Professional Development
Staff participated in nine 2.5-hour full-staff workshops supported by seven one-hour team sessions that carried workshop goals into smaller implementation settings.
Our Work
Education Culture and Climate Case Study
Racial Equity Change Initiative
Napata supported a multi-phase organizational change project at PiM Arts Charter in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, designed to advance educational equity through culture, systems, and implementation work.
Change Architecture
Professional learning, cultural analysis, reflective coaching, and operating practice moving as one system.
9
Full-staff workshops
7
Team-based sessions
33
Culture traits identified
4
Schoolwide changes installed
Overview
The work moved from diagnosis to operational change.
The Racial Equity Change Initiative assessed practices, evaluated organizational norms, and examined schoolwide culture to identify opportunities for improvement. Napata combined professional development, team-based support, reflective coaching, and data-informed decision-making to help new student-support practices take hold.
Recognition and assessment
PiM Arts leadership earned Continuing Education Unit credit through the Minnesota Department of Education. A group-based Intercultural Development Inventory assessment was administered in December 2023 to deepen understanding of school culture.
Change Architecture
Napata built the initiative around four connected practices.
Guided Discussion
Staff used four guided discussions to distinguish status quo practices from transformative practices and name how daily decisions shaped student experience.
Cultural Analysis
Staff identified 33 building-wide professional and cultural traits, then narrowed attention to eight traits contributing most to status quo practice.
Experimentation
Teams moved from discussion to experimentation by testing four schoolwide cultural traits in classroom and learning-space practice.
Program Graph
The numbers show a structured change cycle.
The initiative did not depend on one workshop or one conversation. It used repeated learning, smaller team practice, cultural diagnosis, and visible outcomes to keep change from staying abstract.
Experiment Themes
Four cultural traits became live areas for practice.
The work asked staff to slow down enough to see which habits were technical routines and which were adaptive challenges.
Feedback Signals
Survey prompts tracked whether staff could name the change work.
Sample feedback asked staff to reflect on stereotype threat, adaptive change, racial equity as an adaptive challenge, cultural DNA, and their experience with an anti-racist discussion framework.
"I wanted more time with this."
Teams began capturing narratives about how experiments with cultural change affected classroom and learning-space practice.
Broad Issues and Risks
Napata kept implementation friction visible.
The initiative surfaced practical constraints that often determine whether culture work becomes durable practice.
Risk pattern
- Full participation was challenged by multiple role demands.
- Continued implementation support was limited.
- Fewer full-staff workshops slowed cognitive pace and growth.
- The change management approach risked narrowing around one explanatory lens.
Outcomes
Four schoolwide changes translated equity work into operating practice.
Flex Day
A one-hour block at the end of B Day gave students additional academic and social support without day-to-day operational obstacles blocking access.
Student Breaks
Students gained more autonomy by setting their own breaks, strengthening student-staff interactions and giving decision-making more space.
Student-led Problem Solving
Teachers designed ways for students to request meetings around self-identified needs and use solution-based dialogue with adults.
Displays and Events
Student-created art, culturally specific playwrights, and touring shows helped connect with Black, Brown, and Indigenous students beyond traditional celebration windows.
Source Study
Download the education culture and climate case study.
The PDF source includes the original overview, workshop structure, feedback prompts, risks, and the four installed schoolwide changes.