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Re/Designing Trust in Action Lab: Education


Education systems were built without every learner and educator in mind—let’s redesign that.

Educators, administrators, and youth advocates, the trust gap between institutions and communities is growing—and students are paying the price. In a time of growing mistrust among students, families, educators, and institutions, the Re/Designing Trust in Action Lab provides a transformative space for education leaders, students, and families to rebuild what has been broken.

Example Trust Redesign Opportunities in Education:

Students and families have disengaged from the district’s equity initiatives, describing them as performative and tokenizing. Staff are unclear on what meaningful inclusion looks like in practice.

Students and teachers witness gender and racial bias in textbooks, curriculum, and interactions, yet feel powerless to challenge it.

Families and local communities feel disconnected from what students are taught and how their identities are reflected. Families of low-income students often feel that schools only contact them when there is a problem.

Educators express that their concerns are dismissed by leadership; students feel their feedback goes nowhere.

Punitive discipline systems disproportionately harm BIPOC and neurodivergent students, eroding trust in the school.

In this four-day Re/Designing Trust Action Lab, reimagine how power, accountability, and belonging show up in classrooms and leadership to address systems of mistrust and distrust. Together with youth leaders, living experts, and system insiders, participants reimagine how schools, learning environments, policies, and curricula can become centers of equity, healing, and belonging. Move beyond talk—design real-world trust interventions that honor dignity, confront harm, and reshape learning with community at the center.

The Re/Designing Trust Action Lab: Education will culminate with co-created trust-based interventions to be publicly disseminated for industry-wide systems change.

This is not a retreat. It’s a reckoning. Walk in with a problem. Walk out with a plan—and a community.

Rebuilding Trust in Education Starts Here.

By the end of the Re/Designing Trust Action Lab: Education experience, participants will be able to:

  • Identify historical and systemic inequities in education—such as school segregation, funding disparities, and punitive discipline policies—that have fractured trust between schools and underinvested student, family, and community populations.
  • Examine their own roles, social identities, and positional power within pre–K–12 and higher education systems, and how these factors influence trust, belonging, and accountability in school environments.
  • Co-create actionable, trust-centered interventions that address current and historical sources of distrust between educators, students, and families.
  • Develop strategies for sustained, authentic engagement with students and families that move beyond compliance-based DEI efforts to build community-rooted, trust practices across classrooms, schools, and districts.
  • Strengthen their capacity to design learning environments and institutional practices that repair harm, uphold student dignity, and embed trust-building as a core function of educational leadership.

By the end of the Re/Designing Trust Action Lab: Education experience, graduates will receive:

  • Invitation to the Institute of Equitable Design and Justice online network, including a private online community of practice for the Re/Designing Trust Lab alumni

  • Alumni-only virtual gatherings

  • Access to Lab Report Newsletter

  • Certificate of Completion

  • Name acknowledgment in sector-specific Re/Designing Trust in Action Lab Trust Report

  • Bonus: Redesigners for Justice™ Participation Pin and Sticker

  • Bonus: Equity-Centered Community Design™ 1.0 field guide (by Creative Reaction Lab)

  • Bonus: Nature of Trust Bio 360 Report (by Biomimicry 3.8 & Biomimicry for Social Innovation)

$2,444 per person
$444 or $0 for Living Impact Expert

Buy One, Sponsor One: Each full-price registration covers your tuition and also sponsors a complimentary ticket for a living impact expert—an individual directly impacted by the industry of focus who does not work within it.

During registration, you may nominate a qualified living expert or designate someone to receive your sponsored ticket. Student participants can receive volunteer hours for participation in the program.

If you’re a living impact expert, learn more about and/or apply for a Gertrude Jackson Scholarship (full scholarship) and Jack Burke Scholarship (partial scholarship) below.

Refund Policy
Living Expert Scholarship Application
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April 15

Re/Designing Trust in Action Lab: Philanthropy

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July 15

Re/Designing Trust in Action Lab: Health & Healthcare