Summer 2023 Spotlight
The San Diego and Riverside Regional Academy is well underway for Cohort 2 planning and recruitment. We are thrilled to announce our 21CSLA Conference on July 27: Learn. Lead. Liberate. | Centering BIPOC Youth in Education.
Our goal is to make Learn. Lead. Liberate. a community-building and networking space. We believe that to change inequitable educational systems, we can’t lead alone. This conference is just the start of the building of communities of practice where role-alike leaders can share resources and learning with each other. Participants will learn ways to strength liberatory practices and remove barriers in order to foster communities that honor BIPOC students, parents, and staff.
- Hear from students as well as innovative leaders in the field, such as Zaretta Hammond, Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Dr. Sharroky Hollie, Michael Fullan, and partners such as WestEd, ‘ataaxum Pomkwaan, Reality Changers, Lumos Transforms, and more!
- Build community with others in your shoes.
- Walk away with both inspiration and tools to support your implementation.
Additionally, we are bringing in BIPOC health and wellness providers from the communities we serve to host a Wellness Lounge/Playground. LAEP’s CORE work is deeply committed to empowering educators to create environments that promote resilience and healing so that we can reduce burnout and secondary trauma for both educators and those they serve. This helps leaders remain and thrive in their profession, supporting at-promise students and creating equitable educational environments. Hosting a physical space that promotes wellbeing at the conference while stretching and growing in our learning as equitable leaders acknowledges that we can’t have one without the other.
Registration and accommodations are FREE for leaders in Imperial, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties. Please join us to learn with leaders who are creating educational climates in which BIPOC students thrive. Together, let’s build empowered learning communities that foster access and liberation for all.
Spring 2023 Spotlight
As we enter the second part of the school year, our Regional Academy has been focusing heavily on building partnerships in our region to support the 21CSLA work. One of these partnerships is the K–12 Math Leadership Book Study with Dr. Kyndall Brown. The Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) initially requested this work because one of their priorities for the year is to support leaders in fostering equitable math instruction. Together we co-planned the launch of their RCOE math collaborative — school and teacher leaders who meet regularly to discuss their problem of practices around implementing equitable math instruction. The "Choosing to See: A Framework for Equity in the Math Classroom" book study series was the launchpad and glue for this math collaborative in its first year.
The book study series expanded to other Regional Academies across the state, and in partnership with Mid-State and ValCo and we will be finishing the series in May.
Participants are naming the following strengths of this COP in their evaluations:
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Exploring the additional resources that I can share with teachers and the opportunity to collaborate around this content with others from different locations
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Walking away with two strategies that I can introduce to teachers right away.
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The book is amazing and the powerful discussions that allow a safe place to be transparent and reflect on your practice
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The breakout sessions and reviewing resources that strengthen the message of what and how to create culturally relevant pedagogy
Looking ahead, we are excited to launch our Equity Audit Community of Practice, in partnership with the National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST). After reviewing applications, five schools were chosen in our region to receive NCUST’s Equity and ExcellenceAudit that will provide clear, practical recommendations that will leverage school strengths and highlight the most important improvement opportunities. Coaches will support the school’s leadership team in reviewing the reports and understanding the recommendations. This will happen through a pre-visit planning session with the schools, an on-site visit, report development, and we will be hosting a retreat for them in June with the goal of taking the recommendations from their work into practice for the fall.
Our Regional Academy is looking forward to seeing the results and impact that these partnerships have with our participants and further opportunities to expand these partnerships into Cohort 2!