New Enhancements to Support a Diverse and Inclusive Community
Effective August 1, 2022

EMA is committed to creating an inclusive community for our members, families, and students.

To support this goal, EMA will enhance how we collect data on our platforms. Starting August 1, families and students will be allowed to select expanded options for nonbinary gender, race, and ethnicity. These changes are a continuation of a mindful integration that began with last year's introduction of the Mx. prefix options.

After receiving guidance from outside experts, EMA aligned with U.S. Census and National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) standards for the collection of the data to improve consistency with national standards.

We have also been working closely with the enrollment management software providers that integrate with EMA products to understand their requirements and ensure they will be prepared to adopt our new data fields. Through these steps, we hope to provide a smooth transition for our schools to receive more comprehensive data that will support their needs. Regardless of whether schools receive the data from the integration partners or the EMA Member Access Portal, all can obtain the new data in the PDF and CSV files accurately and consistently.

Parents and students will now be able to share more specific demographic information with schools when creating their account on the EMA family portal using the following new and updated fields:

• Parent and Student Pronouns
• Gender
• Sex at Birth
• Race
• Ethnicity
• First Language
• Faith-Based Affiliations

Also starting August 1, the newly expanded options will enable families to self-select their school-gender preferences and feel better represented in SAO applications, SSAT and Snapshot reporting, and the Student Prospect Lists.