About Us
As A Queer Endeavor:听
We believe that schools and classrooms are places of possibility, where as bell hooks says, 鈥 we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress.鈥 This, hooks says, and we believe, is 鈥渆ducation as the practice of freedom.鈥
We believe that centering the lived experiences, knowledge, & identities of students is essential for creating safe and humanizing classrooms.听
We believe in honoring teachers as professionals who want to do right by their students. To support teachers鈥 processes of becoming, we create access to professional learning that invites vulnerability, un/learning, accountability, and action.
We believe that learning about identity, power, privilege, and oppression is tender work and we create 鈥渟oft spaces of accountability鈥 to support that deep learning.
We believe that transformative justice in education relies on intersectional movement building and a commitment to collective liberation. This means recognizing that systems of oppression are intertwined. It means acknowledging that we all have issues of equity and justice that take us 鈥渙ut of [our] depth,鈥 as Charlene Carruthers says, and that we all have learning to do.听
Professional Learning
A Queer Endeavor builds partnerships with school communities to make 鈥渦nworkable鈥 the silence that surrounds topics of gender and sexual diversity in education. Drawing on critical, queer, and anti-oppressive perspectives, we design and facilitate professional learning experiences for teachers, counselors, school- and district-leaders, and youth-serving adults.听
In our professional development sessions, participants engage in knowledge-building, critical self-reflection, dialogue, action, and practice. We move beyond anti-bullying framings to raise educators鈥 awareness of how cis-heteronormativity functions in K-12 schools and negatively impacts LGBTQ+ youth. We support educators to 鈥渢ake stock鈥 of normativity in their unique contexts and provide action steps and promising practices for affirming gender, sexual, and family diversity.听
We center gender and sexuality, because what鈥檚 counted as normal in schools with respect to LGBTQ+ people and topics has been resounding silence. And, we recognize that these identities never stand in isolation from others. This means that, in our work, we also examine norms that surround race, social class, language, religion, dis/ability, and other social and identity markers.听
Educator Institute for Equity and Justice
In the spirit of collective liberation, every other year we host an 听(EIEJ). The mission of EIEJ is to support educators and youth serving adults to engage in critical self-reflection, dialogue, and practice around critical, queer, and anti-oppressive learning and practice. It鈥檚 to support and learn alongside one another as we 鈥渢ake stock鈥 of and disrupt what counts as normal in our schools and classrooms when it comes to the relationship between identity and power and collective trauma. It鈥檚 about building intersectional networks of solidarity and community, because we are all implicated in historical oppression and we believe that we have to work together to heal.听
Research & Public Scholarship
As an organization, we are committed to learning and disseminating knowledge.听听
- Policy and Policy Implementation
- Educator Learning
- Educators enacting queer practices
- Breaking the Silence
- DPS Film Partnership:听鈥淩eclaiming the Narrative: A Documentary About LGBTQ+ Students鈥
Bethy Leonardi听(she/her/hers)
Bethy was born and raised in New Orleans and has a hard time not talking about it. She loves to dance with her 3 year old, hike, laugh, and eat delicious food. Mostly though, she loves to feed people. Over the past few years, she has worked to refine her skills on the Big Green Egg and she also makes purple kimchi that鈥檚 pretty darn good. She calls it 鈥淧rince.鈥 Bethy identifies first and foremost as a teacher. Before earning her PhD, Bethy spent 16 years as a secondary English and math teacher in Louisiana, California, and Colorado and not a day goes by that she doesn鈥檛 miss that job. Bethy is co-founder and co-director of A Queer Endeavor and an Associate Professor in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice. Bethy鈥檚 work explores how public schools, as compulsory institutions affirm, include, deny, and/or silence queer identities. Specifically, she is interested in how educators enact promising practices that disrupt-- and heal-- cis-heteronormative school ecologies to create schools that are ready for (and not merely reactive to) queer youth. A way in to understanding school ecologies is through a focus on the relationship between policy and practice-- and at the level of implementation. Specifically, Bethy is interested in policies that challenge the status quo, that is, what counts as 鈥渘ormal鈥 in public schools. She works to understand how those policies might land in local ecologies, and how educators might 鈥渢ill the soil鈥 so that they land safely and have positive impacts.
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Sara Staley (she/her/hers)
Sara is an assistant professor in Teacher Learning, Research, and Practice in the School of Education and co-founder and co-director of A Queer Endeavor. After earning her undergraduate degree and teacher licensure from the University of Kansas, Sara spent six years as a language arts teacher, primarily in southern California. Her classroom teaching experience fueled curiosities about why teaching is such a difficult profession to learn, and in 2008 she moved to Boulder, Colorado, in pursuit of a PhD. Her research and community-based work are animated by deep commitments to justice-oriented teacher education and to creating safer, more humanizing school cultures for LGBTQ+ youth, families, and staff. Currently, she studies how educators learn and enact queer-inclusive and anti-oppressive practices. Things that make Sara happy include compassion, when national leaders act with integrity and humanity, the rolling plains of Kansas, deep belly laughs, and her three-year-old.
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Devon (he/him/his) is a PhD student at 兔子先生传媒文化作品 studying bilingual education and teacher learning. Prior to graduate studies, he was a fifth grade Spanish/English bilingual math teacher in New York City. Currently, Devon is pursuing research around what transformative preparation could look like for teachers of bilingual students in alternative certification routes. His commitments intersect with those of AQE's in that he sees transforming language education as in deep connection with undoing what's counted as normal in schools along many social identity markers, including gender and sexuality.
Nelia Pe帽a (she/her/hers) is a PhD student in Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was born and raised in Denver and taught in Denver Public Schools for 8 years as a bilingual elementary teacher. Her current interests include centering racialized, bilingual learners in the classroom, dialogic practices, and translanguaging pedagogy.
Acelynn C Perkins (she/her/hers) is a teacher educator and graduate student in Teacher Learning, Research, and Practice in the School of Education. After earning her undergraduate degree in education and ethnic studies and teacher licensure from Colorado College, Ace spent several years as an elementary and middle school social studies teacher in the Denver metro area teaching in the schools and communities where she grew up. While teaching, she earned her Master鈥檚 in Curriculum and Instruction and the University of Denver to pursue her goals of becoming a teacher leader with aims of creating humanizing professional development experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse teachers. In 2022, she made the transition to Boulder, Colorado to pursue a PhD. Her research and community-based work is centers working alongside teacher candidates and practicing teachers of color to co-construct learning environments that are deeply rooted in the knowledge, experiences, and lived realities of communities of color, and foster transformative change in policy and practice. Currently, she studies how pre-service and practicing teachers of color develop their teacher identities in the midst of鈥 in resistance to鈥 oppressive conditions and forces that shape their work while partaking in affinity-based teacher education spaces. She is fueled by soy lattes, 90s rnb songs, Sagittarius energy, and historical legacies of fugitivity in education.听听
Zander Nowell (he/him/his) is a human who loves coffee, baking, gardening, reading queer YA literature, and belting heartbreaking songs. Some things that bring him joy are fresh flowers, cookies that are baked just right (crisp edges and gooey middles), and traveling anywhere and everywhere. As an undergraduate, he studied stories as an English literature and creative writing major. Always drawn to teaching, Zander started as an educator in museum spaces before pursuing a MA in Education & Human Development and teaching licensure at University of Colorado Denver, after which he taught secondary English language arts in Austin, Texas for five years. Now, he is a graduate student and teacher educator interested in what queer and affective approaches offer in understanding how the everyday moments of teaching can move us towards horizons of justice and possibility. 听