For-profit

Transform the Collective Inc.

Website:

https://www.transformthecollective.com/

Location:

Evanston, Illinois

Status:

For-Profit

Type:

DEI Training

President:

Stacey Gibson

Founded:

Unknown

Headquarters:

Uknown

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Transform the Collective Inc. is a for-profit diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consulting firm that works with public school districts. It is the firm of Stacey Gibson, a school teacher in the Chicago area. The company works with another DEI company called Donohue Consulting Inc. and the two companies share promotional material. 1

In 2019, Transform the Collective received a contract from the Oak Park and River Forest School District to give a workshop for school board members. The workshop was designed in order to help the school district produce equal outcomes between white and non-white students. 1

Overview

Transform the Collective Inc. is a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consulting firm that works with public school districts and other educational bodies, mostly in the Chicago area. The company is owned by Stacey Gibson, a private school teacher and activist. 2 The company frequently works with another Chicago-area DEI company called Donohue Consulting Inc., which is run by Binita Donohue, who teaches at the same private school as Gibson. The two companies share promotional material. 2

In the two companies’ promotional materials, the two companies ask their potential clients “Are you frustrated with a lack of depth in your equity work?” The two companies also promise to “transform implicit bias into conscious classroom practices.” They also promise to “design equity initiatives with real, observable impact.” 2

The two companies work through using case studies, personal reflection, and group discussions. The goal of the workshops is to create avenues to explore and address the issues of diversity that appear at multiple avenues of school life. The goal of the work is to identify and disrupt what they view as unhealthy patterns and to create healthy practices at the school. 2

The core practices of their methodology are claiming that race, gender, and class operate from historical and psychological contexts. They also claim that racialized encounters create trauma and they incorporate increased clarity and healing to address them. The two companies also work to create individual transformation in order to change the organization and the institutions. 2

Oak Park and River Forest School District

In February 2019, Gibson and Donohue led a special meeting of the Oak Park and River Forest School District 200 school board meeting. The purpose of the meeting was how to equalize academic performance between white and Black students. 1

The purpose of the meeting to help build “equity” in the school district. “Equity,” a concept aligned with critical race theory, implies that the intent was to make equal student performance by racial groups the school district’s goal instead of focusing on raising the performance of individual students. 1

Among the “problems” the consultants were brought in to address was higher test scores by Asian and white students than black and Hispanic students. The consultants believe that the disparity in test scores by racial groups is the result of racist school policies that the consultants were brought in to remedy. 1

The consultants tried to teach the school district how to teach in a “non-racist” manner. The consultants also believed that there were too many white teachers in the school district and too many black and Hispanic students were being reprimanded in school. The consultants believe that “racialized encounters” created trauma in black and Hispanic students. 1

Transform The Collective Inc. was paid $3,600 for the four-hour seminar. 2

Other Work

In November 2016, Gibson pushed the Evanston Public Library to create a “racial equity statement and plan.” Among the things she called for were more books by “authors of color for people of color.” She also called for the hiring of more non-white staff and called for the library to set a goal of having at least 50 percent of staff be of people of color, despite the fact that Evanston’s minority population was only 27 percent of the total population. 3

References

  1. “Diversity Consultants To Help OPRF Equalize Student Performance, Tackle “Language From Dominant Voices””. 2019. West Cook News. https://westcooknews.com/stories/511770463-diversity-consultants-to-help-oprf-equalize-student-performance-tackle-language-from-dominant-voices.
  2. “Transform The Collective Inc.”. 2021. Parents Defending Education. Accessed November 29. https://defendinged.org/report/transform-the-collective-inc/.
  3. Kavin, Nina. 2016. “Evanston Resident, Equity Expert, Recommends Library Audit”. Dear Evanston. https://www.dearevanston.org/post/2016/11/17/evanston-resident-equity-expert-recommends-library-audit.
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