Taking it Personal: Leading for Systemic Change

Shared Resources

• Session Slides

• Dismantling Racism and White Supremacy Culture

• The Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership

• Boston Teachers Union Resolution for Building an Anti-Racist Union

Thursday, October 22nd
6:00 - 8:00 PM EST / 3:00 - 5:00 PM PST

Our institutions of public education are deeply intertwined with our public health, political, and economic systems. The intersections of education with so many aspects of our lives make the success of our schools deeply personal for all of us. From beginning to end, the change we seek for systems stems from the transformative engagement of individuals who take systemic change personally. Yet, too often, education leaders see themselves as dispassionate technical interventionists without thinking about or being supported to develop the capacities necessary to lead in the multifaceted space of public education. Beyond technical education expertise, leading for educational equity and justice requires the organizing capacities of trusting community expertise, agitating toward social justice values, building power to make change, and developing the leadership of others. Hear from systems leaders and/or changemakers who take it personal and have adopted some of these capacities as they respond to questions like: What do you do, how do you do it, where has it worked, how has it failed, and how can we learn from your work to support a social justice vision for schools in our local contexts? How do you collaborate to improve the education system for students, families, and communities?

#PoliceFreeSchools Are Possible: Lessons from Grassroots Organizing Leading the Movement to Abolish School Police

Friday, October 23rd
3:00 - 4:30 PM EST / 12:00 - 1:30 PM PST

For decades, Black students and students of color and their families have been organizing to end the criminalization and policing of young people in schools across the country. After years of bold and consistent organizing and amidst uprisings against police violence, the movement for #PoliceFreeSchools is gaining momentum and winning. From Oakland, to San Francisco, Denver to Madison, Milwaukee, and Rochester, organizers are terminating school policing contracts, eliminating school police departments, and defunding school policing programs that criminalize and push students into the criminal legal system. Fights to remove police from schools, grounded in police abolition, are happening in all of our cities – generating a new vision for the safety and wellbeing of school communities. Join organizers for a discussion on lessons learned and explore the roles students, families, educators and school leaders can play in building a liberatory education system free of policing. We know that police-free schools is not the end of struggle, but the beginning.

Schools That Work for Us

SHARED Resources

• The Schools That Work for Us Framework

Friday, October 23rd
3:00 - 4:00 PM EST / 12:00 - 1:00 PM PST

Schools That Work for Us (STWFU) is a framework for thinking comprehensively about school transformation and what needs to be taken down and what needs to be (re)built in order for schools to be sites of true growth, development, and freedom for Black and Brown young people. The framework was developed in 2018 when young people from New London, CT compiled 6 years of Hearing Youth Voices (HYV) research and data that had been collected via surveys, interviews, and hundreds of youth meetings since 2012. Organized around 8 themes—Mental Health, Relationships, Freedom to be and to Move, Full Safety, Teaching and Learning, Collective Power, The Struggle, and Resources—STWFU is a guide that we can all use as we dig into the necessary work of re-designing our society’s institutions so that they are infused with anti-racist and anti-poverty policies and practices. This session features leaders (now HYV alumni) who helped develop the framework, as well as current HYV youth leaders who are organizing in their communities to make Schools That Work for Us a reality.

Portland Empowered: Shared Space Cafés

Shared Resources

• Session Slides

• Shared Space Café Toolkit

• Portland Empowered Family Engagement Manifesto (video)

• Portland Empowered Parent Engagement Partners (video)

• Portland Board of Public Education School and Family Partnership Policy

Friday, October 23rd
3:00 - 4:30 PM EST / 12:00 - 1:30 PM PST

Parents and families need to be in contact with their children’s school and to understand the school system in order to make an impact on education policies, practices, and decisions. In Portland, Maine—a small city that has over sixty languages in its schools—Portland Empowered and the Portland Public Schools have implemented Shared Space Cafés. With Shared Space Cafés, parents plan, design, lead, and facilitate conversations in their native languages in small groups that include both other parents and school staff. Interpretation is typically provided primarily for school staff to allow them to understand non-English conversations. Born out of parent organizing efforts, Shared Space Cafés have become important forums for Portland Empowered staff and organizers and Portland Public Schools educators to hear concerns and dreams of parents and families when it comes to education. In this workshop, panelists from Portland Empowered and Portland Public Schools share the origins and history of Shared Space Cafés and discuss some of the lessons learned.

Culturally Responsive Leadership

Friday, October 23rd
7:00 - 8:30 PM EST / 4:00 - 5:30 PM PST

Education leaders play a crucial role in identifying and addressing inequities in schools and school systems. To do that work effectively, what do leaders need to know and be able to do? In this workshop, Nancy Gutiérrez from The Leadership Academy will present a list of six equity-focused leadership dispositions that The Leadership Academy embeds into their Culturally Responsive Leadership Framework that are crucial for leaders to build a path toward creating a school community by, with, and for every student. The presentation is followed by a panel discussion with three school principals about how they push for/prioritize equity in schools, what barriers they face, and how organizing dispositions can help overcome them.