Cultural Proficiency Mini-Cerficiation 09/22/2026 - 09/24/2026
8:30 am - 3:30 pm
The Cultural Proficiency Mini Certification is a transformative three-day professional learning experience designed to strengthen educators' capacity to create inclusive, equitable, and student-centered learning environments. Through an engaging inside-out approach, participants examine the beliefs, assumptions, experiences, cultural biases and mental models that shape decision-making, relationships, and system design.
By deepening self-awareness and understanding how personal and organizational narratives influence educational outcomes, participants develop the skills to identify barriers to access, strengthen belonging, and create conditions where all students (and adults) can thrive.
Aligned with California's Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) priorities, this certification supports efforts to:
Increase student engagement and belonging
Strengthen school climate and culture
Improve family and community partnerships
Advance equitable access to opportunities and supports
Build culturally responsive and inclusive practices that improve outcomes for historically underserved student groups
Participants will leave with practical tools, reflection protocols, and action strategies that can be immediately applied to leadership, teaching, coaching, family engagement, and systems improvement efforts. This learning experience is ideal for educators, administrators, counselors, student support staff, and community partners committed to advancing equity, wellbeing, and success for every student.
Day 1 | Inside-Out Journey: Identity & Culture We’ll begin with identity, culture, community, and lived experience, exploring how the stories, histories, and unwritten rules we carry shape how we understand ourselves and engage with others. JANM and Little Tokyo will become part of the classroom as we consider the relationship between place, memory, history, and belonging.
Day 2 | Examining Systems: Identifying Systems of Oppression & Removing Barriers We’ll move from individual awareness to examining systems and institutional conditions. Through JANM’s collection, conversation with a camp survivor, and culturally responsive frameworks, we’ll explore how policies, practices, narratives, and institutional choices can either create or remove barriers to belonging, agency, learning, and opportunity.
Day 3 | Learning Becomes Action: Planning for Transformative Shifts We’ll bring the learning together by examining how institutions evolve, what solidarity requires of us, and how we move from reflection to action. Participants will develop a Cultural Proficiency Action Roadmap identifying immediate, intermediate, and long-term shifts they can take back to their own schools, districts, and organizations.
Event Details
Audience
Participants must be employed in a PreK-16 learning institution in the Los Angeles County region.
Partners
Japanese American National Museum
Included
Light breakfast and Lunch
Location
Japanese American National Museum 100 North Central Avenue Los Angeles, CA , CA 90012 Map | Driving Directions Note: All three days of this event will be held at the Democracy Center, located within the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.
The Japanese American National Museum is located at:
100 N Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Maps and directions provided by Google® Maps. Please verify map and driving directions for accuracy prior to attending event.
