Friends Forward

The SPICES acronym has long helped Quaker schools highlight core testimonies and values, but does this distillation fully reflect what is central to your school’s mission, priorities, and daily practice? This session shares the process DVFriends School undertook to develop its own Faith and Practice, including core testimonies and queries, to more fully reflect its identity as both a Quaker school and a school for students who learn differently. Participants will explore the rationale for this work at this moment in the School’s history, how the Quaker Life Committee led a collaborative process of discernment and development, and how the resulting Faith and Practice is being used with students, faculty, staff, and trustees to deepen a shared understanding of Quaker identity. Participants will engage with selected testimonies and queries from DVFriends and consider how similar work might take shape in their own school communities.