Lacey Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of UnboundEd, has been recognized by Forbes 50 Over 50 list for IMPACT:
• Lacey Robinson serves as the CEO and President of UnboundEd, a professional development solution for educators. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Robinson led a pivot from an in-person model to a fully virtual one, scaling its reach from a few thousand to tens of thousands of educators looking to prioritize equity in the classroom.
• At the same time, she led the organization’s merger with Pivot Learning and CORE Learning—a move that solidified UnboundEd as the leading national K-12 equity-focused educator development organization.
• When she began leading the organization in 2020, UnboundEd recorded $14.3 million in revenue. In two years’ time, she’d grown it to $35 million.
• Funders include the Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Schusterman Family Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and the MacKenzie Scott Foundation.
• Robinson has spent time in and around the classroom for her entire career, having worked as a teacher, a principal and a school staff development specialist.
“All students deserve a learning environment that is grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful. All students flourish when their education not only acknowledges their identities but the identities of others, affirming who they are as academics and as human beings,” says Robinson.
“Adopting this mindset begins our journey toward justice as educators. My life’s work aims to help educators in school systems disrupt systemic racism and all of its legacies in classrooms. I work with our collective educator community to ensure that future generations can stand free within themselves to be whomever they choose to be. I choose to be a truth-teller. I choose to own my story of internalized racism that I had to overcome and to stare at the hard truth about my toolkits of pedagogical practices and concepts to be the educator I am now. I choose not to look away.”
In her new book, Justice Seekers: Pursuing Equity in the Details of Teaching and Learning, Robinson delivers an engaging combination of storytelling and research that explains why justice is happening―or not happening―inside the classroom and within the details of teaching and learning. An intuitive and exciting roadmap for K-12 teachers, teachers-in-training, school administrators, and principals who aim to reverse the racial injustices today’s children face every day, Justice Seekers belongs in the hands of everyone who cares about educational equity.
Lacey Robinson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of UnboundEd, a role that accelerates her life’s work to help educators in school systems disrupt bias and systemic racism and its legacies in classrooms. As President and Chief Executive Officer of UnboundEd, Robinson sets the organization’s vision for equity-driven national change. While continually monitoring the design, delivery, and quality of UnboundEd’s national K-12 educator professional learning programs, Robinson concurrently maintains the nonprofit’s health, sustainability, and future-driven vision for what teaching and learning can be in the 21st century.
Robinson engaged with industry partners to support standards-aligned, content-focused, equity-driven adult professional learning and development from the organization’s infancy as its Chief of Program and Engagement. She also endorsed vital design and execution elements for UnboundEd’s signature professional learning opportunity, the illustrious Standards Institute. Robinson’s contributions led to the organization’s rapid growth and positioned UnboundEd as an industry leader. Robinson spearheaded migrating this work into a virtual space during the pandemic to meet the needs of educators. Ultimately, she believes the work of UnboundEd/CORE will be a catalyst of support for teachers and leaders in what she likes to coin as the Edusphere. Robinson focused on literacy, equity, and school leadership for over two decades as a teacher, principal, and staff development specialist. Inspired by Langston Hughes, her path is to build temples for tomorrow as strongly and bravely as she knows how and to ensure that future generations can stand freely within themselves to be whomever they choose.