February 6 & 7, 2026

Now Accepting Proposals!

The Call for Proposals is now open! View the full call and submit your proposals by December 12, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Submit Proposal

Building Coalitions for Collective Action Towards Educational Justice

From ICE raids in our communities to the dismantling of the Department of Education, from funding cuts targeting schools serving Black, Indigenous, and Latiné students to attacks on educators– we’re navigating enormous challenges. And we are also seeing bright spots: educators partnering with families to protect students, community organizations and schools building responses together, cross-racial coalitions defending resources, youth and adults co-leading change. Coalition work is happening. People are building collective power across differences.

How we teach and lead is consequential to shaping our futures and staying responsive to our current climate and conditions. The 2026 Leading Towards Justice (LtJ) Symposium brings together educational and community leaders to share, deepen, and expand justice-centered leadership. This year’s Symposium centers coalition-building for collective action– the practices of power-sharing, cross-racial solidarity, navigating conflict, and building trust across difference. Together, we will explore:

What are our responsibilities to one another, our local territories, and to the educational futures we are enacting?
How do we nurture joy and possibility as we build coalitions through precarious times?
How do we work to realize our justice-focused aspirations for coalition-building in specific here-and-now leadership practices?

We designed the Symposium to cultivate the relationality and solidarities we urgently need to face this moment. Save the date and join us for our 2026 Leading Towards Justice Symposium on February 6 & February 7, 2026.

Watch a highlight video from the 2025 Leading Towards Justice Symposium.

The Symposium was hosted by the UW Just Ed Leadership Institute, Leadership for Learning, Danforth Educational Leadership, and Teacher Education programs, with support from the Corbally Endowment, Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy (EdFLP), and Killinger Endowment.

To keep up-to-date on future Symposium details, updates, and announcements, please sign up for our mailing list.

Mailing List Sign Up

Previous Leading Towards Justice Series

Did you miss the Leading Towards Justice Series in 2022 or 2023? Catch up on the video recordings below.

View the 2023 Series

View the 2022 Series