We Have No Idea What This Year Has Been Like for Our Kids

One year ago, my now-kindergartener left his bustling and diverse transitional kindergarten classroom with sensory learning areas designed for academic and social skills development to…

Parent Partnerships Are Key to Student Success

The Center for Universal Education at Brookings recently released survey results about parents’ beliefs and goals for their children’s education. Almost 25,000 parents across ten…

Want to Build Anti-Racist Schools? Start With the Adults.

The past year has put an intense spotlight on the racism and inequities that plague American schools. It has also inspired leaders and educators to…

Restorative Justice Isn’t Just for the Students, It’s for the Adults Too

Let’s face it: Our public schools are, in the main, alienating and repressive institutions whose function it is to provide our society with an army…

School Discipline Explained: Why It Harms Students of Color and How We Can Fix It

Over many decades, America’s disciplinary policies, from preschool to high school, have disproportionately affected marginalized students. This difference creates a “discipline gap.” Black students account…

I’m Telling My Story So My Female Students Never Feel Powerless Like I Did

I am a firm believer that in order to become an anti-oppressive educator and advocate, one must fully understand the nature of oppression. While finishing…

Storytelling and Restorative Practices Are Key to Social-Emotional Learning

When COVID-19 closed our schools almost a year ago, teachers—regardless of how many years we’d been in a classroom—suddenly became new teachers again. Distance learning…

My Teacher Didn’t Know How To Be Culturally Responsive, But These Standards Will Help the Next Generation of Teachers

When I was eleven, my teacher divided our class into groups of four to complete a project on the United States Constitution. The three other…

We Need to Provide Gender Identity-Affirming Mirrors for Our Youngest Learners

J, a seven-year-old boy in my classroom, was bright and energetic, always wanting to help and always starting the day with a smile. J liked…

How Do We ‘IGNITE’ Social Change in the Next Generation of Leaders?

The impact of COVID-19 on the education community was astonishing. Educators pivoted all of their curricula to a virtual landscape for the first time. Guardians…