPP’s LGBTQIA+ ERG is one of the many employee resource groups at KIPP Philly that have developed and grown with the leadership and thought partnership of our KIPP Philadelphia Director of Equity and Cultural Proficiency, Danielle Cooper-Williams.
Kira and KIPP Philly social workers met with organizations like the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to learn more about how to create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable talking about sexual identities. Kira says the goal for the ERG moving forward, is to focus on defining what the group means to those involved and the region. It also plans to educate and offer more resources to KIPP students, staff and families about the LGBTQIA+ community.
