Equity & Inclusion Institute

About the Equity & Inclusion Institute

Designed to promote personal and pedagogical growth, Nueva’s Equity & Inclusion (EII) Institute equips teachers and school leaders with tangible tools to construct more inclusive, equitable, and identity-affirming school communities. Through a collaborative, project-based liberatory-design model, the institute emboldens educators to disrupt the status quo in service of creating transformational change.

Nueva's EII is a supportive and brave space that provides

• Foundational knowledge of identity and power to inform your work in schools. 
• Concrete strategies and tools for leveraging change into your classroom, pedagogical practices , and broader school community. 
• The opportunity to engage in group-work with a team of educators around a particular problem-of-practice. 
• The opportunity to leverage liberatory-design principles to respond to a problem-of-practice. 
• An opportunity to practice self-care while exploring your own identities and biases in the company of other educators committed to creating equitable educational environments.

Why attend?

• To gain a nuanced understanding of how power manifests in schools
  To examine your own identity in the context of your professional practice 
  To build a community of educators committed to building cultures of belonging in schools 
  To learn how to leverage change within schools from a place of both individual and institutional knowledge 
  To learn how to incorporate self-care into your equity and inclusion practices

Who is this event for?

This institute is suitable for all preK–12 educators, especially:

• Teachers interested in crafting cultures of belonging in their classrooms. 

• School leaders who aim to build cultures of inclusion and equitable systems into their schools ecosystems. 

• Trustees who aim to gain a more nuanced understanding of how equity and inclusion works manifests across different facets of school communities. 

By the end of the Institute, participants will be able to

• understand the necessity of doing one's own internal work as it relates to issues of identity, bias, power, and privilege.
• speak to the social identities, power, and positionality they hold and how these identities impact their work in diverse school ecosystems. 
• apply a historical and theoretical framework to their work of creating more diverse, equitable, and inclusive school and classroom communities.  
• leverage liberatory-design to respond to problems-of-practice within schools 
• transfer learning to their own learning school communities
• draw from the knowledge of a diverse community of thought partners, co-conspirators, supporters of this work as they return to their own schools. 

Identity work is the foundation of transformational school change  
The work of diversifying communities, building inclusive and equitable systems, eradicating injustice, and embedding this work in curricula requires tremendous emotional labor, strategic thinking, and a complex understanding of historical processes. And while this work is immensely tactical, this work is also deeply personal. It demands we engage in a deep and often messy process of introspection and self-reflection. It requires us to confront the power we hold. It necessitates that we think expansively about the sources of knowledge from which we draw.

More often than not, diversity, equity, and inclusion work can feel like a sisyphean endeavor. Yet, our task is also deeply joyous. When students critically interrogate who they are and how they move through the world, they equip themselves with the tools to leverage change from a place of empowerment and self-understanding. As members of a global community and as folks who care for children in schools, our work is to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. And when we fail—which we know we inevitably will—to return to the task once again. Through Nueva’s Equity and Inclusion Institute, we as a community will engage in the work of creating transformational learning experiences for students and colleagues alike. We will look inwards. We will look outwards. And, most importantly, we will water the seeds of our expansive dreams! 

Project-based Learning

The Equity & Inclusion Project is a core facet of Nueva’s EII experience. Working in teams of two to four, you will identify a problem-of-practice and conduct a systems-analysis of the surrounding school ecosystem. Your team’s final deliverable will constitute a theory of change that you will present at the EII Expo on Friday, June 20. This project-based model will enable you to bridge the chasm between theory and practice, as you will apply the concepts explored during the institute to the real and messy work of diving change in schools. And–who knows– perhaps you put your theory of change into action in your school this fall! 

Equity and Inclusion Project: Problems of Practice Selection

All Equity and Inclusion Project problems-of-practice come directly from EII participants. Our intention is that you bring diversity, equity, or inclusion related problems or pain points—not solutions—to be workshopped with your teammates. For this institute, we request you remain open to the process of understanding and analyzing institutional needs and actively resist jumping to solutions. As Albert Einstein argued, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Ours is the work of understanding problems. 

The problem-of-practice submission process begins prior to the start of the official program, allowing time to submit and narrow the list of ideas that will eventually constitute your project. 

Here’s how it works: 

• If you have a problem-of-practice you are excited about workshopping, you will submit your idea as part of your registration. While you are not required to submit a problem-of-practice, you are highly encouraged to do so. *Note as part of the liberatory design process, your team will be asked to interview colleagues within your school in order to better understand their distinct needs. Prior to submitting your problem-of-practice, please connect with your colleagues about this. 
• At the end of Day 1 of the institute we will host a “speed-dating” session in which problem-posers can pitch their projects to the group. Interested in what someone else is working on? Join their team! Struggling with a similar problem as someone else in the room? Link-up and learn from each other's knowledge.  
• Each team will be comprised of two-to-four participants. If more than four folks are interested in exploring a similar challenge, you will splinter and form two smaller groups. 

While problem-posers provide their group with the problem-of-practice, they do not play the role of team-leader. Group members need to decide how they will organize around decision-making and leadership for the project component of this institute.