Charter Schools Office to host new equity in education webinar series

Grand Valley’s Charter Schools Office will begin a new professional education webinar series aimed at helping teachers and administrators combat inequities in public education. 

The Equity in Teaching and Learning webinar series is free and will prepare educators to effectively identify and prevent practices that contribute to inequities in the classroom. The series will teach strategies to lead to more equitable outcomes for students. It is primarily geared toward educators serving K-12 students, but the content is also applicable to collegiate instruction.

The series will be led by Richard Lemons, executive director at the Connecticut Center for School Change. Lemons has more than 25 years of experience in education, formerly serving as a classroom teacher, literacy coach, change coach, researcher and policy advocate. Since 2010, he has led strategic school improvement work for GVSU-authorized charter public schools.

Lemons said the series will push educators to take the actions that are necessary for disrupting culturally-embedded assumptions about how schooling should work.

“Right now, we are in a unique historical context. Over the last several weeks, the nation finds itself awoken from its complacency and ready to turn directly into our sorted history (and present) with race,” Lemons said. “Subsequently, educators from coast to coast are asking hard questions about schooling, racism and equity, and what more can be done.”

The series will start on September 15 and run for six months, with one session held each month. 

To register for any of the sessions in the webinar series, visit www.gvsu.edu/cso/equity