Leading Race-Conscious School Improvement Workshop Facilitators
The workshop will be led by UIC Ed.D. faculty and Center for Urban Education Leadership co-directors who are experienced facilitators that will provide a range of interactive learning activities to help leadership teams create a plan for improving their schools' practice in a specified work area.
Lionel Allen, Jr., EdD. Heading link
Lionel E. Allen, Jr. is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Co-Coordinator of the Urban Education Leadership Program. Dr. Allen has over twenty years of experience as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and chief academic officer, and leadership coach. He is the author of Lead with C.AR.E.: Strategies for Building Culturally Competent and Affirming Schools (Corwin Press) and lead editor of the forthcoming book, B-Sides: Undertold Stories of Leading Improvement in Black and Brown School Communities (SUNY Press).
Decoteau Irby, Ph.D. Heading link
Decoteau J. Irby is an associate professor in UIC’s Department of Educational Policy Studies, where he teaches primarily in the Urban Education Leadership Ed.D. program. His research explores how equity-focused school leadership can be used as a lever to improve Black children and youth’s academic achievement and socio-emotional well-being across a range of K-12 educational settings. He is the author of Stuck Improving: Racial and Equity and School Leadership (Harvard Education Press) and the forthcoming book The Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change (Teachers College Press).
Van Lac, Ph.D. Heading link
Van Lac is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Prior to her graduate studies, she was a high school English teacher in Richmond, California, working in an under-resourced community serving primarily Black and Latinx students. Her scholarship centers how K-12 school leaders can leverage youth participatory action research (YPAR) to work with and alongside minoritized youth for educational justice. She has facilitated YPAR projects with racially marginalized students across the K-12 spectrum in after school programs, school district-university partnerships, and community-based organizations.
Jason Salisbury, Ph.D. Heading link
Jason Salisbury is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His scholarship and school partnerships focus on understanding how schools can engage in successful culturally relevant instructional improvement. Through this work Dr. Salisbury centers building-wide and teacher team approaches to instructional improvement that are co-lead by students. Prior to joining the faculty at UIC, he was a professor at Iowa State University and high school special education teacher in Chicago Public Schools and Madison Metropolitan School District. He is a co-editor of a forthcoming book, B-Sides: Undertold Stories of Leading Improvement in Black and Brown School Communities (SUNY Press).