Our Story
The Equity Exchange began with a question: What comes after Diversity 101?
In 2014, educators from public and independent schools, and other organizations gathered in St. Louis to imagine a deeper, more sustained space for equity learning and practice. They were looking for something beyond introductory conversations and learning: a place where educators could examine complex questions, test ideas, learn across contexts, and build relationships strong enough to sustain their craft.
The first Equity Exchange cohort launched in July 2015. Since then, TEE has continued to evolve in response to the questions, tensions, and possibilities emerging in schools, institutions, and communities.
Four Enduring Commitments
Explore Research · Advance Principles · Co-construct Practices · Extend Relationships
These commitments continue to anchor how we learn, practice, and build relationships together, even as the questions we take up change from year to year.
The Exchange Through the Years
405
Cumulative cohort participation since 2015
142
Distinct schools and organizations represented across TEE cohorts
16
States represented across the TEE community
The Equity Exchange has grown through the participation and contributions of educators and facilitants from across the country. Many have returned across multiple years, carrying questions, practices, and relationships from one cohort into the next.
Our Annual Inquiries
Each year, The Equity Exchange responds to what is emerging in schools, communities, and the broader context. The first Institute brought together a wide range of foundational topics. In the years that followed, those explorations increasingly took shape through a shared annual inquiry.
2015
Foundational Topics
2016
Educator as Advisor, Advocate, Activist
2017
What to do with polarization at school?
2018
Identifying Problems, Polarities, and Possibilities in Education
2019
Effectively Navigating “Us & Them” Instincts
2020
Equity before Meritocracy: The Paradox, the Patterns, the Possibilities
2021
What are you choosing? Complicity, Complacency, Change
2022
Aligning what we believe with what we must do: Purpose, Positionality, Priority
2023
Know Risk, Know Rewards: designing for what is now… preparing for what is next
2024
Equity Emergence(y)
2025
Equity Reimagined: Rebirth, Restore, Release
2026
Equity under Construction: Name it, Build it, Sustain it
2027
What does inequity cost us? What does equity require of us?
Calculating Equity
Built in Community from the Beginning
The Original Design Team
In 2014, educators and practitioners from public and independent schools, districts, educational organizations, and independent practice gathered in St. Louis to imagine what The Equity Exchange could become. Their questions, challenge, generosity, and willingness to co-construct helped establish the commitments, relationships, and ways of working that continue to shape TEE.
Caroline Blackwell - NAIS
Charlotte Blessing - Lakeside School
Lewis Bryant - Buckingham, Brown & Nichols
Dion Crushshon - The Blake School
Haliday Douglas - Saint Louis Public Schools
David Harris - Positive by Design, LLC
Christopher Hinshaw - John Burroughs School
Ulric Johnson - Teens Advocating a Global Vision
Rosetta Lee - Seattle Girls' School
Christel McGuigan - Lakeside School
Marie Michael - The Blake School
Eddie Moore, Jr. - The Privilege Institute
Matt Nink - Global Youth Leadership Institute
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Charles Pearson - Innovative Education Solutions, LLC
Mark Smith - John Burroughs School
Rita Starr - Healing Our Nation
Steven Tejada - Noble and Greenough School
Chris Thinnes - Center for the Future of Education & Democracy
Carla Young - Cranbrook Schools
Affiliations reflect participants’ institutional connections at the time of the original TEE design retreat.
Voices from the 2014 Design Retreat
These excerpts capture voices from the retreat where The Equity Exchange first took shape, preserving some of the questions, aspirations, and possibilities being explored as the community imagined what TEE could become.
TEE Today
Today, The Equity Exchange brings educators together to deepen their practice, strengthen their institutions, and learn from one another.
The one-year cohort remains at the center of the TEE experience. It begins with the flagship Summer Institute in St. Louis and continues through Cohort Connection calls across the year. At the conclusion of the cohort year, participants become part of the TEE Alum Community, extending relationships and learning across cohorts and years.
TEE also serves as a point of connection for schools seeking support beyond the cohort through facilitation, coaching, consultation, and strategic partnership.
