Events

Pictured: Martha Haakmat

AISNE Cohort for Heads of Color
Affinity Connection, Identity Development, and Leadership Coaching

Discussion is important – in our schools and in the world. Discussion in affinity spaces and working together as a cohort helps provide support to one another as each person also works to develop and hone one’s identity and leadership. Yet, creating the opportunity and space for conversation with other heads of color, and devoting time and energy to do your own work is hard – and the pandemic has made it even harder – for heads of school. This year is going to be very challenging for heads of color in predominantly white schools with the growing rhetoric around CRT. AISNE wants to create a space and offer structure and support for a peer group that we hope will be invaluable.

From this cohort experience, you can expect to:

• Devote time for collaborative goal setting for the group (in the first session). This will be an opportunity to share what you want and need from this time together, both from the cohort facilitator, Martha Haakmat, and from the peer group.
• Share current successes and/or dilemmas at the start of each cohort session. This helps to surface priority topics for the group.
• Engage in topical mini-workshops as needed/desired. This is an opportunity for brief information presented with group processing and application to our various school communities.
• Create the time, space, and opportunity for resource sharing using a protocol. Heads can share information, techniques, and ideas.

Included in your cohort registration:

• Nine live sessions throughout the 2021-22 school year
• Associated materials and resources

Registration Details

AISNE Cohorts include takeaway content, tools, and resources. Notes and prompts are provided to support asynchronous and follow-up participant engagement. These resources are summarized and provided on a password-accessible web page.

Virtual Format Rate:
Member Schools: $399 per person

If you have any questions, please contact us.

About Our Facilitator

Martha Haakmat is an experienced educator who has spent her 32-year career teaching and leading in independent schools. She brings a depth of understanding and perspective to her work, having held various faculty and leadership positions in a wide variety of school communities. Coming from her most recent service as a head of school, Martha worked specifically on enrollment, marketing, and finance in a changing admissions landscape, and she developed strategic planning expertise, which included diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goal setting and ongoing systemic work. She is now the Executive Director of Haakmat Consulting, LLC, providing leadership coaching and support for DEI strategic planning for schools and other organizations.

Martha is a former lower, middle and upper school educator, Diversity Director, and Middle School Head. She has served as an independent school trustee and has been a member of various committees for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS), the Independent School Admission Association of Greater New York (ISAAGNY) and New York City Guild of Independent School Heads. She was also the founder and director of Educators for Growth and Empowerment (EDGE), a diversity consulting team with regional and national recognition.

Martha currently serves on the Board of Trustees for NYSAIS and Early Steps. She is also a faculty member for the NAIS Institute for New Heads and is a credentialed Montessori administrator.

“My vision is a world where schools and organizations are built upon and operating from strong foundations for equity and justice, and where the people in them are inspired to be their best selves.” ~ Martha Haakmat

Learn more about Martha here.