About the Enseñamos en el Valle Central Institute: Vision and Mission

Enseñamos en el Valle Central is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Initiative focused on cultivating critically conscious, community-responsive educators with a commitment to equity, justice, liberation, and anti-racism. Our mission and vision are grounded and informed by a long history of community struggles for access to higher education and professional careers that value and promote service to community, social awareness, and critical civic engagement for the public good. Community-responsive educators are defined as those who intentionally seek to transform the culture, curriculum, and broader climates of education systems so that they prioritize wellness—innerself, interpersonal, interconnectedness—across three critical elements of pedagogical practice: relationships, relevance, and responsibility (Tintiangco-Cubales & Duncan-Andrade, 2021).

Our 2022 Fall Institute will include speakers, tailored workshops and affinity group sessions that are grounded in the day-to-day expectations that future and current community-responsive educators, counselors, and emerging leaders navigate as they aspire and commit to serve the in- and out-of-school needs of students and families. All participants will be provided resources and tools for strengthening culturally and linguistically sustaining, and healing- and ability-informed curriculum and pedagogies to facilitate greater college and career access and completion, while providing tools for community-responsive engagement and advocacy to sustain healthy campus climates and student- and family-centered wellbeing—particularly among historically-minoritized youth and families across the Central San Joaquín Valley.

As part of these goals, we will to support the development and/or strengthen the impact of K-16 Education Pathways Programs that seek to recruit, nurture, and sustain future and current ethnoracial educators and counseling specialists across the Central San Joaquín Valley.

Each Institute will unpack a series of thematic topics through various perspectives and each gathering will be held at a different location to help bring exposure to community-based identities, relevant organizations, resources and support systems further expanding participant capacities to build upon the diverse assets of communities across the region.

Our Approach

All workshops will broaden awareness and strengthen pedagogical and systems-building competencies across five key domains:

Conceptual and Reflective: an advanced understanding of topics and ideas related to Intersectional Justice and Wellbeing in an organized and interconnected manner that centers socio political experiences, educational opportunities, and quality of life among historically-minoritized communities. Participants will reflect on their own ways of knowing and practices, developing short- and long-term goals on how they will strengthen their approaches for serving the diverse needs of students and families.

Community-Responsive Praxis: furthering the process of self- and collective-awareness the Institute will support participants to acquire and implement advanced tools and resources to develop and enact culturally and linguistically sustaining and healing-centered curriculum and pedagogies that honor and make meaning of the experiences, assets and needs of youth and communities being served. Participants will engage in analyses of data to further inform and develop their short- and long-term goals by developing curriculum (scope and sequence) and pedagogical action plans that connect classroom/unit experiences with the community-based identities of students and families. Central to these processes are student voice, self-actualization, and collective advocacy.

Collective Accountability and Action that is grounded in community-responsive systems-building advocacy and responds to local needs and student-centered success. Participants will develop Community-Based Equity Audits and a Collective Advocacy Blueprint that identifies policies and practices (at various levels) that hinder equitable and optimal learning environments and create barriers to access and persist in/through higher education and the education profession, while simultaneously informing Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) resources and supports to reverse these inequities.

Institute Descriptions:

Institute 1: Curriculum and Pedagogy Foundations: Affirming Intersectional Knowledges and Sustaining Diverse Learners

Description: Participants will gain an advanced understanding of contextual (in- and out-of-school) factors that mediate student’s opportunity to learn, teacher-student relations, as well as classroom and campus climates for student-centered success. This will include a deeper awareness of personal dispositions and biases, and defining what it means to be a community-based educator serving diverse communities. Workshops will provide advanced foundations in current pedagogical approaches and modalities/accommodations, and day-to-day practices that build upon community-based identities, experiences and assets of students in curriculum (e.g., scope and sequence, advising, mentoring and outreach materials, assessment, etc.).

At the end of this session each participant will complete the initial phase of their personalized Framework and Pedagogical Action Plan that includes short- and long-term goals on how they will strengthen their approaches for serving the diverse needs of students and families whereby student voice, self-actualization, and collective healing are integral aspects to this plan. Some areas of focus for this phase will include the racialization of language, citizenship, and ability—this includes the psycho-socio-emotional impacts of labels like “English learner,” “disabled,” “immigrant,” and “special needs”.

Institute 2: Creating Affirming Experiences and a Sense of Belonging for Males of Color and LGBTQ+ Communities

Description: Participants will gain deeper awareness of sociopolitical and socio cultural factors that inform race-gendered inequities in schools. Participants will be provided tools to engage in analyses of topics such as disproportionality in school discipline, bullying and school safety and how these factors manifest in their local contexts (classrooms, units, schools/districts). Workshops will support participants to further develop the second phase of their Framework and Pedagogical Action Plans to more critically address issues of equity as they relate to racialized and gendered experiences and social emotional needs.

At the end of this session, participants will strengthen their classroom visions and missions to include an introspective and systemic analysis of how race-gendered inequities are impacting their local contexts, distinguishing punitive versus restorative practices, and tools to cultivate positive learning communities (i.e., classrooms/units; campus and districts) that are safe, secure, welcoming, and nurture a sense of belonging.

Institute 3: Cultivating and Sustaining Community-Responsive Educators and Counseling Specialists

Description and Outcomes: Participants will analyze socio political, cultural and economic factors impacting access to college, degree completions and career opportunities among communities they serve, and any/all systemic efforts to recruit and sustain future and current community-based educators and counseling specialists.

At the end of this session, participants will have a Community-Based Equity Audit that draws from asset-based community data to advance community responsive systems-building and equitable school–community solutions, including K-16 Pathways Programs. This will include a repository of resources and supports to eliminate barriers—including short- and long-term changes in (societal and institutional) policies and practices that hinder equitable and optimal learning environments and persistence in/through higher education and the education profession.

Institute 4: Advancing Community-Responsive Policies and Campus Climates

Description and Outcomes: In this final gathering, participants will draw from their Community-Based Audits and work collaboratively to develop a regional Collective Advocacy Blueprint that address three key areas: strengthening cross-institutional collaborations, coalition building, and integrating community-responsive practices—including K-16 Pathways Programs. This process and outcome will be used to inform Local Control Accountability Plans in collaboration with students and families across the region with a goal of eliminating systemic barriers, strengthening academic and career opportunities, and advancing psycho-socio-emotional wellness.

Institute Outcomes

For Participants of the Enseñamos en el Valle Central Institute, you will leave with the following:

• An advanced understanding of contextual (in- and out-of-school) factors that mediate student’s opportunity to learn, teacher-student relations, as well as classroom and campus climates for student-centered success;

• An advanced foundation in current pedagogical approaches, modalities/accommodations, and tools for serving diverse student learners and families;

• Relevant and tailored resources and tools to develop and strengthen content area and Education Pathways curriculum and pedagogies that are grounded in local contexts and needs;

• The development of Student-Centered Success Action Plans, Community-Based Equity Audits, and a Collective Advocacy Blueprint that are grounded in local community contexts (school/district), address issues of curriculum, pedagogy, and inform Local Control Accountability and Resources to serve student and family needs;

• Priority access to an ongoing Communities of Practice, resources, and future structured events and programming.

For Districts who sponsor and support educators, counselors and emerging leaders to participate, the Institute will lead to a team of school-based advocates who are equipped to strengthen K-16 educational opportunities for students and families, inspire campus climates that are grounded in equity, social justice and healing, and progress towards institutionalizing Pathway Programs that expand access to higher education and professional careers in education. These knowledge, tools, and competencies are further relevant and transferable to the foundational components needed to establish any/all postsecondary and career-focused Pathways Programs that districts and campuses may aspire to develop, particularly as they relate to diversifying professions.