February 2025

Check out the new resources posted on ways to engage with and support Indigenous communities in your area as well as while you are in Chicago for the conference!

February 2025

Updates to the National Conference

Since last years conference, the committee has requested a few additions to our upcoming conference that have been accommodated for our 2025 Conference! 

• Thursday affinity events for our BBIA and LGBTQ+ attendees will not overlap in time or conflict with other meetings

• There will be a sensory break space during the conference hours. This is being called the Rest and Recharge Room, which is located in Wilson Room, 3rd floor upper level (see the schedule for hours)

• There will be QR codes in session rooms so you can share your feedback about sessions, presenters, or the conference in general, as things come to mind. These will be read after the conference, so if something is urgent, please report it to the registration desk.

January 2025

Live Auto Captions for Presentations

The committee has been working on a resource document for presenters at OAKE events to facilitate live auto captions. The goal is to help increase accessibility and meet the ADA Title III Regulations. We hope this living document will also serve as a resource to our chapters at their workshops. We welcome any suggested edits to the document as we try to keep up with technology. Check out the document under more resources in the dropdown menu. 

December 2024

Upstander Resources for Chapter Leaders

We at OAKE want to encourage you to have conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion. In 2023, we developed resources to empower conference attendees to ask questions, start conversations, and speak up if any presented content could be potentially be harmful. We now have a new video resource under Upstander Resources. Chapter leaders and program instructors can listen to an example of how to share these upstander resources at their events. Anyone attending an OAKE event may also benefit from this video resource. The intended goal is that we are all better prepared to engage in these important conversations that can can help us learn and move forward together.

April 2024

Endorsed Program Equity Commitment document

In their April meeting, the OAKE Board of Directors approved a document created by the Equity Committee, In collaboration with the TE (Teacher Education) and ETT (Educating the Teachers of Teachers) committees. All OAKE Endorsed Teacher Education Programs will be asked to have all Instructors and directors sign OAKE's Commitment to Equity, as Is asked of all conference presenters and elected board members of OAKE. The Importance of this document can be summed up In this excerpt:

"As a liaison between new music educators to the Kodály philosophy and OAKE-endorsed programming, we rely on your shared commitment to equity. Below are steps to minimizing harm and progressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in your programs. Approach these practices with a learning lens and resist perfection. There is no single perfect way to engage in this work, but we must use what we know to move forward. Remember to collaborate, listen to understand, and give grace to each other, as this work is ongoing."

NOV. 2023

We are excited to share that in October of 2023, the OAKE Board of Directors approved an Equity Advisor position to the BOD! This will ensure that the chair of the OAKE Equity Committee will be Invited and present In meetings of the board, Increasing transparent communication and serving to approach all dealings with an equity lens.