Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
From Theory to Action
Welcome to the sixth annual Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: From Theory to Action conference organized by the
Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective
for New Haven Public Schools educators!
Throughout the two days of the conference — Tuesday, August 4th and Wednesday, August 5th — you will engage in four 90-minute sessions, each focused on a different theme within culturally relevant pedagogy. This is a conference organized for educators and by educators, so you can expect sessions that offer a balance of theoretical and practical learning, including opportunities for learning new content, for reflection, interaction, and preparation for application. Sessions are facilitated by a mix of NHPS colleagues and New Haven community members, as well as educators engaging in this work nationally.
In both selecting your sessions and engaging in them, be intentional, open-minded, and try new things. Also, keep in mind that this conference is just one piece of a larger, ongoing practice. We are excited to be doing this necessary work alongside you.
Conference Schedule
Session Themes
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1. What is an Anti-Racist School?
This conference begins with the necessary question: what is an anti-racist school? The answers are many, spanning restorative justice, the role of unions, mental health, curriculum, language immersion, approaches to planning and facilitating lessons, and so much more. Each session approaches the vital question through a different lens, all contributing to deepening our collective work toward building anti-racist schools.
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2. Identity and Intersectionality
Schools and classrooms are places where people of a range of different identities intersect. Our work is to strengthen our consciousness of our own identities and their impacts, as well as our awareness of students, colleagues and families’ identities, and how these varying identities intersect. While no workshop can cover the multitude of identities represented in our schools, these sessions aim to offer a deeper understanding of identity and intersectionality.
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3. Curriculum and Pedagogy
As we move into the second day of the conference, we want to ensure educators have the opportunity to gain new knowledge and think practically about their classrooms and content areas, all through the lens of anti-racist and culturally relevant pedagogy. Spanning various subjects and grade levels, sessions will offer practical methods useful to educators from elementary to secondary levels, and across content areas.
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4. Community Connection and Youth Activism
Our final conference theme is centered on community and youth. These sessions will help you connect with local New Haven organizations engaging in important education-related work, and will center on the fundamental importance of community connection and youth activism.
Keynote Speakers
Opening Performance
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Henry Mead is a poet hailing from New Haven currently serving as the 2026-2027 New Haven Youth Poet Laureate. A 4 year student at Wilbur Cross High School and the ACES Educational Center for the Arts Writing Department, Mead has been carefully studying the creation and performance of poetry his entire high school career, and is now working on expanding his craft for civic engagement in educational reform and the promotion of poetry as an artform in New Haven and beyond. With an additional focus on photography, he engages in both capturing and spreading the challenges of the human experience through the visual and written mediums. Through promoting poetry and encouraging interpersonal understanding in art, Mead hopes to create a world where all people are seen.
Henry Mead
Day 1: Closing Speaker
Jesse Hagopian
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Jesse Hagopian’s African ancestors were enslaved on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana and his Armenian ancestors survived the Armenian genocide. Jesse is a Seattle based educator and the author of the book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education. Jesse is an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, a founding member of Black Lives Matter at School, and the Director for the Zinn Education Project’s “Teaching for Black Lives" campaign. Jesse is the co-editor of the books, Black Lives Matter At School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, Teaching for Black Lives, Teacher Unions and Social Justice, and the editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing.
For information on his book: Description of Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education Click Here
You can connect with Jesse on IG ( @jessehagopian ) Bluesky (@jessehagopian.bsky.social) Substack (https://jessehagopian.substack.com/) or via his website, www.IAmAnEductor.com
Day 2: Closing Speaker
Elizabeth Acevedo
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Elizabeth Acevedo was the 2022 Young People’s Poet Laureate and the New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist. Her next book Anger Is Only a Shadow is forthcoming in 2026. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem, Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, DC with her love.