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Liwaru partners with school districts and their staff, community-based organizations and elected officials to advise on strategic actions to expand opportunities and improve outcomes for historically marginalized students. Liwaru offers insight into the ongoing CAFE summits and his role working with education service districts in the following interview.
Tell us about your role as Regional Director of Equity Initiatives and Partnerships for CAFE.
[This role supports] the area ESDs and school districts served in the six-county area. This includes Multnomah ESD, as well as Northwest Regional and Clackamas ESDs. Basically, we are trying to transform the field of collaborative educational equity and improve the lives of children and families in northwest Oregon. I don't do this alone. CAFE is made up of representative leadership from each ESD.
Please describe the recent CAFE Fall Summit for folks who weren't able to attend.
Our collaboration convened a regional gathering of educators from all areas of educational roles, e.g., instructional assistants, nursing staff, superintendents, teachers, deans, principals, counselors, social workers, instructional coaches, etc.
The CAFE summit provides a variety of benefits. It highlights the equity work currently happening in the region, uses breakouts to work on problems of practice and is structured in a way that allows for networking/engagement beyond the event. The summit is not a single event, but a continuous improvement strategy that disrupts the kind of events that fall into a pattern of one-and-done superficial equity discussions rather than deep professional development and learning that lead to actions taken in a participant's daily work for youth.
What inspired the CAFE Fall Summit? Was there a specific catalyst for the fall event?
The CAFE summit was inspired by a realization that we may go fast by ourselves, but we go far together. We have a strong desire to put aside the temptation to compete and embrace the collective work and responsibility needed to eliminate the impacts of racism on our students and their success, particularly those most impacted: our students of color. We realized sharing ideas, and learning from and with each other, would take intentionality and require an occasional in-person opportunity to build together. So the CAFE summit was conceived.
What do you hope attendees took with them from the event and back to their schools and districts?
I hope attendees took back new effective strategies they learned about, with the intent to implement them. I wanted them to have what they needed to begin work on systems and resource allocation changes to close opportunity and outcome gaps where they serve students. I hope they now have an expanded community of education peers to turn to for wisdom sharing.
What's next for CAFE?
We've structured the CAFE summit to be an ongoing, ever-progressing convening. We will host summits semi-annually, with each event building on the last and designed in ways that allow for networking/engagement beyond the events. CAFE summits could set expectations around equity plans, metrics and accountability. The summits will bring communities together to plan strategies and implement work needed to lead, teach, serve and budget for equity.
For more information on CAFE and upcoming summits, visit: thetimeisnoworegon.com.
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