10:00 - 11:00 a.m. Pre-Conference Session#1
A Global Perspective: Exploring the Intersection of Diversity and Inclusion with Education
Dialogues around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are often centered on the United States, when, in reality, DEI initiatives also affect a much larger global population. In recent times, the pandemic has globalized the education community even further. There is also so much we can learn from different perspectives around the world who are working on DEI beyond a US-centric model, and to bring those lessons back to our work - wherever that may be. This panel provides space for all of us to understand how we can ensure accessible opportunities for an increasingly global population while deepening our skills and knowledge to successfully support various communities of color and more diverse groups. We aim to provide an opportunity for individuals to engage in conversation with former Equity and Inclusion Fellows and current practitioners around the world to expand the DEI perspective beyond the U.S. and to connect these learnings back to their own context and practice. Our Panelists are 3 individuals who work independently or with organizations to create and implement DEI initiatives in spaces connected to education across various regions of the world. In bringing together these different perspectives of the panelists, we hope to create a dynamic and robust conversation around DEI across the world.
Presented by: Prerna Subramanian, Jiezhen Wu, Amélie J. Mariage, Archana Iyer, Jonathan M.B. Bright
11:00 - 11:45 a.m. Pre-Conference Session #2
Healing Through Movement
Healing through movement is an ancestral return. Who were we before the trauma? It is the call for individual bodies to heal in community and create the critical mass that moves in liberation. Let us show gratitude and celebrate our bodies for the resiliency shown in the face of a double pandemic. This interactive Zumba class will introduce participants to body movements/routines that can be used daily for the individual, and shared with the educational community that they serve.
With: Bri Braswell
1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Breakout Sessions #1
Love, Grace, and Hope: Towards Human A Centered Leadership Practice
Traditional leadership models explicitly avoid talking about love, hope, and grace. However, research has shown that exemplary leaders share these principles as core values. Professional culture dismisses these words as “nice-to-haves” but they are critically important. Contemporary leadership context sits at an enlarged leadership table. Now, there is room for less western, traditionally feminized principles like love, hope, and grace. Together we will explore what it means to return to human-centered leadership and come away with practices to ground your work.
Presented by: Ebonée Green and Xiaohoa Ching
Race, Access and Ability: The Intersecting Inequities of Remote Learning in a Pandemic
In this panel, special education staff, teachers, curriculum leaders, and coaches will engage in critical dialogue about the intersecting inequalities impacting K-12 students of color during the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, panelists will discuss the intersections of race, ability and access to education. Panelists will discuss the barriers that students of color have been facing in the virtual learning environment including but limited to access to computer devices, wifi and internet service, and special education services. Panelists share and explore ways in which communities of color have come together in creative ways to remove barriers to access for students of color.
Presented by: Sheliza Jamal, Ielaf Altoma, James EO Hankin II, Bre Lynn Lombard
Naming Anti-Blackness or Whiteness? Using Children's Literature to Address Racism and Foster Agency for Transformative Justice in Educational Settings
Recent anti-racist educational materials on anti-Blackness show a disproportionate ratio of resources directed towards white constituents--particularly white educators and children. Framing the conversation around anti-Blackness invisibly centers whiteness and continues to benefit and mask white bonus, an unearned racial preference conferred on white people. Conversely, anti-Blackness, in and of itself, is deficit-laden for a Black child when encountering this term or when using it as a frame of analysis. This presentation will discuss how children’s literature can develop BIPOC children’s metacognitive lens and critical thinking, to learn the “whole” stories of their past and present, counter the impact of historical racism, reaffirm positive identities, and build their capacity to bring about transformative justice and change. Disrupting white supremacy needs to go hand in hand with building agency and resilience in BIPOC children, even as anti-Blackness is deployed as a tool of analysis and action.
Presented by: Divya Anand, Ph.D. and Laura Hsu, Ed.D.
The Privilege of Grief: Interrupting the Relationship between Privilege and Grief
Black and brown people are not afforded the “right” to grieve. What is the privilege of grief? And what do safe spaces for grieving look like in our schools and our communities? In this session, we will explore how chosen network communities can help Black and brown people to create a supportive safety net, and how these systems of support can provide communal healing.
Presented by: Shannon Hawkins
A Community-Driven, Culturally Sustaining Approach to Change Management in Schools
For a system to be resilient and prioritize equity, it must empower families, students, educators, and system leaders to work together to establish a north star and utilize processes to nurture innovation, codify best practices based on research and local context, and scale intentionally. Malika Ali, Managing Partner at The Highlander Institute, will share how a community-driven approach to change management coupled with a culturally sustaining pedagogical framework are building the capacity of school communities to manage learning through a pandemic.
Presented by: Malika Ali
Decolonizing “niceness” in HDFS coursework: Counterstories from Black and Brown Texas family scholars during a double pandemic
We are three Black and Latina women (two doctoral students and one junior faculty member) in a Human Development and Family Studies and Counseling (HDFS&C) program at a public woman’s university in Texas. We reflect on the challenges and lessons learned during a doctoral-level HDFS research course taught by A.V. that introduced T.M. and M.C. to critical discourse methodology as an alternative framework for exposing dominant constructions of Black males and Black families in online discourses of school discipline. We situate these reflections in the context of a socially distant online learning environment and the chronic racial battle fatigue experienced in the wake of a racial justice consciousness-raising movement.
Presented by: Azucena Verdín, Ph.D.; Monique Coleman, MSW; Trenise Mims, M.Ed.
We Need to Talk (about Us): Asian American Immunity in Viral Times
Presented by: Carole Hsaio, PhD, Community Educator, Honolulu HI
The Digital Divide Blown Wide Open: Issues impacting Black, Indigenous, and Learners of Color during the COVID-19 pandemic
At AOCC 2020 during my tabling session, I presented attendees with research on the then-current state of online learning, digital learning management systems, and issues of equity and inclusion that were pervasive in the field in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. This session highlighted the growing equity divide in online education. Less than a month later, millions of students were forcibly thrust into virtual learning. In this session, I will revisit some of that research through our current understandings and realities, and seek to highlight where we are finding hope and strength in certain online learning practices, and where we desperately need action to combat inequities now. Attendees of this session will learn more about how the field of instructional design has responded to our current global crisis, and will discuss how to begin tackling some of the most pertinent issues in online education moving forward.
Presented by: Lorenzo Garza
2:40 - 3:40 Breakout Sessions #2
Reset + ReCONNECT: Protecting Your Peace, and Processing Anti-Black Racism and Injustice
The goal of this online speaker and elevation session is for attendees to process anti-Black racism and injustice in this nation, and explore tools to find joy and protect your peace during these difficult times. Now dealing with the rise of internet fatigue, we have created an intentionally supportive online space for some much-needed self-care, powerful reflection, and collective healing. This season of uncertainty proves that joy and grief can be carried together. However, the senseless violence against Black men, women, and children, and other acts of terrorism can take our grief to an unbearable level, and many suffer in silence and relive the pain of our nation's troubled past daily. We address our harsh realities that are widely ignored, and highlight the resilience within our community, celebrate our existence, affirm our power, and share peace-preserving practices and tools to dismantle anti-black racism.
Presented by: Sharnetta David, Ed.M. '14
Building Educational Equity: The Similarities Between the Dual Language Education Movement and Houston’s School Desegregation Movement & Why the Same Strategies Work
A health pandemic and a pandemic of racism wove together in 2020 to create the perfect opportunity to undermine the legal rights of brown students in a variety of districts throughout New England where Dual Language programs were threatened. Excuses such as budget crunches caused by the mishandling of the health pandemic, inability to find new teachers during a global health crisis, or the inequity caused to monolingual (largely White) teachers were all used as excuses to dismantle existing programs. Dual Language Education is often not recognized as a social justice movement, so in this interactive workshop, I propose to first, demonstrate the role systemic racism plays against Dual Language (DL) programming by establishing Dual Language programming as the only research-based program proven to close the opportunity gap for English Learners and then, by comparing the struggle to establish and maintain Dual Language programs to school desegration movements. Finally, I demonstrate how Windham Public Schools, a mid-sized urban district in Connecticut, was able to show resilience and protect their Dual Language programming.
Prsented by: Dr. Aradhana Mudambi
Central American Perspectives in Education: Diaspora & Healing
Join us for this community session, which will bring together Central American educators at HGSE and beyond in familia. We will highlight their experiences as people of Central American diasporas in the U.S., the power and influence of their communities and homes on their work, and their visions towards justice and healing. We hope to share resources with attendees about how they can get involved and contribute to different advocacy groups currently leading work with immigrant and Central American communities.
Presented by: Diana Acosta, Claribel Aguilar Whyte, Silvana Rueda, Hector Cendejas, Martha Franco, Sharon Figueroa Argueta, Aharisi Bonner, Daniela Castro
Balancing Two Worlds During a Pandemic: Indigenous Scholars Interrogating Specialized Education Services
The presentation will contribute to understanding the distinct pathways for Indigenous scholars to examine PK-12 students with disabilities, inclusive education, and special education services. The presenters will each discuss their own situated knowledges, share their understandings of indigeneity and the westernized academy, and collectively present the challenges experienced by Indigenous special education teachers who transitioned to graduate students during a pandemic. The presenters will discuss their blooming collaboration and the support system they created to enhance Indigenous ways of knowing to interrogate specialized education services.
Presented by: Rae Tewa, Nicole Begay, Dr. Mildred Boveda
Raising Our Voices, Uplifting Black Children
This workshop will engage participants in meaningful conversations and activities surrounding creating and providing support for black youth (and youth of color) while actively acknowledging and addressing the ongoing racial unrest taking place nationally and globally. Participants should enter this space ready to continue thinking critically about how they can use their positions of privilege and power under white supremacy in order to support black youth and their classmates/peers. Participants will also have the opportunity to connect with each other as thought partners for developing concrete ideas and strategies for supporting youth and sustaining their resilience under the "double pandemic" that has exacerbated existing challenges to educational and racial equity in the K-12 sector.
Presented by: Nana Adu, EdM '20
Who Writes the Checks? How Funds are Distributed in the Education System
In this session, we will engage in dialogue around how COVID-19 has shifted the funding equation for educational institutions serving communities of color, with particular attention to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy. We will discuss how America’s racial crises have forced a reckoning within the world of philanthropy, with the potential to upend traditional ways of operating in major funding decisions for youth of color. Panelists will examine philanthropy’s role in the K-12, higher education, and youth service sectors through the lens of DEI, with special consideration of the impact on and implications for students of color. Participants will leave better equipped to enact lasting change in their communities and in their work.
Presented by: Ruyi Lu, Allyson Reaves, Maria Griffin, Portia Fullard, Kelly Truong, Ashley Meruani
Resilience in the Face of Multiple Realities: Impact of COVID-19 on LAUSD High School Students
High school students from LAUSD present their experiences through the pandemic and the impact on their academics and personal lives. Students will show a short film of them and their peers speaking about what educators may miss when doing virtual learning. The group will also have a youth led student panel discussing the many challenges the past 11 months have presented including impact on their mental health, parentification, having multiple roles at home and more.
Presented by: Maria Maldonado, Kesha Linicome, Joel Salas, Jonathan Renoj, Bryan Lopez, Stephanie Contreras-Reyes, Alma Castillo, Salvador Sanchez Jr.
Successful Techniques to Engaging Young Black Men in High School and College During COVID
Join us for a workshop as we explore how to successfully engage young Black Men in High School and College during COVID. There have been many studies examining how to support young Black men with their academics while in high school and college. However with the recent Covid epidemic and online learning have set another set of challenges and setbacks for young black men who often participate in organized sports, recreation programs and other activities during and after the school day. Without these activities, how can we keep young Black men engaged in completing their high school and college degrees. In this workshop, we will examine alternative ways through a sociological lense on how to engage Black men during this health epidemic. We will present successful technology and mentoring techniques that have worked. This will be a presentation and an interactive workshop designed for middle and high school teachers, professors and teaching assistants. We will also hear from college students and high school students share their academic successes and challenges during the pandemic.
Presented by: Kasib Sabir, George Greenidge, Jr., Kole Edwards, Eric Davis, Matthew Williams, Darius Vincent
3:45 - 4:45 p.m. Breakout Sessions #3
But Who is Retaining and Taking Care of US? An Affinity and Healing Space for Womxn of Color
Too often than not, educational institutions lean on “business as usual” models to organize themselves and engage students toward larger learning goals. In the midst of multiple pandemics - be they public health-related, racialized, classed etc. - this business as usual model not only fails to account for the nuanced complexities of learning through trauma, social inequities and lived experiences but challenges to this model often come at the greatest expense to folx on the margins, in particular womxn (and gender non-conforming folx) of color (WOC). In our workshop, we will grapple with the weight of this reality by intentionally centering care and disrupting models of productivity, professionalism and “business as usual.” With the shared knowledge and lived experience of this complex reality and awareness that it can often produce burnout and other negative wellness outcomes, the facilitators will provide attendees with guided questions, community care practices and opportunities to reflect on themes of worth, resilience and feminist killjoyism in their personal and professional lives (Sara Ahmed, 2017).
Presented by: Arielle Corbin-Contreras '21 and Keara Sternberg '19
The ‘New Normal’: Experiences from Students of Color Learning in a Virtual Community
This panel will host 6 current high school students (grades 9-12) from two school districts who identify as students of color and are also participants of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) program, a "school integration program that enrolls Boston students in grades 1-10 in participating suburban public schools to reduce racial isolation.” Students will be sharing their first-hand experience with virtual learning and how they feel their school communities are addressing our nation's racial/social climate within their online communities. Additionally, students will offer suggestions/feedback on what practices they feel worked the best in helping them achieve overall success. We invite you to join us as we engage in critical and necessary discussions together on improving students' educational and personal experiences during this pandemic!
Presented by: Lokelani Cummings-Watanabe (moderator) Jayda Utley-Cribb (WHS, Senior) Joy Martinez-Miralda (WHS, Sophomore) Sara Mendes (WHS, Senior) Christine Mosby (FHS, Junior) Ormarion Otto-Broomstein (FHS, Junior) Rashaad Way (FHS, Junior)
Building Community to Center Black Voices in the Classroom: Anti-Racist Teaching with the Ida B. Wells Education Project
As teachers become more critical of traditional historical narratives and more conscious of historical oppression, many find themselves looking for frameworks and practical ways of teaching about the ugly reality of systemic racism, racist violence and inequality in history. In this workshop, IBWEP educators will share our framework for teaching about present day and historical oppression in ways that center Black humanity and empower students to challenge racism in their own lives. Our project was created with the goal of building a space where classroom educators could find community, support, resources and orientation on addressing racism in their schools, while also creating K-12 curricula that centers Black voices and supports the long movement for racial justice. Our educators are leaders in diverse school communities across the country, spanning from secondary to college level and we have developed much experience in actively teaching against racism. Together, we are building an educator community that emphasizes student-centered, culturally relevant learning and anti-racist action. Join us to find out more about this work.
Presented by: (The Ida B. Wells Education Project) Cynthia Rosario, Peta Lindsay, Charla Johnson, Cyrus Hampton
Using Asset Language to Discuss the Impact of the Pandemic on Students of Color
The concern about how many students of color are experiencing significant “learning losses” during the pandemic and how the “achievement gap” is growing is on most educators' and education policy makers’ minds. This talk is pervasive and often is accompanied by dire predictions about how our most vulnerable students will fall further and further behind as a result of COVID. Even equity-focused educators find themselves using language that communicates deficit thinking about students of color, their families, and their communities. In this workshop, we practice identifying deficit and asset language related to how we describe and communicate about and with students and families of color.
Presented by: Circe Stumbo and Dr. Stephanie Mohorne
Lessons from the Field: Leveraging Equitable Policies and Practices to Spur COVID-19 Recovery and Systematic Change
COVID-19 has created an unprecedented set of challenges for states, their leaders, and their residents. The global pandemic's immediate health and economic impacts have been inequitable and devastating to communities of color. Similarly, as colleges and universities continue to operate in online and hybrid environments, students from marginalized and minoritized communities stand to be left further behind. As leaders work toward recovery, they can leverage different policies to ensure that students of color have the support they need to succeed in the short- and long-term. This session will feature a panel of postsecondary education policy experts who will discuss states' policy responses to COVID-19 and how these efforts are impacting communities of color.
Presented by: Cristen Moore, Elizabeth Salinas, Juana Sanchez, Danielle Zaragoza
Understanding students' resiliency for culturally relevant support: A preliminary program assessment of a transitional year program (MKTYP)
A student’s story and precollege experiences can influence their persistence in college, which, in turn, impacts their ability to graduate from college. The main research question is how BIPOC, low-income, and/or first-generation college students define resilience since many have exemplified such traits to access college. Critical race theory (CRT) gives us the theoretical foundation to analyze the students’ resilience narratives. This preliminary study will look at students’ perspectives of resiliency and the interplay with retention in college. Praxis and policy implications will also be the part of the presentation.
Presented by: Kathryn A. Bethea-Rivera, Sara Jean-Francois, Lily Pineiro, Agnes Nkansah, Cesar Guerra Castillo, and Arnell Reid
Building Solidarity on College Campuses: A Case Study of a Mutual Aid Network at Georgetown University
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed nearly all higher education institutions to a virtual format “upending the traditional collegiate experience“and forced many students across the United States to deal with the new normal: virtual learning at home through platforms like Zoom and isolating social distancing guidelines for those choosing to be on campus. Much focus has been spent on the pedagogical and learning implications of this shift but alongside these changes are financial struggles sustained by students as a result of lost on-campus part-time work, reduced family household earnings, limited access to campus resources, and the need for some students to assume caretaker responsibilities. In response to this socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, students across several college campuses have established mutual aid networks to address the needs of students and local communities. To better understand the intent and work behind these mutual aid networks, we invite you to join this panel featuring student organizers, many of whom identify as low-income and first-generation, from Georgetown University as they share their motivations for starting a mutual aid network, explain the challenges of sustainability, and explore how mutual aid networks can help foster community care during and beyond the pandemic. This panel is hosted by the HGSE Pan Asian Coalition for Education (PACE).
Presented by: Donald Allen Sarra, Binqi Chen, Alice Lei, Stanley Guo, Megan Huynh, Maisha Maliha, Zahraa Hotait, Vo Yoon, Clara Choi, Kelly Teshima-McCormick
Embodying Joy in a Double Pandemic: Exploring the Challenges and Celebrations of Artists of Color