An estimated 17,000 preschool students are suspended or expelled, and Black boys make up 8,000 of those suspensions and expulsions (University of Virginia, 2021). Educators have been burdened with unrealistic expectations and a lack of resources that place them in unsupported environments where many are woefully underprepared to manage the challenges they face.

This workshop series are synchronous sessions where participants learn how to dismantle policies, practices, and the mindsets that feed the pipeline. Participants engage in hands-on activities and receive sustainable strategies to dismantle the pipeline within their locus of control to regain their joy for teaching and make school a safe place for all children.

We know that functional and effective leadership is critical. Curriculum alone is not sufficient to dismantle the preschool to prison pipeline. Disempowering mindsets continue to dehumanize students and employees, and create spaces of isolation and hostility instead of inclusion. We support senior leaders with creating psychologically safe spaces for those in schools/districts, and the corporate sector, by removing roadblocks and reducing variabilities that create disempowering mindsets which preserve oppression and discrimination.

Communication is the most important tool leaders use to build trust and increase productivity. Many leaders focus on getting buy-in when they haven’t created the conditions for improvement to occur. We support organizational leaders to strengthen the trust and relationships with the communities they lead by investing in their human capital and establishing bi-directional leadership. We do this by identifying the need and then creating the conditions that improve organizational inputs and outcomes.

Low student performance is often placed on the student as being responsible for the change instead of the environmental conditions they were placed in. One root cause is the lack of preparedness educators enter with. We design curricula for universities with a focus on special education and school leadership.

We also build coaching and mentoring programs for non-profit organizations that support displaced, unemployed, or formerly incarcerated youth to acquire employable skills that place them in family sustaining jobs.

Leading with Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging has shown to be essential to the psychological well-being of every employee. More than 66% of employees do not feel that their company adheres to the DEI commitments it pledged to after the public lynching of George Floyd in 2020. Transparency and consistency builds trust and can increase employee retention. Racism is everywhere, including work. Only 4% of women in C-suite positions identify as a woman of color. We work side-by-side with our partners to conduct equity audits and identify sustainable, inclusionary practices that prepare and place women of color and those from marginalized groups in senior leadership roles.