Who We Are

Our Story

Ashley and Brittany were two educators who loved their students deeply and wanted to do something about the oppressive systems that were designed to keep their students from thriving. Although they both left teaching, they never left education. Brittany moved on to work in a nonprofit, where she integrated enrichment programming into the extended school day and developed a tiered intervention system to address the trauma and chronic stress that many of her students were experiencing. She advanced the agency’s mission of providing educational and wrap-around services to some of New York City’s most vulnerable communities as Director of External Engagement. Simultaneously, Ashley began her studies at Harvard Divinity School, where she began to research and strengthen her language of agency concerning racial justice and healing. After taking trainings on anti-racism and restorative justice, serving on the university-wide DEI task force, and being a TA for a Diversity and Inclusion Management Course at the Harvard Extension School, Ashley would graduate hoping to return to education with new resources, skills, and a renewed passion for systemic change. The Covid-19 pandemic and the summer of racial reckoning would thwart those plans as the world was trying to figure out how to support young people from their homes. Uniting again, Ashley and Brittany worked together and founded The Institute for Anti-Racist Education, Inc to help support schools, administrators, educators, communities, students, and more who needed more resources to support the changes that needed to be made to help students experience learning in new and holistic ways.