Building Equity Bridges Grant

Dear colleagues,
I’m writing to officially launch our CEA work on the “Building Equity Bridges” grant.  As you might recall, the grant is a partnership between CPS and the CEA to deepen our understanding of the root causes of inequity in our schools.  On the “CEA side” of the grant, we’ve created structures for robust grassroots participation by educators — here are the details and I encourage you to join the movement!

Here’s how you can engage with this work right away:

• Read more about the grant – here is a link to a 2 pager about this work.
• Apply for one (or more!) of over 40 stipended positions.  Depending on your interest and availability, I hope you’ll consider serving as:
  • a CEA Member Organizer: $450 to organize at your school and help with district-wide events. You can do multiple positions or share with a colleague! Click to learn more and apply.
  • a CEA Participatory Action Researcher: $900 to get support in experimenting in your classroom around issues of equity. Click to learn more and to apply.
  • a Participatory Action Research Facilitator: $7000 to get training from locally and nationally known Gretchen Brion-Meisels so you can support our researchers! Click to learn more and to apply.
• Read and consider signing our upcoming Op-Ed about social-justice organizing by CEA educators.  We would love for it to publicly include a long list of supporters!

I’m also thrilled to introduce Lissette Castillo, the CEA’s new Equity & Engagement Coordinator for the grant.  Lissette comes with a ton of energy and wealth of powerful experience — you’re going to love her!

Here’s a brief introduction that Lissette shared:
“Gracias for the opportunity to serve as the CEA Equity and Engagement Coordinator.  I look

forward to continuing to facilitate the fostering of inclusion, equity and racial justice educational practices through our partnership. I hope to engage educators in conversations and open new opportunities for identifying and overcoming learning and teaching challenges.”

Here’s a link to Lissette’s Boston EdTalk from 2017: https://youtu.be/2A4MlfUcBO8  
(Skip ahead to 12:22 to see her speak!)

And here’s a brief description of Lissette’s past work:
Lissette Agyeman Castillo worked at Fenway High School in Boston since 2005. She has over 12 years of experience working with youth of color and developing curriculum and teaching the Spanish for Native Speakers courses. She has also worked for 4 years at Sociedad Latina as a Curriculum Developer, Summer Program Coordinator & consultant.  She has a Masters Art in Teaching MAT (2004) and a Masters in Public Policy M.P.P (2015) from Tufts University. She is committed to challenging and fighting racial inequalities in education through developing curriculum that is relevant and family / youth-driven.
 

Thanks for reading.  We’ll share more information in the coming weeks.  And for now, please don’t forget to apply for a position and/or sign on to the Op-Ed.

This is an exciting time to be a CEA member.  I’m grateful to work alongside colleagues like you to build equity for and with our students.