leap’s Racial justice training institute
Leap’s statement on the recent supreme court ruling
The recent decision by the Supreme Court ending affirmative action undermines the progress made toward equitable education and equal opportunity for all people to thrive. Leap stands committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, and supporting Teaching Artists and Students. Part of Leap’s commitment is in the development of its Racial Justice Training Institute (RJTI). An educational series co-developed by Leap Teaching Artists, or Artivists, aimed at identifying and disrupting systemic barriers to racial equity and justice, and ultimately improving outcomes for students, classrooms and systems. Learn more about RJTI here:
Leap’s Racial Justice Training Institute
In 2016, Leap began focused internal investigation into racial justice topics with monthly staff reading and discussion groups to deepen knowledge in the areas of social and racial justice and educational equity from an interpersonal, organizational and systems lens. Next, Leap began offering focused, rich Professional Development series for Teaching Artists on Implicit Bias, Self-Awareness, Trauma-Informed Teaching, Educational Equity, and Intersectional Identities.
In 2018, Leap developed an equity-driven Theory of Change and Strategic Plan which included deepening the organization’s approach to Creative Youth Development and Culturally Responsive Teaching. The Leap Board began conducting Self-Assessments for diverse representation and developing key strategic equity indicators for all parts of the organization, including finance, programs, governance, marketing, human resources and development.
In 2019, the organization solidified its commitment to Culturally Responsive Teaching by leading a series of Teaching Artist Professional Development Workshops aligning the specific equity-driven approach to classroom engagement, instruction and evaluation.
In 2020, to deepen and expand our comprehensive commitment to racial justice, Leap launched the Leap Racial Justice Training Institute (RJTI).
VISION: All Leap artists, staff, board, and school partners share a common knowledge base and commit to taking action that identifies and disrupts systemic barriers to racial equity and justice.
RJTI has now trained all of Leap Staff, Teaching Artists and Board members (nearly 70 participants to date)
RJTI will train an additional 200+ participants this year, including peer organization staff, Teaching Artists, arts administrators and board members.
PURPOSE: The Objective of the RJTI is to improve equitable outcomes for students’ education and lives, and we do that by:
Building a community of knowledgeable arts educators, administrators, school partners, advocates and organizations.
Providing equity-driven, student centered, culturally-responsive arts education.
Decentering white narratives, eliminating racial bias, and increasing racial justice in ourselves, our classrooms and systems.
Provide transformational arts education experiences with marginalized perspectives centered.
Leap’s RJTI is Teaching Artist-driven training initiative, based on train-the-trainer models, that allows for co-creation of all training materials, content, approach and facilitation. This work aligns academic research with real world applications to schools, classrooms and students. RJTI trains Teaching Artists, Nonprofit Board Members, Arts Coordinators, School Partners, PTOs, and will soon work with corporate partners to provide racial justice training through an artist lens.
