Collaborative Learning Solutions
Infusing True Equity into K-12 Schools

Despite education remaining the most fundamental necessity for a prosperous life, marginalized children—often facing social, economic, and institutional barriers—continue to be left behind. As a result, society losses out on many talents and revolutionary ideas due to the lack of diversity and inclusion among organizations. Understanding each student’s needs and ensuring inclusive learning processes is key to developing bright, responsible citizens. But, more often than not, there exists inequity in the education system, which does not allow marginalized children to have the help and support they need to reach their goals. To resolve this and empower the educators to help the marginalized youth reach their full potential, Collaborative Learning Solutions (CLS), an educational consulting company, works with K-12 school districts and sites to challenge the norms of education.

“Our team of consultants all have either been teachers, principals, Directors of Special Education…you name it,” begins Gail Angus, the COO of Collaborative Learning Solutions (CLS). “We’ve walked the walk, and we work alongside leaders and practitioners within schools to change the status quo of education.” CLS takes the time to ask the right questions to uncover what systems need to be put in place and what collaboration needs to happen within a school district to instill the ethos of diversity and inclusion–thus eliminating the inequities in the educational sector.

Alongside its tiered systems of support and research-based framework, CLS offers schools a tailored process and strategies to organize educational practices to provide equitable student-centric solutions– thereby upholding a series of tried and tested interventions. Through its integrated services and specialities, the company promotes social and emotional learning, which is a vital piece for education today.

“When we engage with schools, we go through an audit process to identify strengths and opportunities for growth, a foundation that we fortify through our programs and engagement strategies,” explains Gail. The COO goes on to shed light on a recent success story with a district in Central California that aspired to mitigate issues surrounding inequity and disproportionality and was looking for a thought partner to guide them through these concerns. Employing research-based strategies, improvement science, and partnering with the district leadership, CLS helped their team establish a positive learning environment for students.

We’ve walked the walk and we work alongside leaders and practitioners within schools to change the status quo of education

“We worked with the district to create a community of belonging by implementing strategies to build social-emotional skills, equity, and restorative practices. We helped them build structures, systems, and necessary supports to implement best practices and fidelity measures to create sustainable change,” explains Kasey Dill, Marketing Manager at CLS. In order to memorialize their successful in-person training programs and consultation work, as Kasey explains it, CLS created on-demand learning modules that are always available for the district. These modules help maintain and sustain the cohesive culture, whether to onboard staff or provide extra support and learning opportunities. In another school district, their leadership team wanted CLS to train their staff on trauma and responsiveness before the start of the school year so they could better empathize and respond to students who have dealt with traumatic incidents in their life. CLS created three online modules that were incorporated into a learning management system (LMS), with the necessary materials to support the program. “These resources were made accessible to everyone within the district, inclusive of all staff – bus drivers, custodians, superintendents, the school board, teachers…” adds Gail. What made this situation successful and unique was that CLS was able to provide the district with a way to train 2,000+ staff within a 2-3 week period of time - a much faster and economical approach than previously planned.

Grounded by the ideology of fostering greater diversity and inclusion, CLS adds tremendous value to the educational sector, paving the way for students to excel, regardless of their cultural or ethnic backgrounds and social-economic status.