Leading Equity

About Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D.

Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. is the Founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast. With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. 

Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a B.S. degree in Social Science Education, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in K-12 Education.

Show Highlights

• The importance of student empowerment
• Supporting students after George Floyd’s murder
• Social Justice Affinity Groups
• Beyond “safe spaces”
• The Advocacy Room: An affinity space for student voices

Connect with Sheldon

Twitter: @sheldoneakins

Instagram: @sheldoneakins

Learn more about the Advocacy Room

About Afrika Afeni Mills

Afrika Afeni Mills is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with BetterLesson and an Education Consultant. She works with colleagues, teachers, coaches, and administrators to transform practices. Afrika has been featured on podcasts, blogs, delivered keynote addresses and facilitated sessions at conferences across the United States. She will also be publishing a book with Corwin Press in 2022. Afrika believes that all educators can be motivated, engaged, dynamic practitioners and leaders when provided with the support needed to create student-centered, culturally responsive learning environments that inspire wonder and creativity and nurture diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Show Highlights

• Racial Identity Development
• Being proud of our racial identity
• Tracing our ancestry
• Navigating conversations about race
• Additional thoughts on equity and accessibility

Connect with Afrika

Twitter: @AfeniMills

Facebook: Afrika Afeni Mills Equity Guardian

LinkedIn: Afrika Afeni Mills

Let's connect on Instagram!

Invite Dr. Eakins to speak.

About Rajneet Goomer

Rajneet Goomer is an award-winning Director of Student Services and DEI Expert in a public school district in New Jersey. Her 16-year career in education has been rooted in equity, diversity, and inclusion for students, families and staff. Rajneet is the co-chair of the District Equity Council in her current district. She is the voice and advocate for DEI in schools surrounding race, programmatic equity, and inclusion for all students including students with identified needs. Recently, she designed and currently facilitates a POC Employee Resource Group which has become an invaluable safe space for employees of color. Rajneet’s passion extends to designing and leading ongoing professional development and workshops in a variety of areas including DE&I. In 2019, Rajneet was honored with the Mimi Ballard CANDO Award from ResearchILD for innovative, strategic planning and implementation. Rajneet is an empathetic and mission-driven leader dedicated to meaningful change. She is passionate about sharing her expertise and learning others to help them thrive both personally and professionally.

Show Highlights

• The first few months in a DEI position
• What happens after a PD session
• Should we recognize cultural holidays?
• Emphasizing cultural holidays as a cultural outsider
• Making clear expectations for training
• Resources for equity work
• Dealing with pushback and unrealistic expectations

Connect with Rajneet

Twitter: @rpkgoomer

LinkedIn: Rajneet Goomer

Invite Dr. Eakins to speak.

About Lindsay Lyons, Ph.D.

Lindsay Lyons is an educational consultant who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. 

Show Highlights

• Shifting mindsets that Social Justice is essential in everything we do
• Defining Justice
• Embedding Social Justice in lessons
• Going beyond oppression

Connect with Lindsay

bit.ly/backwardsplantemplate

bit.ly/curriculumbootcamp

www.lindsaybethlyons.com

Let's connect on Instagram!

About Ayodele Harrison

Ayodele Harrison is an engineer turned education leader, entrepreneur, and certified compassion-based meditation teacher. At the end of his 16th year as a math teacher, Ayodele left the classroom when his desire to continue to grow as a teacher-leader was not nurtured by his school’s administration. Now, as Senior Partner of Education and Director of BMEsTalk with CommunityBuild Ventures, Ayodele leads the work in partnering with public, private and international schools to remedy and reverse the educational inequities students, parents, caregivers, teachers and staff and community members experience everyday.

Ayodele is a fearless and compassionate champion for racial equity, Black Male Educators, and equity-centered school improvement. He has over 20 years of experience in teaching and leading in public, private, and international schools. For four of those years, Ayodele taught at the American International School of Johannesburg in South Africa. He has served as a classroom teacher, content specialist, department chair, mentor, football and basketball coach, in-school and out-of-school program directors, consultant, and thought partner.

Show Highlights

• The state of equity within the next six months
• Working with students
• The role of Black male educators
• Burnout with BMEs
• Strategies to create more balance
• The power of mentorship

Connect with Ayodele

LinkedIn: AyodeleHarrison

Twitter: @Ayodele_Har78

PodCast: AyodeleSpeaks

Website: CommunityBuildVentures.com

Website: BMEsTalk.com

Let's connect on Instagram!

About Shelby Kretz

Shelby Kretz is the creator of Little Justice Leaders, a subscription box that provides resources for kids to learn about social justice. Each month, educators and caregivers receive a box that provides all the resources needed to engage with kids about a different topic of social justice in an age-appropriate way. Shelby is also the co-founder of 1girl, a non-profit organization that brings leadership programming to middle school girls. She is a UCLA educational researcher and Ph.D. candidate working under Dr. Pedro Noguera, and her research focuses on the connection between the education system and the juvenile (in)justice system.

Show Highlights

• Little Justice Leaders
• Social Justice Education
• Embedding SJ in our classrooms
• Educational systems need to change
• No more excuses
• Transform with purpose

Connect with Shelby

littlejusticeleaders.com

Instagram: @littlejusticeleaders

[email protected]

Let's connect on Instagram!

About Lorea Martinez, Ph.D.

Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez is the award-winning founder of HEART in Mind Consulting, a company dedicated to helping schools and organizations integrate Social Emotional Learning in their practices, products, and learning communities. An educator who has worked with children and adults internationally, Dr. Martínez is a faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College, educating aspiring principals in Emotional Intelligence. Her second book for educators, Teaching with the HEART in Mind, is currently available. Previously, she was a special education teacher and administrator.

Show Highlights

• Teaching with the HEART in Mind
• Five Key SEL Competencies
• Honor your emotions
• Elect your responses
• Apply empathy
• Reignite your relationships
• Transform with purpose

Connect with Lorea

Teaching with the HEART in Mind: A Complete Educator’s Guide to Social Emotional Learning

loreamartinez.com

Twitter: @loreamart

Facebook: loreamartinezSEL

Let's connect on Instagram!

About Tracy Piper, Ed.D.

Each day brings a new opportunity to serve the community. Dr. Piper's work is focused on improving outcomes for all students, especially those from underserved groups. She provides leadership in examining practices that create inclusive systems to support students, staff and families.

Dr. Piper began her career as a stockbroker and changed careers to bring positive changes to her community in education. She has served as a teacher, site administrator and district administrator. With degrees from Northeastern Illinois University, California State University and University of LaVerne she has worked in public schools for 20 years.

She has twin daughters and lives in southern California with three lovable rescue dogs. She serves on the Boards of California Association of Pupil Personnel Administrators (CAPPA) and the Center Against Sexual Assault (CASA).

Show Highlights

• The school to prison pipeline
• Zero tolerance policies
• In-school suspensions
• Vulnerable decision points
• Alternatives to suspensions
• Student and teacher dynamics

Connect with Tracy

In-school suspensions the answer to school discipline? Not necessarily, experts say

Twitter: @drtracypiper

Let's connect on Instagram!

About Khadeejah Smith

Khadeejah Smith holds a bachelor of science in Finance from Northeastern University. A Masters of Arts in Teaching Mathematics from the University of the District of Columbia and a Masters of Science in Education Leadership from Columbia University, Teachers College. Khadeejah Smith has been an educator for over ten years in the metropolitan District of Columbia area. She began her teaching career in Boston Public Schools as a high school math teacher. Khadeejah's experience expands from high school math, home-school early childhood, middle school math teacher, instructional coach, and principal. She brings a diverse view to education from public, charter and private school sector.

Khadeejah is also known as 'EdGapCloser' because she is committed to closing the 'achievement gap' that exist between African-American, Latinos, White, and Asian students due to the lack of equitable resources and opportunities presented to the two groups. Through her commitment to STEM education Khadeejah has spent the last 11 years focused on project-based learning. She understood early in her career the importance of students making real-world connections to make math relevant. She created the real-world project to provide students with a financial assimilation experience to expose students to investment terms and philosophies. This eight week intense project allows students research a salaries, taxes, and daily expenses in order to create budget to survive in their "real-world". As a stay-at-home mom she was able to see first-hand how children take in the world and make meaning. This ability has allowed her to develop creative instructional techniques with teachers that address the whole-child. Being a mom, teacher and instructional leader she has learned how to recognize, develop and act to equip students with tools that will enable them as global citizens ready to solve 21st Century challenges in their community and the world.

Khadeejah began G.R.I.T. Parent vlog this past summer to encourage parent engagement that would extend beyond the school walls. Each video is designed to assist parents in preparing generation ‘Z’ children in navigating life with grit, real-world experiences, independence and critically thinking skills.

Khadeejah Smith is a five time recipient of  the Sontag Prize in Urban Education where outstanding teachers in Math and English Language Arts are recognized for their instructional efforts. For one week she returns to Massachusetts in the city of Lawrence to teach their "Math Acceleration Academy" to support struggling learners.

Currently, Khadeejah uses EdGapClosers L.L.C. as a vehicle for public speaking, educator training and community outreach as pathways to create equity in education for African-American and Latino children.

Show Highlights

• What school and home life looks like today
• Transferable skills
• Have we been coddling our students too much?
• The Healthy Struggle
• Teaching independence

Connect with Khadeejah

EdGapClosers

Instagram: @khadeejahsmith

About Tiwana Merritt

Tiwana Merritt is an international educator currently working in South Africa. She has taught most recently in southern China for 3 years and began her teaching career in Australia. Tiwana has specialized in outdoor and experiential education throughout most of her teaching career. She graduated from Southern Oregon University with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science then completed a Graduate Diploma of Education at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia and has a Masters in Educational Leadership through Monash University. As a member of the Teaching and Learning coaching team and the Service Learning Coordinator, Tiwana is responsible for the development and implementation of AISJ’s service learning standards. Recently, equity, social justice and power have become a focus in delivering service learning throughout the school. 

She can be reached at:

Show Highlights

• Service Learning
• Teaching students about privilege with Service Learning
• Communicating with the local community
• Lessons learned as a cultural outsider
• Nelson Mandela

Connect with Tiwana

Email: [email protected]

AISJ

Facebook: Tiwanam

Instagram: Tiwanamerritt

Follow me on Instagram