District 204 celebrates 15 years of advancing diversity, excellence

A group that has been working to advance equity and excellence of all students in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 celebrated 15 years of promoting diversity Thursday night.

Advancement is the key word in the group's mission, chairwoman Saily Joshi said. The Parent Diversity Advisory Council, known as PDAC, exists not only to encourage strong academic performance among a diverse student population, but to keep improving and advancing with overall excellence as a goal.

"We want to remind ourselves that we are a force for change and betterment," Joshi said about the membership of the parent group that formed in 2002, when the district began to notice shifting demographics.

Democratic Rep. Bill Foster, who represents the District 204 area in parts of Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield, called the PDAC "a vaccine that was administered against intolerance."

After 15 years, the district's diversity has advanced to the point it only narrowly has a majority population.

Of the district's 28,500 students, 50.6 percent are white, 24.5 percent are Asian, 10.9 percent are Hispanic, 9.2 percent are black, 4.5 percent are multiracial and 0.2 percent are Native Americans and Pacific Islanders.

But diversity extends far past racial, ethnic or cultural lines, said present and past PDAC leaders and district administrators.

"We need to acknowledged we're all individuals and we're all different so therefore we're all diverse," said Sandra Charles, past PDAC chairwoman.

How to accept and embrace diversity needs to remain at the top of mind no matter how varied the district's population, she said.

"The conversation and the intentional action needs to continue all the time," Charles said.

So as PDAC members celebrated 15 years of promoting equity among diversity, they also celebrated actions schools have taken this year to ensure students are welcomed and diversity is appreciated. For example, Hill Middle School is growing its "Hill 'n Beans" coffee shop, in which students with disabilities take coffee orders to faculty every Friday.

White Eagle Elementary School revived its PDAC committee with weekly meetings and strengthened its buddy program pairing fifth-graders with new students as they get used to the school environment.

Fry Elementary School had more than 800 people attend its international night and has brought in parents from different countries to talk about education in their native land.

Waubonsie Valley High School launched an after-school club called Amplify to get kids talking - through authentic sharing in a respectful environment - about race, privilege and ethnicity.

Metea Valley High School opened its classroom doors to parents in a program called Metea Life Connect, which helped a diverse group of parents support their kids by understanding what education looks like these days.

"The strength of diversity," former District 204 Superintendent Howie Crouse said, "is in the kids even more than the adults."