We are a network of cross sector collaborators promoting equity and pathways into education.
Interested in exploring and learning about the profession with an equity lens.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 7:30-8:30 | Breakfast and Registration |
| 8:30-9:15 | Welcome |
| 9:15-10:15 | Keynote |
| 10:15-10:30 | Break |
| 10:30-11:30 | Student Panel |
| 11:30-12:30 | Lunch |
| 12:30-2:00 | Breakout Session 1 |
| 2:00-2:10 | Break |
| 2:10-3:40 | Breakout Session 2 |
| 3:45-4:30 | Closing |
| Online | $40 |
| At the Door | $50 |
| High School and College Students | Free (Registration still required) |
Need accommodations? Four Points Hotel in Sea-Tac is offering a conference rate of $109 per night plus tax. Make Reservation.
High School and College Student Registration →
Contact Vincent Perez to register if you are:
Georgina Pérez is the author of Unity Framework: Critical Pedagogy Curriculum and serves as a Texas State Board of Education Representative for District 1. She represents students, parents, and educators in 40 counties in west Texas and along the Texas/Mexico border. She was elected to a four-year term on the board on Nov. 8, 2016. Pérez is an El Paso native and proud graduate of Eastwood High School, where she proudly served as an 8th grade English Language Arts and Reading teacher, Department Chair, Pre-Service and New-Service Teacher mentor and Professional Development educator in the same district for more than a decade. Pérez is known as passionate advocate for literacy. She has worked with various organizations and businesses to coordinate a book distribution program and founded Tu Libro, which has provided more than 150,000 books to students who live in rural and impoverished communities in El Paso County and who don’t have regular access to public libraries. Pérez and her team have spearheaded the creation of a library in Socorro, which is the second-largest municipality in El Paso County, providing over 55,000 area residents with free access to reading materials.
Pérez holds degrees in Business Administration/Accounting and Human Resource Development and holds educator certifications in grade 4-8 Generalist and English Language Arts and Reading, grades 8-12, from the University of Texas at El Paso. In addition to her work with connecting impoverished communities with reading materials, Pérez also led the creation of scholarships, literacy, and fine arts programs for rural communities that often have little to no access to vital education resources. She serves as the founder and director of the Cotton Valley Scholars education program and founder and board president of the Rural Schools Scholarship Foundation. She is the creative director of the Student Civic Engagement programs through Celebrate Freedom Week and an appointed Commissioner to the El Paso County Historic Commission. She is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for El Paso County’s foster children, a YWCA racial justice ambassador, Secretary of Public Affairs for the Texas Alliance of Black School Educators, instructor for the TABSE Texas Education Policy Institute, and member of the National Association of Latina Elected Officials.
Learn more about Georgina Pérez
Learn about the Tu Libro Literacy Campaign
Instructors: Victoria E. Romero and Ricky Robertson
Participants will be exposed to the concepts of viewing student behaviors as a form of communication and strategies for interpreting and redirecting disruptive behaviors. Participants will also be exposed to approaches for building resiliency which can mitigate the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and improve student academic success.
Instructors: Katrice Cyphers and Kyla Crawford
In this session, Kyla Crawford and Katrice Cyphers will focus on using a student-centered approach to build positive classroom relationships through motivational interviewing methods. Participants will explore ways to create a culturally-reflective classroom environment, bring students’ personal assets and voices to the curriculum and implement easy ways to construct positive relationships to increase student success.
Instructors: Saraswati Noel and Maria Elena Guzman
This workshop aims to push back against current euro-centric forms of mathematics that is taught in U.S. schooling and explores the concept of Ethnomathematics, the relationship between math and culture. Participants will engage in mathematical activities that center family, community, indigenous and ancestral knowledge and learn about current efforts to bring Ethnic Studies curriculum in mathematics classrooms in Seattle Public Schools for the purpose of connecting and improving academic success to all students.
Instructor: A Longoria
Participants will learn about the Picca and Thompson-Miller (2013) framework for understanding and unpacking backstage and frontstage contexts for critical identity work. Participants will gain resources and have an opportunity to reflect on how they might incorporate more identity work in their schools and practice in order to increase effectiveness with students through this identity framework.
Instructor: Ben Ibale and Erin Eggert
This training helps educators explore culturally responsive classroom interaction practices to ensure that students experience a positive, consistent, safe and equitable classroom. Participants analyze the impact of implicit bias and microaggressions on student success in the classroom communities. This will help educators improve meaningful, caring adult relationships that will increase student resiliency, the greatest predictor of high school graduation.
Instructor: Daniel Harada (Equal Rights Washington or ERW)
This program is an introductory training course to better understand LGBTQ youth, some of the challenges they may face, and how to create supportive spaces for them to learn and grow. This will include an overview of current language and best practices for building inclusive environments that improves student success in our classrooms. Attendees will also receive a list of resources to enhance learning post-session.
Instructor: Buddy Bear
This session will equip educator-leaders to serve as advocates to ensure a great public education for every student. The class will provide a framework for exploring and interrupting certain forms of social oppression that are faced by students’ color in our public schools that may prevent them from reaching academic success.
Instructor: Alejandra Pérez
Participants will learn about the history of undocumented students, current events and legislation, and how immigration intersects with education. After this workshop, participants will leave with tools that support and increase the success of our undocumented students and families.
Instructors: Shawna Moore and Pamela Wilson
This training helps educators develop culturally responsive classroom management practices to ensure that students experience a positive, consistent, safe and equitable classroom. Participants learn strategies to appreciate and appropriately integrate their students’ culture and family backgrounds into the into the classroom culture for the purpose of increasing student success in every classroom.
Instructor: Eileen Yoshina
The Educators of Color Leadership Community uplifts the often overlooked and undercompensated gifts teachers of color bring to their work in schools. Learn from our first cohort of the ECLC as we describe how educators of color transform systems by teaching with an authentic, racial equity lens, and what schools, administrators, and districts can do to retain them. According to a 2017 study by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, “Having just one black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade reduced low-income black boys' probability of dropping out of high school by 39 percent, the study found”. Educators will explore the positive impact of teachers of color have on the academic success of students of color.
Participants will explore an equity audit framework to consider leverage points to begin or continue equity initiatives that improve success for all students. Participants will consider the “how” of culturally responsive pedagogy and implement systems thinking to increase equity in the school culture.
Instructor: Candy Herrera
Participants will identify classroom behavior indicators for students experiencing immigration related issues. The session will also examine and recommended school board resolutions to help districts advocate for inclusion based support for students and families. Through this interactive class, participants will improve their engagement with DACA students that will incorporate a multi-diverse climate and culture that leads to greater student engagement and academic success.
Instructor: Sobia Sheikh
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), hate crimes have increased more than 50 percent in last two years. The objective of this session is to raise awareness of Islamophobia for the purpose of creating safer environments to increase student success our public school classrooms. Participants will look at ways Islam is portrayed in the media and education system, investigate negative stereotypes and assumptions, and examine our biases and how they impact and student learning.
Instructor: Georgina Pérez
This session will explore the power of believing that all students are capable of success, no exceptions. It is this unconditional belief system in all students that will increase student resiliency which will increase student academic performance. The adult belief system will dramatically impact the student belief system that each student can and will succeed.
Instructor: Kristin Jewell
This session will allow students, teachers, and aspiring educators to share young adult books that are informative, insightful, and provide a glimpse into the world of challenges, concerns, victories, and dreams of 21st century high school students. While suggested books will be shared, participants of this session should bring favorite reading suggestions that promote themes of social justice and equity. Be prepared to learn about exciting new titles that can inform your thinking and contribute to the conversation with titles that can influence your professional practice and student success and growth around sensitive contemporary subjects.Instructor: Tracy Gill and Jon Greenberg
This workshop explores the benefits to student success of social justice education, drawing on recent research and the expertise in the room. Facilitated by teachers leading the movement for ethnic studies in Seattle, the workshop will also survey recent attacks on such education, from Tucson, Arizona, to the Pacific Northwest. In addition to networking, participants develop concrete strategies to expand student-centered social justice curricula while protecting themselves from potential resistance and backlash.
