NPEA ANNUAL CONFERENCE: Resist, Reimagine, Rebuild: A Call to Action for Educational Equity and Justice Announces Keynote Speaker – Apr 2-4

Posted by National Partnership for Educational Access on January 21, 2025

We invite you to join the National Partnership for Educational Access (NPEA) at the 2025 NPEA Conference: Resist, Reimagine, Rebuild – A Call to Action for Educational Equity and Justice, taking place on April 2-4, 2025 at The Hilton at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, PA. The conference will bring together more than 400 education champions from across the country to address today’s most pressing challenges, share innovative strategies, and envision a future where students from historically marginalized and excluded communities are at the center of our work. Early bird rates are in effect through February 14. Register now and join us in April to help create meaningful change in educational equity!

The Keynote Speaker is Sharif El-Mekki, Founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development. The Center exists to ensure there will be equity in the recruiting, training, hiring, and retention of quality educators that reflect the cultural backgrounds and share common socio-political interests of the students they serve. The Center is developing a nationally relevant model to measurably increase teacher diversity and support Black educators through four pillars: Professional Learning, Pipeline, Policies, and Pedagogy. So far, the Center has developed ongoing and direct professional learning, mentoring, and coaching opportunities for Black teachers and other educators serving students of color. The Center also carries forth the freedom or liberation school legacy by hosting Freedom School sites that incorporate research-based curricula and exposes high school and college students to the teaching profession to help fuel a pipeline of Black educators.

Prior to founding the Center, El-Mekki served as a nationally recognized principal and U.S. Department of Education Principal Ambassador Fellow. His school, Mastery Charter Shoemaker, was recognized by President Obama and Oprah Winfrey, and was awarded the prestigious EPIC award for three consecutive years as being amongst the top three schools in the country for accelerating students’ achievement levels. The Shoemaker Campus was also recognized as one of the top ten middle school and top ten high schools in the state of Pennsylvania for accelerating the achievement levels of African-American students.

In 2014, El-Mekki founded The Fellowship – Black Male Educators for Social Justice, an organization dedicated to recruiting, retaining, and developing Black male teachers. El-Mekki blogs on Phillys7thWard, is a member of the 8 Black Hands podcast and serves on several boards and committees focused on educational and racial justice.