Across Southern California, educators are working to create schools that are more inclusive, supportive, and responsive to the needs of all students—especially those who have been historically underserved.

Introducing CORE:
Cultivating Organizational Resilience
& Empowerment

CORE (Cultivating Organizational Resilience & Empowerment), based at Los Angeles Education Partnership, creates learning spaces where educators can arrive fully, reconnect with themselves, and engage from a place of clarity and care. Our work is rooted in the belief that meaningful learning starts with grounding, presence, and compassion.

EDUCATOR WELLBEING AND STUDENT SUCCESS
We know that schools can’t thrive when educators are running on empty. We exist to strengthen the conditions that help teachers and leaders stay well enough to lead, so students experience more stable, supportive learning environments.

We emerged from work LAEP did with Kaiser Permanente around creating trauma-informed school environments. A study by the University of Maryland found this work reduced compassion fatigue among teachers and improved resilience among students and staff.

21CSLA & TITLE 11-A

Our work is supported through the 21CSLA program funded by the federal Title II-A grant, which provides funding for participating local educational agencies (LEAs) to offer high-quality professional learning at no cost.

STRENGTHENING EQUITY THROUGH LEADERSHIP

We serve educators and school leaders across San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and Imperial Counties, providing no-cost coaching, professional learning, and leadership development.

Through practical, high-quality professional learning we support leaders to improve access, opportunity, and inclusion for those who are historically underserved and systemically marginalized, so schools become places where students and adults can fully participate and thrive.

Learn more about 21CSLA

Learn more about LAEP

How CORE Supports Leaders Across Southern California

Coaching & Strategic Support

CORE coaches partner with school and district leaders through one-on-one coaching and team facilitation. Together, they examine how systems and experiences shape school environments and build equity-centered, trauma-responsive practices that strengthen leadership and organizational resilience.

Communities of Practice

Small, sustained cohorts where leaders come together to learn, reflect, and problem-solve collaboratively. These communities build trust, deepen practice, and support continuous improvement—including wellness-focused spaces for educator resilience.

Localized Professional Learning

CORE hosts regional conferences, workshops, and virtual learning experiences that respond to real-time challenges facing educators. These spaces foster connection, shared learning, and practical strategies leaders can immediately apply.

Early Childhood Educator Support

CORE supports leaders in early learning through UTK-focused professional learning that centers inclusive, equity-driven practices in early childhood education.

These experiences invite leaders to reflect on mindset, systems, and structures needed to create inclusive environments for young learners, families, and communities.

Embedded throughout our offerings:

Wellness & Resilience

Rooted in CORE’s origins in trauma-informed practice, this work supports educators to address burnout, reduce compassion fatigue, and build sustainable leadership practices. Because when educators are well, school communities can thrive.

Data, Evaluation & Impact

CORE embeds data and evaluation across all programs—using both metrics and participant voice to inform continuous improvement, strengthen impact, and respond to the evolving needs of educators and school communities.

“So worth my time I feel like I should pay you.”

“It was like group therapy for my soul.”

“I didn’t realize how much I needed this.”

Meeting the Moment

As a part of our 21CSLA 2025-2026 Virtual Program, we designed a regional learning space for educational leaders across Southern California. This five-session virtual Community of Practice helped participants meet the moment through shared strategy, alignment, and community. Each session centered real-time equity challenges—supporting leaders to build collective power, respond to resistance, and strengthen practices that advance a more just and liberated future. The series included optional networking time to deepen cross-county connections and emphasized practical tools and resources leaders could apply immediately in their schools and districts.

Alongside the core learning of our Community of Practice, the 21CSLA 2025–2026 Virtual Program alsoincluded wellness-focused breathwork sessions with Carolene and Affinity Spaces to support educatorsustainability and equity-centered leadership.

Affinity Spaces

As a part of our 21CSLA 2025-2026 Virtual Program, we hosted two affinity groups to give educators dedicated spaces for connection and equity-centered growth.

The BIPOC & Mixed Roots Healing Space (Anthony Jackson & Dhalia Balmir) centered belonging, restoration, and candid reflection on leading in white-dominant systems—honoring identity, legacy, and “freedom dreaming” new ways of leading.

Moving Towards Us: Divesting from Whiteness (Elizabeth Claes) supported white-identifying educators in structured, collective anti-racism learning using shared texts to examine white racial emotionality, anti-Blackness, allyship, saviorism, and systemic oppression.

Together, these spaces strengthened leadership practice and helped educators return to their schools better equipped to build safer, more affirming learning environments.

Leadership Coaching

Our 21CSLA Leadership Coaching supports educational leaders to strengthenequity-centered leadership—building capacity to expand access, opportunity, andinclusion for students and adults who are historically underserved andsystemically marginalized. Leaders across San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino,Imperial, and Orange Counties receive 25 hours of virtual or hybrid coachingover one year, grounded in relational trust and aligned to CPSEL. Our coachingmodel is human-centered and improvement-focused: coaches cultivate safe,reflective space through deep listening and partnership, helping leaders addressequity-centered problems of practice and grow sustainable leadership habits.

I learned new ways to question and to be more self-reflective with my staff.

(Coaching allowed me to be)more realistic with my goals, being kinder to myself, and (to focus on) my own wellness.

My leadership/ coaching skills have improved as a result of this work. My coach was able to share resources that I could put into practice immediately.

Early Childhood Education Leadership

Through the statewide 21CSLA UTK Leadership Initiative, CORE serves as the SoCal Regional Academy supporting site leaders, teacher leaders, and central office teams. We deliver UTK Professional Learning Modules across San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial, and Orange Counties—helping leaders foster equitable, inclusive, high-quality early learning environments for children, families, and educators. Our work is strength-based and localized: we conducted 13 site visits across four counties to identify regional strengths and needs, uplift what’s already working, and build relationships rooted in humility and curiosity. We implement through a facilitator model and a “deep, not wide” approach—expanding our trainer team and using site-visit insights and county partnerships to bring the most needed UTK learning topics to each region.

Conferences that cultivate collective growth

Twice each year, our program branches come together at equity-centered conferences that weave our offerings into a single experience shaped by what leaders have shared throughout the year.

These gatherings are designed to strengthen leadership and practice while also prioritizing well-being: creating space to decompress, learn, connect in community, and heal through meditation and wellness offerings, free learning libraries, entertainment and social engagement, community-building activities, and hands-on art projects.

Participants leave with renewed capacity, actionable tools, and equity-focused strategies they can bring back to their schools and classrooms in service of students.

What I learned here is to chart the course, be present for the students, to do the work in fidelity. To remember why we do the work, and that liberation comes in the spaces that we create in our classrooms. And I feel so fortunate that I get to provide those spaces for students. So, thank you for the reminder!

The learning and knowledge I'm walking away with have solidified my beliefs in this work and has given me some renewed hope of the future of our youth.

The conference provided valuable space to reflect on my own leadership, bias and areas for growth. This helped me think more critically about how I approach equity in my work...Engaging in candid conversations with others who are also committed to equity reinforced that this work isn't done alone.

Data & Evaluation: Sustained by evidence

LAEP’s Evaluation, Accountability, andImpact (EAI) team partners with CORE to collect and use data that strengthens program design and conference planning in real time and over the year. We pair what leaders tell us with measurable evidence to keep improving what we offer—academically, professionally, and for well-being. We listen, we measure, and we adjust—because impact should be visible, not assumed. Our evaluation work creates a continuous feedback loop that strengthens every conference we design by pairing what leaders tell us with data that makes our impact measurable.