In this episode, I had the honor of chatting with school leader and racial equity coach, Joe Truss.  In our conversation, he shared about his personal journey in education, the need for educators and school leaders to engage in culturally responsive leadership, how to dismantle white supremacy culture in our K-12 schools, his upcoming Dismantling White Supremacy Conference, and many other topics.  To learn more about Joe's work, you can visit his website at trussleadership.com or you can follow him on Twitter & Instagram with the handle @trussleadership.   

BIO: Joe Truss currently serves as the Principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco, CA and brings sixteen years of experience working with public K-12 students, combining teaching, coaching, counseling, curriculum development, and school administration. He also has extensive experience working in Title 1 schools, serving low-income, immigrant, students of color.

Originally born and raised in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, Joe grew up in a single-parent home, after losing my father at the age of five. He attended public schools in San Francisco and found solace in his studies. He later studied the Spanish Language at UC Berkeley in the early 2000s.  He continued my education through the Urban Teacher Training Collaborative and received my Master’s in Teaching from Tufts University, in Boston. He then returned to teach High School Spanish in Oakland. After becoming a lead teacher, with Envision Schools, Joe returned to pursue an Administrator’s Credential through the UC Berkeley PLI program. There, he conducted my Leadership Action Research Project on the effects of Culturally Relevant Curricula in a small urban high school.

He later returned to San Francisco, as a high school Assistant Principal, before becoming the Principal of a middle school. There, he introduced a vision focused on Love, Literacy, and Liberation. He has worked to decrease student referrals, increase performance on the SBAC English Language Arts and double 6th-grade enrollment. During my tenure, he worked to bring in a focus on culturally responsive teaching, project-based learning, and trauma-sensitive practices.

Through his consulting company, Truss Leadership, he has led various workshops, and offered professional development to over 10,000 educators. In addition, he has begun working with schools, non-profits, and districts to manifest their racial equity goals. This includes onsite (or virtual) antiracist/antibias training for staff, strategic planning with leadership teams, and 1 on 1 coaching of leaders. Finally, he has started 2 year long virtual courses, Antiracist Leadership and Antiracist Teaching.