Building Coalitions for Collective Action Towards Educational Justice
Please use this registration page to sign up to receive clock hours for the symposium. Visit the main registration page to register for the event.
The 2026 Leading Towards Justice (LtJ) Symposium brings together educational and community leaders to share, deepen, and expand justice-centered leadership as we (re)energize and remind ourselves that how we teach and lead is consequential to shaping our futures and staying responsive to our current climate and conditions. This year’s Symposium centers coalition-building for collective action-- the practices of power-sharing, cross-racial solidarity, navigating conflict, and building trust across difference.
The LtJ Symposium offers a relational and interactive learning space designed to facilitate reciprocal learning, share approaches, and develop authentic practices. We invite workshops led by teams of educational leaders, family and youth leaders, community organizers, and practitioners that demonstrate justice-centered practices in action that lead us towards racial equity and justice in our schools and communities.
Details
- Friday, February 6th, 2:30pm-7:30pm
- Saturday, February 7th, 9am-4:30pm
- Participants may earn up to 9.25 equity or leadership clock hours for full participation. Clock hours will be awarded after the symposium concludes. Please allow 2 weeks for processing.
OSPI Clock Hour Standards
Administrators: Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) ▼
- Mission, Vision, and Core Values: Effective educational leaders develop, advocate, and enact a shared mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education and academic success and well-being of each student.
- Equity and Cultural Responsiveness: Effective educational leaders strive for equity of educational opportunity and culturally responsive practices to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
- Community of Care and Support for Students: Effective educational leaders cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive school community that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student.
- Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community: Effective educational leaders engage families and the community in meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
Cultural Competency, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Standards (CCDEI) ▼
- Understanding Self: Educators explore their multiple identities and lived experiences to build an understanding of how race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, age, educational status, religion, geography, primary language, culture, and other forms of human diversity shape identity, perspectives, and worldviews. Understanding self is an ongoing process of reflection and learning so that educators can adapt to meet the needs of others.
- Understanding Others: By exploring various forms of human diversity (e.g. race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, age, educational status, religion, geography, primary language, culture, and other characteristics and experiences), educators actively seek to understand the needs of others who are similar and different from themselves. Educators engage in ongoing learning about others and question their own assumptions.
- Responsiveness: Educators employ the principles of cultural competence, diversity, equity, and inclusion to build connections with students, families, and other educators. Educators respond to others in ways that are asset-focused and flexible, changing their approach as the need arises. These are the roots of cultural competence and humility.
- Relationships: Educators form authentic relationships by understanding self, others, and the interactions between the two. Educators adapt their approaches to making connections based on continual reflection of their own identities, perspectives, and socialization. Interactions with others are grounded in respect and trust.
- Service: Educators serve and care for students, families, and communities by centering their voices, building on their experiences, and understanding their needs and strengths. Educators balance competing interests and mitigate challenges by practicing restorative justice, civil discourse, social-emotional intelligence, self-reflection, and facilitating courageous conversations centering on complex issues of educational justice and systemic inequities.
- Shared Expertise: Educators create an environment that welcomes all students and families, recognizing that the school belongs to them and the community. School faculty, staff, and administration highlight and center community expertise for learning partnerships.
- Collaboration: Educators support learning partnerships by shifting from a focus on the individual to a focus on the collective “we.” Educators collaborate with a variety of roles inside and outside the school community, including calling others in and joining others for conversations and activities that build shared understanding and goals.
- Shared Decision-Making: In a democratic, multicultural society, students, families, and communities are recognized and valued for the assets and perspectives they bring. In turn, educators seek their input and pursue shared decision- making at all times. Those impacted by decisions are key contributors.
- Self-Reflection: Educators analyze and reflect on their strengths, biases, and privileges to advance cultural competency, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Educators acknowledge their ways of being that may cause harm to students, families, and other educators and consider how their strengths might be used to produce a change in their sphere of influence.
- Commitment: Educators understand the history of U.S. schooling and the ways in which it has been used historically, and in present times, to maintain an unequal social order. Educators consistently work to improve the education system for historically underserved students, families, and communities.
- Advocacy: Educators act for a more just education system and for the common good of all. Educators aim to identify and change policies and practices that harm students, families, and communities (e.g. zero- tolerance policies, punitive classroom management practices, disproportionality in discipline, etc.). This includes empowering the voices of students, families, and educators to collectively address inequity and restore peace in the learning community while advocating for change.
- Self-Awareness: Individual has the ability to identify their emotions, personal assets, areas for growth, and potential external resources and supports.
- Social Awareness: Individual has the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
- Social Engagement: Individual has the ability to consider others and show a desire to contribute to the well-being of school and community.
Clock hours questions? Please contact registration at coereg@uw.edu.
