Networks & Communities of Practice

We believe equity work is best done in community: learning in public, holding ourselves and each other accountable, trying new approaches and working through complex challenges collectively. Together we can reimagine and create equitable systems and structures that challenge and disrupt the status quo.

There are no ready answers or solutions to the complex and unpredictable challenges we face. Equity work requires “host” leadership – engaging multiple perspectives, learning with and from one another – rather than “hero” leadership of planning the work and working the plan. By supporting meaningful relationships with others in a network, we contribute to well-being and sustain people in their work, while supporting leaders to do the same in their partnerships with families and communities.

We facilitate and partner with networks and communities of practice both within and across systems and sectors.

The NEP Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) District Network is a cohort of school districts from across the country committed to dream, disrupt, and co-design more equitable, healing-centered, and joyful purposes of school and approaches to teaching and learning in partnership with Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students.

By working in deep and sustained partnership with BIPOC students and their families, school districts learn how to co-design approaches that ensure that every student emerges from K-12 education with strong academic skills, social-emotional wellness and intelligence, a sense of agency and civic responsibility, an awareness and appreciation of their multiple identities and a broader set of competencies that equip them to be healthy, happy contributing adults who can make a positive change in the world. 

The BELE District Network builds on the work of two regional NEP District Networks (Midwest launched in 2019 and LERN launched in 2020) and is supported by an innovative collaboration between the National Equity Project and the BELE Network Learning Partners including UChicago Consortium for School Research, Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS), and the Collaborative for Social, Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL).

Since 2018, NEP’s Black Teacher Project has offered a cohort-based fellowship for Black teachers who are committed to deeply exploring Black Identity Development, Wellness, Black Leadership for Liberation, and Quality Instruction Rooted in Blackness. We launched our 4th cohort in January 2023: an 18-Month experience for Black teacher leaders who have the desire, influence, and capacity to support an effort to forge systems-level change.

Fellows focus on building the knowledge, skills, and disposition needed to catalyze and influence the emergence of transformative practices that foster wellness, thriving, liberated learning, and increased opportunity for teachers, students, and communities. The Black Teacher Project Fellowship builds a supportive community of restoration and renewal through critical friendship, action learning, and shared experience.

In 2021 we launched an online Membership Platform for current TK-12 Black teachers. Our goal is to co-create a space of joyful and meaningful community for Black teachers throughout the country. Share resources, jobs and other opportunities, and support your fellow Black teachers to thrive. Learn more and apply for membership on our BTP site.

Building on the success of our 5 cohorts of Leading for Equity Fellows (2016-2020), in 2021 we launched our first group-based leadership development program – the Rebel Leader Collective – for groups of leaders who have expressed a commitment to equity, belonging, and collective liberation in their communities.

Additional partner networks, fellowships and communities of practice we’ve supported include:

• Grantmakers for Education Community of Practice

• Racial Equity in Action Leadership (REAL) Center, Grand Rapids, MI

Some networks that we’ve previously supported include:

• Leading for Equity Fellowship (2016-2020): a year-long program for leaders committed to leading, designing, and facilitating equity-centered learning experiences in their context. The fellowship fostered a network of leaders that experience opportunities for learning, renewal, inspiration, healing, and sustenance while going deeper with their own transformational leadership development. We supported 5 cohorts of LFE Fellows who continue to lead for equity in contexts across the country.

• Somos Una Mezcla (Latinx Affinity Space): In 2021, we piloted a 3 session opportunity for Latinx teachers in Oakland, CA. Teachers from Oakland Unified School District, Oakland Charter Schools, and neighboring districts were invited to reframe and reclaim a professional learning space rooted in intersectional Latinidad. Sessions centered healing, reflection, shared learning and community building. We hope to continue to design and iterate this network.

• Racial Equity Leadership Network (RELN) Fellowship, Southern Education Foundation: From 2015-2020 we supported the design and development of this powerful network of executive leaders in the South.