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New Workshop Series with Elijah Hawkes: The Power of Dialogue

Join us for a part or all of this exciting new series, “The Power of Dialogue,” with Elijah Hawkes, former high school principal and current Director of School Leadership Programs at the Upper Valley Educators Institute.

Offered in pairs of workshops from October to March, this series helps educators and leaders frame the importance of communication with both colleagues and students, and how this skill threads through our work. The series of paired workshops can be taken in full, or in parts.

A message from our presenter:

Now that the school year is well underway, how’s it going? What is the state of learning, collaboration and community in your classrooms and among adults? Are you seeing strengths to build upon in the months to come? Are you seeing areas where belonging, learning and collaboration need to be improved?

As I visit schools around the region, I see educators working hard to make their schools democratic, collaborative places characterized by deep learning and collective efficacy.

Over the past two years, I’ve offered workshops through VT-HEC that have explored restorative discipline, and the ways that we can foster engagement, belonging, and justice in our schools. We’ve had a lot of success in these workshops, which offer in-person and remote formats, and have generated high satisfaction rates.

This year, we’re exploring some new directions with a 3-part series of paired workshops relevant to educators and leaders across all roles and grade levels. These workshops cover a range of topics that connect to the importance of how we communicate and what we communicate about: how adults in a school community interact and collaborate; how we can continue to center racial justice in our work; and how effective speaking and listening skills connect to academics, social-emotional learning, and restorative disciplinary interventions.

Feel free to reach out for more information, or to help me understand how these workshops can best meet your needs…

Looking forward to it! – Elijah

Cultivating Belonging to Retain Educators and Build Thriving Schools

Attend in person in Montpelier or online.
“Thank you so much for the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation, make connections and share experience with peers, and share your own in an unbiased, welcoming, thought-provoking fashion!”
“This workshop is relevant to all of our work today as educators and administrators so we can work together to restore order, engagement, and discipline in caring and clear environments. People of all ages and professions could use this workshop.”
“The content delivered in today’s workshop was incredibly relevant as it provided real world scenarios and action steps that we can use and reflect on to actually start making change in our school systems.”
“Elijah worked to have a wide array of voices be heard and had the perfect mix of sharing his thoughts while also hearing from others.”


T. Elijah Hawkes, MSEd, is the Director of School Leadership Programs at the Upper Valley Educators Institute (UVEI). He is an advisor to the Polarization and Extremism Research Lab at American University, a contributing editor with the University of Chicago Press “Schools: Studies in Education,” and member of the Schools Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Prior to joining UVEI, Elijah was a middle/high school principal for 16 years, including ten years at Randolph Union Middle/High School in Vermont. He was founding principal of the James Baldwin School in New York City, one of the “successful public schools” serving “communities of color” in the city (The Nation, 2016). He has written for Rethinking Schools and Learning for Justice and is the author of two books on school reform.