Why?
The Challenge
Educators of color often walk into schools where they are outnumbered, unsupported, and undervalued. They leave at disproportionately high rates, and when they go, students lose.
What’s at Stake
A Black student with one Black teacher in elementary school is 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two, that jumps to 32% (Gershenson et al., 2018). Research also points to a spillover effect (Grissom et al., 2023): Black educators improve the effectiveness of their white peers, resulting in increasing the achievement of the Black students taught by those peers.
The benefit isn’t limited to matched-race outcomes. A diverse educator workforce builds the cross-cultural understanding and broader perspective every student needs. This isn’t a niche issue. It’s a student achievement imperative.
What the Research Shows (Learning Policy Institute, 2026)
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Black teachers leave the profession at rates more than 20% higher than white teachers.
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Three in four teachers who leave do so for preventable reasons: leadership, job, and workplace satisfaction.
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Districts spend $12,000–$25,000 every time a teacher leaves. A district losing 10 teachers a year spends $120,000–$250,000.
Black educators are well documented, but emerging research, including Support and Retain Educators of Color (Gabbadon, 2023), shows similar patterns among Latino, Asian American, Indigenous, and other educators of color.
Retention is a leadership problem, and a solvable one
Affirming Schools draws on years of research and vetted work in the field. It rests on one belief: retention is not an HR problem. It is a leadership problem.
Affirming Schools Services
01 | Evidence-Based Leadership Professional Development
What's at stake: Administrators are one of the single greatest factors in whether educators of color stay or leave. Educators who feel supported by their leaders are 2x as likely to stay.
What we do: We provide evidenced-based professional development for district and building leaders, leadership teams, and teacher leaders grounded in Dr. Gabbadon’s book, Support and Retain Educators of Color.
Past sessions include: The Case for Teacher Diversity: What the Research Says;
Know Yourself, Lead Better: Reflection as a Leadership Practice; and High-Impact Support: Instructional Practices That Retain Educators of Color.
Can be bundled with small group and individual leadership coaching.
Available formats:
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Keynotes
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Summer intensive (two full-day sessions)
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Half-year partnership (3 sessions, 2 hours each)
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Full school year partnership (6 sessions, 2 hours each)
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Leadership Institute (2.5 days— time to go deep, not skim)
02 | Direct Affinity Groups Facilitation
What's at stake: Isolation is expensive. When educators of color feel unseen and unsupported, they leave — and school culture and institutional knowledge leave with them.
What we do: We lead identity-affirming affinity spaces in your context to support educators of color. 95%+ of affinity participants report feeling belonging, connectedness, and being seen and valued. We handle the design, facilitation, and structure — you see the results.
95%+ of participants in Affirming Schools affinity groups report a sense of belonging, social connectedness, and mattering. Across the county, participating educators of color in the regional retention initiative were retained at 94% year over year, compared with a baseline of 85%. In charter schools, where the baseline was 77%, 100% of participating educators stayed in their schools.
Sessions are structured and evidenced-based. Past sessions include Naming Our Experiences, Navigating Bias & Microaggressions, and Storytelling for Empowerment and Change.
Available formats:
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Half-year partnership (3 sessions, 2 hours each)
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Full school year partnership (6 sessions, 2 hours each)
03 | Facilitator Training & Capacity Building
What's at stake: Great educators don't automatically make strong facilitators of outcomes-driven, identity-affirming spaces for adults focused on empowerment and retention. And if you're not identifying and training up internal talent now, what happens to your affinity spaces when the people currently leading them leave?
What we do: We train your staff to design, launch, and sustain affinity groups independently so the work takes root and grows. One trained cohort can reach hundreds of educators for years to come.
Past sessions include: Building a Space for Collaboration and Belonging, Conceptualizing Leadership as an Affinity Group Facilitator, Centering Self and Collective Care, and Skillful Facilitation.
Can be bundled with small group and individual leadership coaching.
Available formats:
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Summer intensive (two full-day sessions)
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Half-year partnership (3 sessions, 2 hours each)
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Full school year partnership (6 sessions, 2 hours each)
The Offer
Fixed core. Adaptive delivery.
Our evidence base never changes — how we deliver it adapts to your context, your calendar, and your people. Grounded in Dr. Gabbadon's ASCD book, Support and Retain Educators of Color.
How To Buy
Three ways in. Built on one evidence base.
Option #1
Standalone
Standalone is for the district that knows exactly which lever to pull first. Choose the service that answers your most immediate need — leadership development, affinity groups, or facilitator training — and get it with everything the full partnerships include: the same evidence base, the same facilitators, and a pre/post analysis so the movement shows up in your own data.
The right size to start; the same rigor as the bigger builds.
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Half-year from $14,250
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Full-year from $28,500
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Summer intensive $20,000
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Leadership Institute (2.5 days) $25,000
Option #2
Leadership + Affinity Groups
Launch pairs leadership development with affinity group facilitation in a single, coordinated program. This is retention work aimed at both ends of the relationship at once: your leaders deepen their understanding of how identity shapes leadership — and practice it in real time while educators of color experience the belonging that makes them stay.
The conditions change at the same time the experience changes; neither waits for the other.
Starting from $30,000
Option #3
Full Residency
Full Residency is the year-long, all-levers partnership lus leadership coaching. Your leaders build affirming-leadership practice. Educators of color experience belonging in affinity groups. And your own staff are trained to design, launch, and sustain those groups independently so the capacity lives in your building.
Coaching keeps the work accountable through the year, and everything is built around your district's calendar, goals, and people.
Base build starting from $86,500
Let's build something that works for your team.
Your educators are telling you what they need. Build the school that keeps them.