Our work empowers K-12 organizations to develop racial literacy through high-quality, dynamic and meaningful professional learning opportunities. We design and collaborate with nationally recognized racial equity experts with the goal of helping school districts improve their practice and meet the needs of their diverse student populations. Through our curriculum, expert instructors, and ongoing coaching support, districts can begin to enact change in K-12 education.
Racial Equity Academy Series
ACADEMY OVERVIEW
Our in-person or virtual professional learning series helps K-12 educators and leaders more effectively lead on racial equity. Academy participants are introduced to content and strategies they have likely never learned anywhere else in their educational or professional upbringings. Over a co-determined time period, we offer virtual or in-person sessions on the USC campus in Los Angeles. Each session is highly engaging and focuses on a specific racial equity topic.
Academy instructors are nationally-known experts who consult with numerous K-12 schools and districts. Their sessions focus mostly on strategies and practical approaches. Instructors use contemporary cases of racial problems in K-12 schools. Emphasis is placed on learning from equity gains and racial missteps that have recently occurred elsewhere; learning how to get ahead of situations and reducing the risk of crisis; and learning actionable racial equity leadership strategies. Participants also receive numerous tools and resources.
K-12 Educators Academy
Designed to engage every educator, staff member, and administrator.
K-12 Leadership Academy
Designed to engage the executive leadership team of a district/school.
Student Leadership Academy
Designed to engage a cohort of secondary student leaders/teachers.
APPROACH
Our Racial Equity Academy series include a wide range of racial equity topics strategically designed to:
- Provide support and tools for K-12 leaders to lead racial equity initiatives in their organizations
- Empower K-12 educators to implement equity-focused practices in their classrooms
- Discuss race and racism with higher levels of comfort, confidence, and racial literacy during interactions with students, educators, and parents/caregivers
- Recognize how implicit biases and deficit mindsets about students of color, their families, and their communities contribute to racial inequities in academic achievement and students’ well-being
- Design and adopt culturally responsive and inclusive language, programming, roles, routines, and symbols that foster racial equity on K-12 school campuses as the norm
K-12 Racial Equity Leadership Labs
Each spring, USC Race and Equity Center offers a four-part online professional learning series to superintendents, principals, assistant principals, DEI directors, and instructional leaders working in public K-12 schools across the nation to prepare them to more effectively advance racial equity in their respective school communities. This unique program offering invites individuals to enroll and participate from a wide range of public and private school communities.
Register for Spring 2025.
APPROACH
Session 1
This session will help school leaders navigate political divisiveness, polarization, and criticism of programs, books, and teaching practices that increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in classrooms and libraries. Guidance will be offered on how leaders can promote dialogue and prioritize making factually accurate claims about books and curriculum decisions.
Session 2
Recruiting, Supporting & Retaining Teachers of Color
This session will help school leaders learn about the common barriers and practical strategies for improving the recruitment and retention of teachers of color. Guidance will be offered on how leaders can build a culturally affirming school culture that promotes a strong sense of belonging for teachers of color in their schools.
Session 3
Promoting Culturally Relevant Curriculum across Content Areas
This session will help school leaders learn culturally relevant curriculum practices that affirm students’ racial and cultural histories across subject matters and grade levels. Practical frameworks for evaluating existing curricula will be provided, along with guidance on how to productively design curriculum that meaningfully includes racially diverse content matter, experts, authors, characters, and contexts.
Session 4
This session will help school leaders evaluate existing data practices and better understand the importance of disaggregating data by race and ethnicity. Guidance will be given on ways to critically examine disproportionalities in disciplinary and achievement data, challenge deficit-minded conclusions, and promote shared responsibility for changing variables that impact the success and well-being of students of color.
Equity Minded Strategic Advising Services
USC Race and Equity Center experts provide Equity Minded Strategic Advising (EMSA) services to K-12 districts, schools, executive teams, boards, task forces, and committees working to advance racial equity in their school communities. With the support of center experts, K-12 leaders and community members develop equity-minded strategic plans to achieve actionable, practical outcomes within a well-managed budget and timeline. Center experts facilitate listening sessions, review action plans and strategies, and offer research-informed advice and tactical recommendations for achieving the organization’s racial equity goals.
Is your DEI taskforce having difficulty defining and achieving its goals?
Are you having trouble developing a strategic plan to carry out DEI initiatives?
What is getting in the way of delivering meaningful results on your DEI initiatives?
We provide research-informed advice that helps K-12 schools and districts strengthen their commitments, decisions, and potential to deliver meaningful results from their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Practice Briefs for K-12 Educators
USC Race and Equity Center’s Practice Briefs for K-12 Educators aim to engage every K-12 teacher, school leader, parent/caregiver, and teacher educator committed to advancing racial equity in their schools and programs across the nation. Each practice brief is available to download at no cost and introduces current research, practical examples, reflective questions, and useful strategies for educators advancing racial equity.
All practice briefs offer expert guidance and discussion questions are offered to educators who are serious about achieving equitable learning conditions and outcomes for students, families, and teachers of color, despite increasing public scrutiny, executive gag orders, and legislative censorship.
Equity Book Talk Series
USC Race and Equity Center’s Equity Book Talk Series invites nationally renowned scholars, experts, and authors to discuss their books with host and moderator, Dr. John Pascarella. For more than a decade, the Center has aimed to dismantle racism, white supremacy, and anti-blackness in all their forms. For the last four years, educators have faced greater public scrutiny, book bans, and pervasive censorship of their curriculum choices and classroom discussions than the previous four decades.
This series is offered to educators and individuals across the country seeking to advance racial equity in their schools, colleges, companies, and organizations, despite widespread censorship efforts.
