About > Our Team
Illuminating a path that helps leaders change systems, so that all students – and all
communities – can flourish.
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We are CRSLI. Our founder – Dr. Muhammad A. Khalifa – became known far and wide for his work as a researcher and instructor, helping educational leaders reveal and address inequities that were holding minoritized students back, often overseen by even the most well-intentioned educators.
The Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute (CRSLI) is an organization committed to helping educational leaders at all levels to humanize students and communities in schools. We believe that educational equity is an outgrowth of this humanization. We teach educational leaders how to promote school environments that allow minoritized students to feel comfortable and valued, and to have equitable access to all aspects of rigorous learning environments. Our commitment at CRSLI is to creating social justice in school environments through culturally responsive leadership.
Our Expert Team
We are all experts in equity and schools. We are all former school teachers, administrators, online Equity Audit designers, and education researchers who are deeply involved in research in the field of educational leadership and school equity. Our teams are also well-represented in the type of districts in which we have served: rural, suburban, and urban.
Core Team
![An image of Muhammad Khalifa, a man with dark skin tone, a button up green checkered shirt, and a blue blazer, smiling and looking directly at the camera.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/0c319c3ee656b72114b3702caee32c01.jpg)
Muhammad Khalifa, PhD
President and CEO
![An image of Katie Pekel, a woman with light skin tone and long blonde hair, wearing, a dark blue blazer and a light blue button up blouse, looming directly at the camera and smiling.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/0f40e18581584d59d128da6aefa0d89d.jpg)
Katie Pekel, EdD
Co-Director CRSLA
![An image of Darlinda Anderson, a woman with medium dark skin tone and long dark wavey hair wearing a floral blouse and hoop earrings, looking directly at the camera and smiling.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/2420f2852d2169ab32be7eb15e2077c2.jpg)
Darlinda Anderson
Senior Vice President
![An image of Maggie Smith-Peterson, a woman with light skin tone, shoulder length blonde wavy hair, and glasses, wearing a pink blouse, looking directly at the camera and smiling.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/b06a82e68a3689c00e3044fa5219d74f.png)
Maggie Smith-Peterson, PhD
Director of Design & Learning
![An image of Jessica Schrody, a woman with medium dark skin tone and long curly black hair tied back, wearing a bright pink blazer and a white shirt, a necklace and hoop earrings, looking directly at the camera and smiling.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/fd9dfdbad8814a27521601a7aa41d251.jpg)
Jessica Schrody
Marketing Administrative Specialist
![An image of Noor Doukmak](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/03eab0c7f3407cf40b4f1a48c863a99f.png)
Noor Doukmak, PhD
Director of Operations & Community Partnerships
Consulting Teams
Academy Facilitators
Maria Roberts
Senior Facilitator
Maria Roberts has worked in public K-12 educational systems for over 20 years. She began her career as a middle school special education teacher and has worked in federal settings I, II and III. She has experience in serving at all three school levels (elementary, middle and high school) and has served in both urban and suburban school districts. She has held leadership positions at both the district and school level including AVID District Director, Equity Director, and Associate Principal. She is the current principal of Wilshire Park Elementary School in the St. Anthony-New Brighton School District. Each experience has provided her the opportunity to successfully evaluate and implement equitable policy and practices resulting in changes in curriculum and instruction, grading and discipline practices. In addition to her work in school systems, she actively supports learning and leadership among colleagues and values partnership between practitioners and academics. For the past five years, she has served as the Senior Facilitator for the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute and is a facilitator for the MN Principals Academy where, in partnership, she designed the culturally responsive leadership strand.
Tyrone Brookins, PhD
Dr. Brookins currently serves as an Assistant Superintendent in South Washington County Schools. He is a former principal of 21 years at the Elementary and Middle School levels. Dr. Brookins has a passion for education and a love of dialogue with current educators on educational opportunities with specific emphasis on leadership, equity and learning (andragogy and pedagogy). Emancipating change carries a deep meaning for Dr. Brookins as he serves adults and children. As a servant-leader he realizes the importance of staying involved in the lives of his students through-out their entire educational journey. Dr. Brookins mentor's children directly and indirectly as they simply need words of encouragement and motivation or, as they need guidance to make life-changing decisions. Sharing his experiences and perspectives often provides insight and options they may not have otherwise considered. He is a firm believer in education and the belief that education has the ability to change and even save the lives of young people.
Alison Gillespie, PhD
Dr. Alison Gillespie currently serves as Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning within the White Bear Lake Area Schools. Alison Gillespie has held a variety of school leadership roles in Minnesota including: High School Principal and District Level Principal on Special Assignment for White Bear Lake Area Schools, Associate Principal at Wayzata High School and Alternative High School Supervisor for various schools supporting students in Richfield and Minneapolis Public Schools. Alison started as a middle school and high school educator for English Learners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chandler, Arizona and Richfield, Minnesota prior to entering school leadership in 2004. Dr. Gillespie is a courageous equity-centered leader. She is passionate about transforming schools and aligning district systems to ensure high achievement and humanizing, culturally affirming experiences are realized consistently for each student. Alison is committed to organizational health and building a truly collaborative culture between district and building leaders. She is knowledgeable in leadership team development, strategic planning and continuous improvement. She serves as an adjunct professor in K-12 principal licensure programs and coaches principal interns. Dr. Gillespie holds national certifications in principal mentorship through the National Association of Elementary School Principals and instructional leadership from AVID and AASA. Alison holds a bachelor’s degree in Middle/Secondary Education and Spanish from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Arizona State University, and Master’s and Ed.D in Organizational Leadership from Teacher’s College- Columbia University.
Eskender Yousef, PhD
Dr. Eskender Yousuf's research interests are guided by the hope of establishing just schools for all students, especially those minoritized. His overarching research questions investigate how race and racism impact the lives of African immigrant/refugee students, their families, and communities in relation to schooling. His current line of research examines the racial and ethnic identity construction of an East African immigrant/refugee subgroup (Oromo) in relation to their k-12 schooling experiences. Broadly, the implications of his research speak to ways that educators and educational leaders can honor, acknowledge, and humanize the identities of minoritized students.
Victor (Coy) Carter
Coy Carter, Jr. is a PhD candidate in Educational Policy and Leadership at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. His research explores the connection between race, space (school closure, gentrification, dispossession, white flight), and education to understand how historic and current policies are creating inequitable opportunities for minoritized students. His dissertation examines education policies contributions to racializing space in education and their impacts on minoritized student access to culturally responsive space, curriculum, and pedagogy. Additionally, he contributes to research on police violence, school leadership accountability, and the need to diversify the educator workforce.
Equity Audit Consultants
Lixin Zhang, PhD
Lead Quantitative Researcher
Dr. Lixin Zhang holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Evaluation Studies from the University of Minnesota with research interests in equity, community-based research and evaluation, and social network analysis. Her experience in health care, government, and educational sectors has helped her form a strong foundation for building evidence-based programs and making meaning of the evaluation data to support program planning, development, and implementation. Throughout her professional services, Dr. Zhang has been a multi-tooled methodologist using qualitative, quantitative, and mix-method approaches and social network analysis to generate rigorous evidence for social programs. Additionally, Dr. Zhang has served as an evaluation leader to help build evaluation capacity for the organization by creating evaluation training materials and providing ongoing evaluation learning cycles to meet the organization's learning needs.
Bodunrin Banwo, PhD
Lead Research and Technology Consultant
Bodunrin O. Banwo has spent over two decades working in youth and community development. Dr. Banwo completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in Education Policy and Leadership. His research focus is on the liberatory effects of communitarian programming in schools. Before beginning his Ph.D., Dr. Banwo served as a food access manager for the City of Baltimore, where he worked to improve the city’s food supply chain and the economic viability of selling healthy food in Baltimore City. Throughout his career, Bodunrin has served as a public school teacher in Camden, NJ; Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay, South America; Food System Manager for the Philadelphia-based nonprofit, The Food Trust; and Arizona public advocate and lobbyist for a Washington DC-based nonprofit, Project Vote. Dr. Banwo professional life has been dedicated to improving people’s lives from the many social and ethnic diasporas scattered around the world, and he looks forward to working with individuals, groups, and communities with a passion for continuing the work begun by our ancestors to make our world a more merciful and just place.
Lisa Collins, EdD
Consultant
Lisa Collins received her EdD from Lewis & Clark. Her scholarship has focused on racial trauma, and in her dissertation, she conducted an autoethnography of the experiences of a Black female educator in predominantly white districts. Dr. Collins has 30 years of education experience, including building and district-level leadership. Her consultation work and presentations have focused on wellness for equity, trauma awareness and response, and culturally responsive school leadership.
Ezekiel Joubert, PhD
Consultant
Ezekiel Joubert III is an educator, community-engaged scholar, and creative writer. As faculty of Educational Foundations in the Division of Advanced and Applied Studies at California State University-Los Angeles, his teaching explores theories, methods, and politics that undergird the psychological foundations of education and qualitative research methods in education. His scholarly interests focus on the intersections of racial capitalism and Black education, the political economy of student movement, the history of educational inequality in Black rural communities near Metro Detroit and in the Midwest, and Black organic educational intellectual thought and activism. He is currently an American Communities Program Fellow, where his work centers Black migration and education in Los Angeles. Additionally, he writes personal narrative essays and is working on a collection of speculative poems and short stories on teaching and learning in marginalized communities.
Rashad Williams, PhD
Consultant
Rashad Williams is an Assistant Professor of Race & Social Justice in Public Policy. His interdisciplinary research crosses the boundaries of urban planning, urban politics, and the critical philosophy of race to study the urban expressions of the black reparations movement. As an ideational scholar, Williams' research explores the conditions under which egalitarian ideas become implemented into municipal policy. He has coined the term reparative planning to describe the implementation of redress policies at the urban scale. He has also published work in the areas of planning theory and housing policy. In 2022, he was honored with the Emerging Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association
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Where we are
1041 Grand Ave Box #276
St. Paul, MN 55105
612.584.9478
info@crsli.org
St. Paul, MN 55105
612.584.9478
info@crsli.org
Featured links
Policy Pages
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Thank you!
Copyright © 2024
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Muhammad Khalifa, PhD
President and CEO
Dr. Muhammad Khalifa is a professor of educational administration and Executive Director for Urban Education Initiatives at the Ohio State University. Before coming to OSU, Dr. Khalifa held the Robert Beck Endowed Professorship in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Having worked as a public school teacher and administrator in Detroit, Dr. Khalifa's research examines how urban school leaders enact culturally responsive leadership practices. His latest book, Culturally Responsive School Leadership (2018) was published by Harvard Education Press. He has led equity audits in U.S. schools as a way to reduce achievement and discipline gaps, and he is the first to develop and use online Equity Audits for schools. In addition to his urban work in the U.S., Dr. Khalifa has engaged in school leadership reform in African and Asian countries, including a recent U.N. project in East Africa.
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Darlinda Anderson
Senior Vice President
Darlinda Anderson serves as the senior vice president of Ajusted Equity Solutions/CRSLI. Her role within the organization is to charter leadership, organizational objectives, sustainable strategy, and advantageous expansion. For the last twenty years, she has worked in human resource management, K–12 education, and process-led project management. Overall, Darlinda’s passion for balance and equity in the service of societal disparities—especially those in disadvantaged groups and professions—was the start of her overarching search for finding and supporting an organization that creates long-term sustainable opportunity for disadvantaged minorities.
Because of her passion for systems and organizational development, after graduating from Purdue University, Darlinda went to work for Hewitt Associates, a global leader in human resources outsourcing and programmatic financial services. This was her segue into the fields of project management, education, interactive broadcast media, and marketing. Though she initially started in business within the healthcare sector, it allowed her to realize how deeply she loved working in the service of others and for an equitable cause. This was the beginning of her journey to earning her master's in educational leadership. As her multiple career paths progressed, Darlinda searched for an opportunity to serve with the US government agency Americorps. There, she completed her educational service through Teach for America. Darlinda continued to serve as a K–12 public education teacher after her initial service to Americorps ended for another ten plus years.
As a classroom teacher, Darlinda saw firsthand all the struggles that Title I schools faced. After becoming a department chair, she began studying full-time to earn her master’s of business administration in human resource management. She continued to seek out opportunities beyond the classroom, where she knew she’d be closer to influencing systematic and district-level change. She continued navigating impactful roles that affected internal shifts, which led to working as a district program manager for a few years and later leading as a director of programs over the span of the next few years in educational organizations across the country. Today, her overall goal is to continue to serve, cultivate, and create world-changing avenues that make far-reaching equitable ideals a reality.
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Jessica Schrody
Marketing Administrative Specialist
Jessica Schrody, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, is a professional with a passion for digital storytelling and online marketing since 2017. Focused on social media, she crafts engaging narratives that captivate audiences and drive business success.
Beyond her digital expertise, Jessica has a solid background in customer service and a talent for high-ticket, high-volume sales. Her commitment to excellence and dynamic range of skills make her a valuable asset who routinely contributes to the company’s growth.
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Katie Pekel, EdD
Co-Director CRSLA
Dr. Katie Pekel, is the Principal in Residence for the University of Minnesota. In this role Dr. Pekel serves as the department’s direct connection between the fields of research and practice in PK-12 education. She leads the Minnesota Principals Academy, co-directs the Urban Leadership Academy, developed the University’s District Leadership Academy with Dr. Kim Gibbons and the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Academy with colleague Dr. Muhammad Khalifa. Dr. Pekel also serves as a graduate coordinator or the Educational Policy and Leadership track within the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development. She teaches courses for aspiring school principals and doctoral students and coordinates the Executive PhD cohort for educational leaders. Dr. Pekel has also worked with the University’s College Readiness Consortium guiding school principals and leadership teams from over 150 schools across Minnesota on their implementation of Ramp-Up to Readiness™, the University’s school-wide college readiness program for students in grades 6-12. Dr. Pekel has served at all levels of K-12 education first as a high school English teacher, as an elementary principal and most recently as a middle school principal for six years in Austin, MN.
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Maggie Smith-Peterson, PhD
Director of Instructional Design & Learning
Maggie Smith-Peterson is the Director of Instructional Design & Learning for the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute and leads projects focused on the creation and expansion of learning experiences, services and tools for developing socially just and racially equitable leaders and school systems. Maggie has served as an elementary classroom teacher, specialist/coach, adjunct professor, district program facilitator, and professional learning designer in a variety of school systems and organizations, including New York City Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools, the University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas. Maggie holds an M.S. and an M.A. in education, and received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota. As a scholar, she studies social justice issues in gifted education and advanced academics with a particular focus on the history of scientific racism and its implications for structural reproduction. As a designer, Maggie specializes in visual and multimedia design, UX/LX research and design, and learning technologies.
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Noor Doukmak, PhD
Director of Operations & Community Partnerships
Noor Doukmak is the Director of Operations & Community Partnerships at the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute. She channels her passion for educational equity and excellence into creating research-based content for practitioners, collaborating with school and district leaders to support their equity initiatives, and facilitating smooth operations across CRSLI’s projects.
Noor leverages her diverse background as a high school math educator, university instructor, editorial assistant, and education researcher. She earned her PhD in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where her research focused on community-organized education.
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Course 1: Historical & Community-Based Epistemology
The first course in ATA SY25 series delves into historical continuities and community-based perspectives that are often invisibilized in our systems, practices, and ways of working in educational contexts. Through this course, leadership teams establish foundational knowledge and skills to visibilize historical discourses and cultural blindspots operating in our schools today.
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Sessions:
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Session 1 - Colonial Discourses: Analyze the historical continuities of deficitizing beliefs about minoritized students and families by examining colonial discourses.
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Session 2 - Historicizing Community Context: Historicize the conditions and events that have impacted your school system's minoritized communities over time.
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Session 3 - Understanding Epistemology: Define epistemology and visibilize its variances within both dominant and minoritized communities and cultures.
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Session 4 - Community-based vs. School-centric Epistemology: Differentiate between school-centric and community-based epistemologies.
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Course 2: Leadership for Critical Reflection
Critical reflection is a cornerstone of culturally responsive school leadership. Yet too often, critical reflection fails to transcend the personal level and lead to effective, ethical action. In this course, leadership teams will not only learn to develop and lead personal critical self-reflection practices, but also to expand leadership of critical reflection to the systems-level by incorporating community, interrogating structures, and institutionalizing practices.
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Sessions:
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Session 1 - Developing a Personal Critical Reflection Practice: Recognize and self-assess the essential leadership skills for personal critical self-reflection.
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Session 2 - Leading Dynamic Critical Reflection: Engage critical reflection beyond the personal level by examining the structures, practices, experiences, and content used in school(s).
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Session 3 - Leading Community-Centered Critical Reflection: Implement a plan to include the perspectives of minoritized students, families, and communities in leadership of critical reflection.
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Session 4 - Institutionalizing Critical Reflection: Develop a roadmap for embedding critical reflection dynamically across your system, among multiple stakeholders, and over time.
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Course 3: Leading Inclusive Schools
Many of the seemingly intractable racial disparities in discipline and academics that we see nationwide are a result of exclusionary practices that marginalize minoritized students' ways of knowing and being. In this course, you will learn to recognize and challenge the exclusionary school practices that tend to be directed at minoritized students. You'll interrogate restorative disciplinary models and develop a culturally responsive approach to student behavior. And you'll learn how to mentor teachers and model inclusionary practices to foster an environment where all students feel seen, safe, and excited to learn.
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Sessions:
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Session 1 - Inclusionary vs. Exclusionary Practices: Identify and differentiate between exclusionary and inclusionary practices.
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Session 2 - Challenging Exclusionary Practices: Use mentoring and modeling to transition educators out of exclusionary practices and into inclusionary responses to student behaviors.
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Session 3 - Restorative Discipline: Critique common disciplinary frameworks by identifying the ways in which they fail to disrupt exclusionary practices.
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Session 4 - Community-Based Behavior Modification: Synthesize understandings of inclusionary practices by developing a framework for community-based behavior modification.
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Course 4: Humanizing Student Identity
In order for our schools to be truly welcoming and supportive of minoritized children and youth, we must create intentional spaces in which they can show up as their authentic, cultural selves. This requires that culturally responsive school leaders develop deep understandings of and respect for local minoritized community cultures. In this final course of the SY25 ATA series, leaders will not only learn how to humanize minoritized students’ cultural ways of knowing and being, but also to create systems and structures that transform teaching, learning and community engagement.
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Sessions:
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Session 1 - Visibilizing Dehumanization: Understand community-based identities and visibilize practices that dehumanize them.
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Session 2 - Developing Social Capital Networks: Establish social capital networks that leverage school resources and staff to empower parents and cultivate relationships.
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Session 3 - Centering Students' Cultural Capital: Create a plan to allow teachers and other school staff to identify and use minoritized students' cultural capital.
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Session 4 - Leading Humanizing Schools: Systematize approaches to harnessing cultural and social capital to resolve equity issues in schools.
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