Liberation Spaces
OUR TEAM
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Matt Gonzales
FOUNDER/EQUITY TRAINER
Educator, Organizer, Policy Expert, Facilitator, Political Consultant.
Matt is a nationally recognized thought leader on school segregation and educational equity, with over 20 years of experience in public education. His career has spanned roles as a paraprofessional, special education teacher, researcher, community organizer, equity facilitator, and policy expert.
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For the past decade, Matt has lived in New York City, working at the intersection of policy, research, and grassroots organizing to advance education justice. His work has shaped schools, districts, and communities across the country. He has advised political campaigns on both coasts, helping candidates and elected officials design education policy, develop messaging, and build strategy.
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Matt is especially known for his leadership in key areas such as school integration, Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education (CRSE), and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. He leads initiatives that support grassroots education justice movements in New York City and nationwide, and partners with schools and districts to design and implement equity-driven policies and practices.
Notably, Matt played a pivotal role in developing New York City’s school integration policy and shaping CRSE policy and implementation. His influence extends beyond NYC: he serves on the Steering Committee for the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD), the Advisory Council for Integrated Schools, and the Board of Directors for the Youth Alliance for Housing.
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Previously, Matt served as Director of the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJROC) at the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. There, he led a dynamic team of educators, organizers, equity practitioners, and researchers to support grassroots education justice campaigns and schools implementing transformative practices.
Before joining NYU, Matt was Director of the School Diversity Project at New York Appleseed, where he helped bring the issue of educational segregation to the forefront of NYC education policy. He worked as the Policy Coach for IntegrateNYC, a youth-led organization, and helped launch several citywide coalitions, including New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools (RJPS) and the Alliance for School Integration and Desegregation (ASID).
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Barbara Gross
EQUITY TRAINER
Community Organizer, Facilitator, Coach, Racial Justice Trainer
Barbara has decades of experience as a community organizer, racial justice facilitator, coach, and trainer. She has provided strategic support and capacity-building to education justice organizing groups, coalitions, and unions organizing for anti racist, culturally responsive, and equitable schools in NYC and across the country.
Most recently, as Deputy Director of the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJROC), of the NYU Metro Center, Barbara co-designed and co-led “From Integration to Antiracism (FIAR),” a six month training and coaching series for public school parents, now known as “Building Equity Together (BET).” She has expertise and sees great value in facilitating affinity spaces for White people, and especially appreciates doing that in alignment with affinity spaces for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC).
Before NYU, Barbara served as a principal associate in Community Organizing and Engagement at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) where she helped to found the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS), a national network of youth, community organizing groups and labor unions, joining forces in the fight for equity and high quality public schools for all.
She was co-founder and co-director of Mothers on the Move (MOM) an adult literacy teacher in a beautiful Freiren-based program in the Bronx, and a long time ago, learned community organizing at ACORN.
Barbara has four (now adult) children and has years of experience as a NYC public school parent as well as a private school parent of children with special needs. She has a B.S in Education and Social Policy from Cornell University.
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Autumn Leonard
EQUITY TRAINER
Facilitator, Storyteller, Coach, Racial Justice Trainer
Autumn Leonard (she/they) inherited a love of equality from her parents who braved laws against interracial marriage and got legally hitched in 1960. Her love of storytelling began when she was eight years old and accidentally stumbled into a stage debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. That combination of justice and story has infused her work ever since.
Autumn has been leading racial and social justice workshops since 2001. A mother of two, she believes avidly in the importance of play in education, that liberation begins in our bodies, and that you're never too young or too old to start talking and taking action about race! You can find Autumn infusing playfulness into her anti-oppression curriculum with Liberation Spaces, doing handstands whenever she needs a new perspective on a problem or leading workshops for parents and kids about race, using yoga and mindfulness via BodyGetFree.
A former chair of the Race Task Force at Kolot Chayeinu and previous Kolot K'tanim early childhood teacher, Autumn is an inaugural member of the Jewish Women of Color Resilience Circle, an Elder member of the Jew of Color Caucus at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and a founding member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective.
Autumn is a RYT 500 yoga teacher who graduated with a BA in Theater Studies at Yale and holds an MFA in Film from UT Austin. Autumn is an equity trainer and facilitator with Body Get Free, the founder of Angry Momma Yoga and currently works as the Lead Organizer at the Black Jewish Liberation Collective.
