Building Coalitions for Collective Action Towards Educational Justice
From ICE raids in our communities to the dismantling of the Department of Education, from funding cuts targeting schools serving Black, Indigenous, and Latiné students to attacks on educators - we're navigating enormous challenges. And we are also seeing bright spots: educators partnering with families to protect students, community organizations and schools building responses together, cross-racial coalitions defending resources, youth and adults co-leading change. Coalition work is happening. People are building collective power across differences.
How we teach and lead is consequential to shaping our futures and staying responsive to our current climate and conditions. The 2026 Leading Towards Justice (LtJ) Symposium brings together educational and community leaders to share, deepen, and expand justice-centered leadership. 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. Together, we will explore:
- What are our responsibilities to one another, our local territories, and to the educational futures we are enacting?
- How do we nurture joy and possibility as we build coalitions through precarious times?
- How do we work to realize our justice-focused aspirations for coalition-building in specific here-and-now leadership practices?