Liberation Spaces
OUR TEAM
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Matt Gonzales
FOUNDER/EQUITY TRAINER
Educator, Organizer, Policy Expert, Facilitator, Political Consultant.
Matt is a national thought leader on school segregation and other educational equity issues, and has 20 years of experience working in public education as a paraprofessional, a special education teacher, a researcher, a community organizer, and an equity facilitator and policy expert. He has spent the past 10 years living in New York City and working at the intersection of policy, research, and community organizing for education justice. His work has impacted schools, districts, and communities all across the United States. He has advised political campaigns on both coasts, supporting candidates and elected leaders to design education policy, and develop messaging, and strategy.​He is renowned nationally for his leadership in areas including school integration, Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education (CRSE), and combating the School to Prison Pipeline. He spearheads initiatives bolstering grassroots education justice movements both locally in New York City and across the nation. Matt's efforts extend to assisting schools and districts in crafting and implementing policies and tools for advancing education justice.
Notably, he played a pivotal role in designing New York City's school integration policy and shaping CRSE policy and implementation. His influence reaches beyond New York City, as evidenced by his participation 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.​He previously was director of the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJROC), at the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, where he lead to dynmic team of educators, organizers, equity practitoiners, and reserachers to support grassroots education justice campaings, and to support schools seeking to implment transformative policy and practice.
Prior to NYU, he was director of the School Diversity Project at New York Appleseed where he played an integral role in bringing the issues of educaitonal segregation to the forefront of NYC education policy, working as the Policy Coach for the youth-led organization, IntegrateNYC, and helping launch multiple citywide coalitions, including New Yorkers or Racialy 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.
