Let’s Partner!

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative partners with a wide variety of school districts and educational institutions throughout the nation to advance and expand equity. Each partnership is custom designed, taking into account the equity strengths and priorities of the district or institution, along with the equity challenges and areas for growth. We offer a variety of services for both students and staff including:

Educational Equity and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Professional Development:

In order to expand educational equity, the education professionals (teachers, counselors, administrators, paraprofessionals, administrative assistants, etc.) of school districts and educational institutions must be supported as they transform the traditional and familiar pedagogy (that has historically benefited certain students) into a pedagogy that is relevant and adaptable to the variety of students present in our classrooms.

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative can partner with school districts and education institutions to customize and facilitate professional development that will build a foundational equity mindset and increase the skill set of educators to provide more culturally responsive equitable instruction and support to all students. Sessions may include: 

  • applying an equity lens to educators’ policies, procedures, and practices
  • creating a welcoming learning environment
  • approaches for increasing student engagement
  • building and maintaining relationships across difference (with and between students, families, and colleagues)
  • contributing to a school culture that is equitable and culturally competent
  • creating inclusive curriculum and educational materials

Educational Equity Leadership Development:

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative can partner with your district or institution to provide equity coaching, build internal equity capacity and strengthen the equity mindset and skillset among staff and leadership. Tapping into equity leadership includes being aware of: 

  • our positional power, i.e. decision making inherent to our professional positions (teacher, principal, superintendent etc.) and;
  • our passion for equity. i.e. equity lens, equity will, equity mindset, equity skill.

Often positional power and passion for equity overlap, and when combined can create measurable forward progress in the on-going effort to expand equity. When these do not overlap or co-exist, Due East equity leadership development can work with your teams or individual leaders to leverage position and passion to cultivate and practice the following skills:

  • applying an equity lens to all school practices, policies, and procedures
  • supporting high levels of learning for all groups of students
  • coaching, leading, and influencing colleagues
  • creating and maintaining a school culture that is equitable and culturally competent
  • engaging families and community members within the school community
  • equitably allocating material and non-material school resources

Educational Equity Visioning and Planning:

What does equity look like in your district or institution? How will you know when you are operating in a consistently equitable manner? If the district or institution is not operating equitably what are the short-term and long-term plans to become more equitable?

These questions and many more can be answered with a robust equity vision, plan and framework. Due East Educational Equity Collaborative can partner with districts and institutions to create an equity vision, plan and framework that is rooted in and responsive to the strengths and challenges of the district. Having an equity plan or framework supports education systems as they map a path forward, identify equity goals and progress markers, communicate with stakeholders and evaluate success toward creating more equity for all groups of students and families.

Educational Equity by and for Students:

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative in collaboration with Making Us Matter can partner with school districts and education institutions to customize and facilitate engaging work with students to best respond to critical incidents, repair relationships, and build capacity for ongoing student-led advocacy. Sessions may include:

  • Helping students apply an equity lens to the policies, practices, and curriculum of their school
  • Identifying what a welcoming learning environment is, and what it is not
  • Approaches for collaboration with school staff for increased equity building-wide
  • Building and maintaining relationships across difference (with and between students, families, and staff)
  • Designing a school culture that is equitable and culturally competent
  • Assessing and collaborating in creation of inclusive curriculum

Equity-Focused Hiring and Retention Support:

While all of the ways in which we partner with schools and organizations are essential, hiring people who can immediately make change through their passion for– and experience with– equity is one of the fastest, most impactful, and important ways to transform the culture of schools towards justice. Due East Educational Equity Collaborative supports institutions in applying an equity commitment to all steps of the hiring process, including:

  1. Making decisions about FTE allotment
  2. Position structure and design
  3. Communication and recruitment
  4. Filtering applicants
  5. Interview process
  6. Final hiring decision

You can learn more about leveraging the hiring process for equity here.

Educational Equity Assessment:

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative can partner with your district or institution to answer the basic equity lens questions:

“Who is benefiting? Who is marginalized? How can we expand benefit and eliminate marginalization?”

Due East provides both full service and self-guided equity assessments that bring an equity lens and critical review to policies and procedures, key data markers of student engagement and academic success, and comprehensive school culture analysis. These assessments and inventories may include quantitative data analysis, policy and procedure reviews, culture and climate focus groups and surveys, leadership interviews, community feedback meetings, and school and classroom observations.

Educational Equity Coaching:

Due East Educational Equity Collaborative offers one-on-one coaching toward educational equity for any role in a district or organization. It is often beneficial to gain outside perspective and have supportive guidance when trying to effect change (whether in an entire system or in an individual role). While coaching never demands specific choices or actions, it is meant to guide individuals to better practices to expand equity in one's organization. Professionals across the organization may benefit, including (but not limited to): 

  • district-level leaders
  • building-level administrators
  • instructional coaches and teacher leaders
  • professional development facilitators

While coaching is offered as a stand-alone service, it is most effective when paired with visioning and/or professional development sessions. View our coaching protocols here.