Transforming Education Conference
Transforming Education for Social Justice Conference
Bridging, Belonging & Civic Engagement
Save the date: March 29, 2025 at Easthampton High School.
Plan to join us with a team from your school!
This is the fourth Transforming Education for Social Justice conference for PK-12 educators, pre-service teachers, school and district leaders, students and community members in western Massachusetts, dedicated to creating more equitable classrooms, schools, and communities. Youth are central to our conference and shape the experience for all, through presentations, planning, presence, and creating the vibes. As always, the conference features a youth-led session track.
Since our first conference in 2017, our regional networks of dedicated social justice educators and youth leaders have deepened and expanded across western Massachusetts and beyond. This year’s conference will focus on Bridging and Belonging without Othering: Youth Civic Engagement.
Conference Features
Conference sessions will cover a variety of social justice and equity topics and practices as they relate to K-12 schools. Join us for:
- A powerful keynote session and closing session
- Two opportunities (morning and afternoon) to choose workshop sessions focused on a wide array of exciting topics
- Opportunities for vibrant networking and connections with local educators and administrators as you share curriculum, lunch and facilitated conversation
- Time to laugh and play with old and new friends
- Youth-led sessions that provide opportunities to learn from young people and support the development of student leadership
Additional PreConference Experience Available!
Join the Fire Collective for an overnight preconference experience as an extension of the conference. The preconference focuses on practices to slow down and deepen relationships, and curating mindful arts and embodied joy as educators
to (re)awaken our humanity in the classroom. Facilitators will meet with their participants Friday late afternoon, and continue working with the group at our conference on Saturday until lunch. Preconference participants from the overnight experience will then have the opportunity to select an afternoon workshop of their choice. If you are interested in registering with the Fire Collective for the preconference, and paying the sliding scale for their overnight experience, you will also need to fill out our conference registration form and pay our $35 fee in order to be able to attend the conference. Please apply by February 9th.
*If you are a student, a parent/guardian accompanying a student, volunteer, or speaker/facilitator, you may attend the conference free of charge by registering with the button below. For all other regular attendees the conference admission is $35.
Keynote Speaker: Tiffany Jewell
Tiffany Jewell is a Black biracial writer, twin sister, first generation American, cisgender mama, anti-bias antiracist (ABAR) educator. She is the author of the #1 New York Times and #1 Indie Best Seller, This Book Is Anti-Racist, a book for young folks [and everyone] to support waking up, taking action, and doing the work of becoming antiracist. There will be a book signing with Tiffany at this year’s conference.
She has been working with children and families for nearly two decades and worked as a Montessori educator for fifteen years. She enjoys exploring social justice with young folks, especially the history of racism and resistance, economic justice, and socially and personally constructed identities. Tiffany also likes working with educators and supporting them building strong, authentic communities in which every child can be seen and valued.
Tiffany lives on the homeland of the Pocumtuc, Nonotuck, and the Nipmuck with her two young storytellers, husband, a small dog with a big personality, and a turtle she’s had since she was nine years old.
Support the TE4SJ Conference with a Donation!
Donations will help to support future Transforming Education for Social Justice conferences and free admission to the conference for our youth attendees. Please support this regional conference with a donation!
Past Conferences
2016 Conference
Creating Equity, Strengthening Community, and Engaging Identity
The first Transforming Education for Social Justice Conference was held on October 15, 2016, at Holyoke Community College.
Following the 2016 Conference, CES continued with efforts toward transformational work across the region through the Transforming Education for Social Justice Regional Initiative.
Keynote: Pa’lante
Towards Transformative Justice
The Restorative Justice movement in schools is continuing to expand as laws and policies mandate that schools find alternative approaches to exclusionary discipline. At Holyoke High School young people have created a model program that seeks to engage youth and adults in practices such as community building, support, and accountability circles and through their work with circle practice, they are challenging traditional paradigms of power that often leave youth voice out of the decision-making process around discipline and whole-school climate and culture. The youth in Pa’Lante are working to make their school truly responsive to the needs of students, and see their work as part of a long legacy of youth movements in communities of color that have always been at the forefront of work for educational justice.
2018 Conference
Centering Youth Voice, Experience, and Power
The second Transforming Education for Social Justice Conference was held on March 10, 2018, at Easthampton High School. The conference was sponsored by GLSEN.
Keynote: Cyphers for Justice Youth and Dr. Jamila Lyiscott
Pedagogy on Fire! Centering Youth Voices for Social Justice
On the other side of this national struggle, how will students remember the state of our classrooms? This talk, led by Cyphers for Justice youth researchers and Dr. Jamila Lyiscott calls for all educators to set their pedagogies on fire! It is a call to uproot the Eurocentric pedagogical approaches that not only under-prepare students for the realities of our increasingly multiethnic, multilingual, globalized society, but are also rooted in colonial and racist ideologies that stifle the voices, identities, and realities of students.
2023 Conference
Build Knowledge, Raise Consciousness, and Take Action
The third Transforming Education for Social Justice Conference was held on March 11, 2023, at the Integrative Learning Center at UMass Amherst.
Keynote: Tem Blessed and Evelin Aquino
Tem Blessed is a socially conscious Hip Hop Artist who has been making relevant music with a message for over a decade. Born in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa to Cape Verdean parents, his music and message are about social justice and sustainability and are designed to inspire the audience toward positive change and global responsibility.
Evelin Aquino is a Boricua/Dominicana from Western MA and Washington Heights, NYC. She is a graduate of UMass Amherst and has worked with hundreds of youth and communities across the country as an educator, trainer, mentor, and facilitator. Evelin has dedicated her life to social justice, utilizing the arts as a vehicle for empowerment and education toward liberation. She is deeply inspired and guided by the youth of today, her family, elders (especially her father), and ancestors.
Click here to watch Keynote video.
Closing Performance: First Generation Ensemble
We were so excited to welcome the First Generation Ensemble (a youth, theater performance group in Springfield) to perform their piece called “Mother Tongue”.
Click here to watch Closing Performance video.