At The Field Semester, we believe that meaningful education requires deep reflection, responsibility, and accountability to the land and communities we serve. We are actively engaging in intentional work and creating meaningful acknowledgments on the following topics, understanding that this is an ongoing process, reflection, and dialogue:

Land Acknowledgement

We are carefully crafting a Land Acknowledgement that honors Indigenous Peoples on whose land our school will reside, the original and first peoples who stewarded this land since time immemorial. We recognize and respect that the school will be centered on/in and with Napian/Karquin Ohlone, Bay Miwok/Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Land, thus our acknowledgement plans to go beyond words, seeking to create relationships and reciprocal actions that respect Indigenous sovereignty, Land and knowledge.

Ancestral History

Our school community will be gathered and homed on the ancestral lands of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Napian/Karquin Ohlone Peoples, and Bay Miwok Peoples. These communities have endured generations of displacement, from the Spanish mission system to unratified treaties and U.S. land seizures. Their continued presence and pursuit of land return and recognition ground our responsibility to this place—and to the deeper truths that shape it.

Obligations and Responsibilities

Our community is committed to understanding the obligations we carry in our work—toward the land, its full history and truths, and its future. We are examining how these responsibilities shape our actions and relationships with students, staff, and local and broader communities.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity is a value we aim to lean into—one that guides how we relate with land, with each other, and in community. It asks us to listen, to give with care, and to be responsible for how we show up. We’re in the ongoing work of understanding what it means to practice and embody reciprocity in everything we do.

Ethical Land Practices

We are developing a framework for ethical land practices that guides how we interact with and care for the land. This involves creating principles that reflect respect of its original caretakers, and a commitment to how we move forward as an educational space that seeks to center ethical land practices.

Here and Beyond

We honor the power and beauty of relation-making and deep collaboration. In this spirit, we recognize and uplift the interconnected relationships among Indigenous Peoples across geo-political boundaries and settler-imposed borders. These relationships are growing in emergent and organic ways, shaped by trust, reciprocity, and shared purpose. We remain committed to nurturing them and finding meaningful ways to stay in good relation with our friends and collaborators.

Accountability Statement

We are drafting an Accountability Statement that holds our school and all its members responsible for ensuring that our actions align with our stated values of stewardship and regenerative place-based learning.