The CPS Equity Academy was founded in the spring of 2024 with the goal of building on our district’s equity work across three levels.
- Individual level: build each advocate’s equity lens, collaboration, and leadership skills.
- School level: develop strong systems and structures to support equity work.
- District level: align equity work across schools and collaborate towards a collective vision of equity.
The inaugural cohort included 34 Advocates from across 19 CPS schools and programs. Through a 2-day summer institute, 10 monthly sessions and periodic team check- ins, the Equity Advocates developed a cumulative project based on a data-driven problem of practice.
Over the course of the year, Advocates identified an inequity within their building, developed a theory of action within their locus of control, and implemented a Safe-to-Fail experiment and collected data to analyze their impact.
In addition to their cumulative project, Equity Advocates serve as thought partners for staff within their building to work through equity-based dilemmas.