What we DO

In the United States, the education system isn’t designed to center student experiences.

 For Black students and students of color especially, this leads to persistent inequities in the ways they experience school. CEL partners with leaders — from the classroom to the central office — to disrupt this by facilitating contextualized professional learning and coaching.
 
We work side-by-side with central office, school, and teacher leaders. Tapping into existing expertise and elevating the experiences of students, we co-create school communities where all students, particularly those furthest from justice, can be happy and proud. Through our highly collaborative professional learning opportunities, we lean into deep listening, job-embedded learning, and humble cooperation to support equity-driven leaders.

Our approach.

When you work with CEL, you:

  • Use frameworks that offer a research-based vision
  • Form communities of leaders as learners
  • Work from strengths to move from your current state toward your vision 

By linking research to practice in frameworks, we help you establish a shared vision and language while scaffolding practice across your system.

We support you to understand root causes and track outcomes of our work by partnering closest to the opportunities you seek to create.

We listen to what you’re trying to accomplish and why, and then we support your specific goals.

We work from strengths because your experience matters as much as ours.

We facilitate reflection on the impact of practice, so you will surface diverse perspectives, own your learning and translate insights into actions.

Learning is social. We help you build a community committed to action and deepen learning with the expertise in your group.

Why we take this approach.

We understand that educational inequities are the logical outcome of policies, practices and systems designed primarily by those with privilege. In order to live in a world where a child’s ability to realize a limitless future for themselves is not predetermined by their race, we recognize the need for deep listening, focused learning and humble cooperation. We are committed to learning, teaching and leading alongside our colleagues and students of color as partners and allies to raise up and amplify their voices, cultures and experiences in order to co-create communities that uphold the fundamental values of human rights and racial equity.

    Who are our partners?

    CEL partners with leaders eager to improve and who consider learning to lead for equitable student outcomes to be their most important professional and personal work.

    We work with school districts across the country, helping leaders build a shared vision and mission for schools where all students are happy and proud. By providing contextualize professional learning, we’re able to meet the needs of a wide variety of school systems in terms of size, geography and demographics.     Our partners are large and small districts, rural, urban, and suburban. Working system-wide — from central offices to classrooms — we help districts get smarter about quality instruction to maximize their impact.

     

    Other partners include: 
    • AASA The School Superintendents Association (AASA) – CEL partners with AASA for programs like the AASA National Principal Supervisor Academy to increase access to professional learning for instructional leadership
    • Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals (MASSP) – MASSP provides professional development and Pivot, a technology tool, for use of the 5D+ Rubric for Instructional Growth and Teacher Evaluation™
    • San Diego County Office of Education – Through its partnership with CEL, SDCOE makes professional learning available to California school districts for Targeted Feedback for Teacher Growth
    • Stuart Foundation – Through a partnership with the Stuart Foundation, CEL explores programming and tools to support the development of school and district leadership capacity across the state of California