Professional Development Opportunities
Courageous Conversation,
Beyond Diversity
Beyond Diversity is a powerful, personally transforming, two-day seminar that helps leaders, employees, and organizations understand the impact of race on their lives, their work, and their overall growth and development. Interactive and stirring exercises strengthen participants’ critical consciousness of race and lead them to investigate the role that racism plays in institutionalizing achievement disparities. Most importantly, it models and teaches a protocol for discussing race in ways that are productive, insightful, and generative. We cannot solve the problems created by systemic racism without discussing race. Beyond Diversity, a program with a 25-year history and over 100,000 alumni, enables organizations to generate equity by imparting a method for having those Courageous Conversations.
Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) Model
SEAL is a preschool through elementary program of the Sobrato Family Foundation. It is designed to build the capacity of schools to powerfully develop the language and literacy skills of young English Learner children, and to close the achievement gap by fourth grade. SEAL is also a model of language-rich, joyful and rigorous education for all children. In partnership with the Sobrato Foundation, the teachers of San Rafael participate in an intense, two year professional development program. At the end of their training, teachers are able to develop rich, powerful language and literacy in all students within the context of delivering a full academic curriculum.
