2018-19 ULA Workshops

If Black Lives Matter – At School, Too – Then Act Like You Know

Crystal Laura
October 3, 2018

Dr. Laura will explore how the school to prison pipeline is impacted and perpetuated by educator expectations, special education referrals, and labels. She examines zero tolerance policies and what educators and leaders can do to not only think differently, but do differently.

Crystal Laura

Crystal T. Laura is an associate professor of Educational Leadership at Chicago State University, a comprehensive institution on the city’s storied South Side. She explores leadership preparation for learning in the context of social justice with the goal of teaching school administrators to recognize, understand, and address the school-to-prison pipeline. She authored Being Bad: My Baby Brother and the School to Prison Pipeline, a powerful account of her family’s experiences in the school to prison pipeline.


Five Lenses for Education, Leadership, and Movement Building

Kevin Kumashiro
December 12, 2018

What is happening right now in public education, and how does that demand that we think differently about the role of education in a democracy, and the relationship between leadership and justice? This interactive workshop explores five “lenses” for deepening our understandings of educational “problems” and building our capacities for leading impactfully and collectively in troubling times: naming the moment, framing common sense, learning through crisis, anticipating challenges at three levels, and leading for movement building.

Kevin Kumashiro

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, teacher preparation, and transformative leadership. He has taught in schools and colleges across the United States and abroad, and is the former dean of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco. He has authored or edited ten books, and his recent awards include the American Educational Research Association’s 2016 Social Justice in Education Award.


Building an Educational Justice Movement: Organizing in Schools and Communities

Mark Warren
February 5, 2019

In order to address deep-seated and systemic racial inequities in educational policy and practice, we need to build a broad movement for educational justice. This workshop examines how community organizers, parents and young people from low-income communities of color are building this movement as they seek ways to ally with teachers and educators and build alliances at local and national levels. Examples are drawn from organizing efforts to combat the school to prison pipeline, create positive and restorative school cultures and practices, and take intersectional approaches that center the experience and leadership of youth and parents who are the most marginalized in schools and communities.

Mark Warren

Mark R. Warren is professor of public policy and public affairs at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Mark studies and works with community and youth organizing groups seeking to promote equity and justice in education, community development and American democratic life. Mark is co-chair of the Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN), a national network of scholars and community activists designed to promote collaborations that produce research that advances racial equity and social justice. Mark’s latest book is called Lift us up! Don’t push us out! Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement.


Transforming Belief Systems in Minneapolis Public Schools: The Story of the Office Of Black Male Achievement

Michael Walker
Keith Mayes
April 10, 2019

The Office of Black Male Student Achievement (OBMSA) was created specifically to address the needs of the largest demographic group within MPS. As one of the few departments like it in the country, it represents an equitable approach to tackling the challenges that exist for the school district’s black male students. This session will focus on the work of the OBMSA, the collaboration with Dr. Mayes at the University of Minnesota to create the curriculum for the course B.L.A.C.K. (Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge) and the outcomes they are seeing to date.

Keith Mayes

Keith Mayes is an associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, an expert on African American history, primarily of 1960s to present. He has special expertise on social and political movements and current issues of race and perception.

Michael Walker

Dr. Mayes worked closely with Michael Walker, Founding Director of the Office of Black Male Student Achievement in the Minneapolis Public Schools, in the development of the curriculum used in their program. Michael Walker is a PhD student at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development.