The Equity Experience

Welcome to Episode # of The Equity Experience Podcast! In today’s episode, we have an informative and empowering conversation about equity for Black males in K-12 and higher education.  Let’s welcome Dr. Alan Baker, Dr. Dramaine Freeman, and Mr. Nathaniel Smith.   We have an in-depth conversation about: Defining 'educational equity' and educational equity for black males Unpacking the live...

Welcome to the Equity Experience Podcast! On today's episode, Dr. Karla is sharing 6 ways that K-12 school leaders and educators can support and affirm Black students, 365. Here are some tips that K-12 principals and superintendents can keep at the forefront to help support students all year around: ⁠  1) Identify disproportionate outcomes in data specific to black students  2) Create a racial...

**3 Ways to Jumpstart Your Equity Journey in 2024 as a School Leader**   You are a superintendent or principal and your school is making an unapologetic commitment to focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion.  You all have had conversations about what this work may look like, you all have received approval from your Board members to move forward and the excitement and energy is there, in full...

Good day and welcome to episode 66 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In today’s episode, Dr. Karla is providing some fundamental information about equity audits and how they can be used to address disparities and inequities in school districts. **What is an equity audit? ** An equity audit is a leadership tool used to collect data for the purpose of identifying the presence and absence of equity w...

Good day and good day! Welcome to another episode of The Equity Experience Podcast! On today's episode, I'm happy to share with you all five (5) films that I've used in my teaching practices to help students think through topics about race, identity, justice, and advocacy.  As a teaching strategy, I think films are powerful tools to promote critical thinking based on the director's interpreta...

Good day and good day! Welcome to episode 64 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Kris DeFilippis about the topics of  disproportionality and root cause analysis. One of the common concerns for people committed to educational equity work is resolving disproportionalities.  Dr. Kris does a great job of explaining how disproportionality manifes...

Welcome to Episode 63 of The Equity Experience Podcast! A question that I commonly receive from school district leaders is: How do I recruit more teachers of color in my District? How do we diversify our strategy to be more equitable with our hiring practices? This is always a great question to always ask and consider.   In this podcast, I take a different approach to go a step deeper to disc...

Good day and good day! Welcome to episode 62 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Karla Rose Manning about prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion in your organizational strategy.  We have a discussion about the 5 priority areas that leaders can implement in 2023.  You are invited to tune in! For additional resources with this podcast,...

Welcome to The Equity Experience Podcast! In this episode, I share my personal reflections after attending the Former First Lady Michelle Obama's book tour in Chicago in December 2022.  What an AMAZING experience!  As Obama discussed her book, I made sure to take note of a few key ideas, that relate to equity, moral responsibility, and humanity. Listen in to this episode as I share my ta...

What does equity feel like for our students? How might equity experiences feel like for young people? In this podcast, I have a conversation with you to talk about the power of affirmations, particularly with K-12 students.  Specifically, I discuss:  What affirmations are and their role in helping to create mindset shifts How affirmations can be used to help create transformations and mi...

Good day and good day! Welcome to episode 59 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Moses McKenzie about servant-style leadership and how it is used in practice. Dr. Moses joins us as a middle school principal in Paterson, NJ and shares his servant-leadership experiences with us on the show.  Additionally, we explore: 🔑What is servant style leaders...

Good day and good day! Welcome to episode 58 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Karla Rose Manning about the importance of equity teams within K-12 schools and districts.  We have a discussion about the different kinds of equity teams that schools may have and the different terminology for equity teams. Additionally, we explore: What an equity t...

In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Elaine Harper about the experiences of migrant, immigrant, and refugee students in the United States. We have a discussion about the traumatizing experiences that some refugee learners may have and how this trauma may show up in the classroom. Trauma affects cognition, emotional intelligence, and behaviors of young people who experience it. Immigran...

In this podcast, we have a conversation with Dr. Karla Rose Manning about the individuality aspect of transforming the schools and districts of the DEI as well as discussing the roles and the focuses when doing DEI work. Instead of focusing on the issues at a macro level, such as policies and systemic issues, DEI also requires a micro perspective. No matter how large a system is, it is made up of...

Good day and welcome to episode 55 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In today's conversation, I'm reading a blog published by the Great Lakes Equity Center in 2020 titled "24 Examples of Systemic Inequities Experienced by Students of Color and Students from Under-Resourced Communities in U.S. Schools".   This document identities 24 powerful examples of how students of color are and have been...

Welcome, welcome to Episode #54 of The Equity Experience Podcast.  In today's show, we are having a conversation addressing white nationalism and racism in schools.  (I prefer to use the term 'white nationalism' as opposed to 'white supremacy' or 'white superiority' and in another episode, I'll share my logic and rationale on that topic).  For this podcast, I read and share an artic...

Welcome to Episode 53 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this solo episode, I read and share a TIME article discussing the racially-motivated shooting in Buffalo, New York and how Buffalo Public School District is addressing the violent attack.  Highlights from this article/podcast include:  The need to offer social-emotional support/healing-centered curriculum to those who are grievin...

Welcome to the Equity Experience Podcast! In Episode 52, we have an in-depth conversation with Dr. Elaine Harper, a Professor, Former K-12 School Administrator, & Social-Emotional Learning Consultant.  In this conversation, we engage the following questions:  What are some of the main tenets of a social-emotional learning curriculum for K-12 students? What key elements must be/should...

How can educators include all ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientations, and disability statuses in K-12 classrooms and schools? In this podcast, we have an exciting conversation with Yael Rosenstock Gonzalez, a queer, sex gender woman who identifies herself as a body positivity and sex education advocate. She shares how K-12 educators can create a safe space of gender equity and gender inc...

Welcome to Episode 50 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, I share a blog from Mary Rice-Boothe titled "How to Make Your Equity Policy a Reality" from www.edutopia.org.  In this blog, Mary describes her experiences and best practices on how district leaders can move forward with operationalizing their district-wide equity policies.  Rice-Boothe states: "In the past two year...

Welcome to episode 49 of The Equity Experience Podcast! One of the things I often hear from educators is that they need support in having 'difficult' conversations with their colleagues, parents, or students regarding topics of race, diversity, belonging, etc. I offer a reframing of 'difficult' conversations to that of 'courageous' conversations to shift our thinking so that we show up more courag...

Welcome to 48 of The Equity Experience Podcast!   In this episode, Dr. Karla addresses a question that is often asked within the diversity, equity, & inclusion space: What is the return on investment (ROI) with implementing DEI initiatives?  What are the short-term and long-term financial incentives with successfully implementing a diversity, equity, and inclusion program?  Unde...

Welcome to a New Year and welcome to episode 47 of The Equity Experience Podcast! In this podcast, we offer our reflections on the 5 ways that school administrators can expand their educational equity initiatives for this new year. We break down strategies related to system-wide needs assessments, more inclusion of student voices in schools' decision-making processes, along with considerations of...

Welcome to episode #46 of The Equity Experience Podcast! On today's show, we have an invigorating conversation with Dr. Tracey Benson.  Dr. Tracey is best known for his Anti-Racism Leadership Institute, a comprehensive program designed to help education leaders build knowledge, skills, and ability while developing a plan of action to increase racial equity.  Dr. Tracey is a certified sch...

Good day and welcome to The Equity Experience Podcast!  On today's show, we discuss 7 action steps for building inclusive-centerd capacity with K-12 principals, superintendents, and central admin staff.  The action steps that I recommend and break down in this episode can help to strengthen one's bandwitdth for building an inclusive school, district, or organization.  Thanks for tun...