Partnership Stories

The Pandemic Revealed Inequities — and New Ways to Address Them

In a “normal” school year on a “normal” school day, Stacy Thomas, the executive director of teaching and learning for Blaine School District, bounces between each of the district’s schools, which are housed on one campus. Blaine is a district in rural Washington near...

Recent Posts

Looking Forward with Hope for 2023

This past year was one of unprecedented challenges both inside and out of the classroom. Solving the problems in front of us today demands more than a simple New Year’s resolution; it requires us to reimagine our challenges and commit to new ways of moving forward.

Closing the Distance Between Students and School System Leadership

Students know an equity champion when they see one. In recent CEL equity leadership focus groups, our CEL team asked students to describe their “hero principal.” Students shared attributes of a hero principal like “a history of fighting for social justice” with the...

A Throughline of Caring

I spent much of 2021 engaging deeply with leaders across the country about the transformational power that school leaders hold for leading equitable school communities. What I learned is that, when positioned properly and truly empowered to lead, principals are the...

Humanizing School and District Leadership Through Student Experience

What would happen if school and district leaders used students’ experiences and perspectives as the basis for their leadership? In CEL’s partnerships with school systems, we ask leaders to focus on the experiences of students furthest from justice in their schools and...

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