^{“How do we acknowledge that students have experienced both incredible pain as well as pride with intersecting aspects of their identities, before during and after their time at Cotting? We’re trying to build strength-based experiences, while also holding the impacts of intersectional oppression - both individual and systemic. Our society is designed to erase our students' voices. How can we enable their positive identity development and work, alongside them, to tell their stories?”}

Celebrate.

Val Glod Gransewicz

Val Glod Gransewicz is Program Director at Cotting School, a special education school serving students with a broad range of learning and communication disabilities, physical challenges, and complex medical conditions.

Working with Cotting has had us in the intersectional space of disability and race. Val has gently taught us that joy should not deny the existence of pain nor should pain deny the existence of joy. In our conversations together, we’ve watched her hold the sharp reality of struggle and grief alongside a firm belief in and celebration of students’ rich, complex selves and experiences.

^{The project: We’re partnering with Cotting to create its DEIA vision and strategies and are currently working on implementing a first wave of actions.}