LaShawn Routé Chatmon

Executive Director

For speaker, media and other inquiries please contact Sonya Neal at sneal@nationalequityproject.org.

Follow LaShawn on Twitter @lashawnrchatmon.

LaShawn Routé Chatmon is the founding Executive Director of the National Equity Project, leading the organization’s transition from the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES).  Under her leadership, the National Equity Project has catalyzed a movement to revitalize our country’s approach to racial equity in education. LaShawn previously served as a coach and director of BayCES’ high school redesign initiative, where her team pioneered new school design processes, principal network development and site coaching that transformed educational experiences and outcomes for teachers and students in Oakland, CA.

Prior to joining the National Equity Project, LaShawn served as a teacher and leader at Redwood Day School, Alameda, CA; The Wheeler School, Providence, RI; and Berkeley High School, Berkeley, CA. While at Berkeley High, she served as Co-Director for The Diversity Project with Dr. Pedro Noguera at the University of California at Berkeley. The Diversity Project is a school-university action research project designed to address the disparity in achievement between white students and students of color and to investigate the causes of racial separation.

LaShawn is a contributing author in the book Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Schools and has presented at numerous education conferences and convenings across the country. She was a MetLife Teaching Fellow, a LeaderSpring ED Fellow, and a Pahara Fellow. LaShawn earned a B.A. in political science from University of California, Berkeley; a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Brown University; and an Administrative Credential from California State University, Sacramento’s Urban Leadership Program.

Recent interviews and writing include:

• Rest as a Practice of Resistance and Freedom‎

• 180 Podcast: What Is an Equitable Learning Environment and How Can Your School Build One?

• Exercising Creative Courage: A Conversation with LaShawn Chatmon

• Unleashing Social Change: LaShawn Routé Chatmon and Kathleen Osta, “Rebel Leadership”

• The Resettlement Podcast: Rebel Leadership in a Time of Change: LaShawn Routé Chatmon

• Rebel Leadership for our Collective Future

• Let’s Go for Broke for Black Freedom

• See, Engage, Act: Leading an Equitable Organization