Head of School - DEI Director Partnership Series: Year 2

Starting with the “D”: Aligning and Utilizing Data within DEIB Strategy and Impact in Your School

In this workshop, we will explore how data can serve as a powerful driver for meaningful equity inclusion work, while setting long-term goals of belonging. Cohort teams will discuss how to move beyond anecdotal narratives toward measurable, mission-aligned goals that demonstrate impact across the school community. Through collaborative discussion and strategic based exercises, the session will focus on using data to strengthen institutional strategy, communicate DEIB progress to stakeholders, and ensure that inclusion efforts are both intentional and sustainable.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to identify, collect, and interpret data that authentically reflects your school’s DEIB priorities and community experience.

• Explore strategies for positioning DEIB work as a core component of institutional excellence, not a peripheral initiative.

• Gain tools and frameworks for tracking and communicating progress toward DEIB goals with clarity, transparency, and accountability.

Driving Together: Building and Sustaining Long-lasting and Collective Belonging within Your School

As the culminating session of the four-part series for Heads of School and DEIB practitioners, this workshop focuses on translating learning into lasting institutional practice. Cohort teams will engage in strategic mapping to align their school’s mission, purpose, and DEIB goals while building the collaborative infrastructure needed to sustain this work beyond individual efforts. Through guided reflection and shared storytelling, leaders will explore how to maintain accountability, deepen relationships across teams, and ensure that DEIB leadership is a collective responsibility rather than an isolated role.

Key Takeaways:

• Develop a strategic roadmap that integrates DEIB priorities into professional development and school-wide leadership practices.
• Strengthen alignment between mission, purpose, and daily decision-making through intentional communication and storytelling.
• Build systems of shared accountability and connection to ensure that no DEIB practitioner—or Head of School—leads alone.

Brandon Jacobs is Practice Leader, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) Consulting Practice, Search & Consulting Services at Carney Sandoe & Associates. He also supports the Head of School, Key Administrator, Catholic Schools, and Diversity Leadership Search Practices.

Brandon has been instrumental in growing our DEIB Search and Consulting Practices. He has worked with dozens of independent schools, colleges and universities, and education organizations, running searches for DEIB practitioners and leading consulting engagements around implicit bias, equitable hiring, BIPOC faculty and staff retention, and other topics.

Brandon is also a course facilitator in school culture and inclusivity for Global Online Academy, Dean of Student Advisement for the New Jersey SEEDS program helping high-achieving students from low-income families, and served as Admissions Counselor and Multicultural Recruiter for Rider University.

Before joining CS&A, Brandon served as the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at The Shipley School (PA) where he led the development and implementation of policies, procedures, and programs that sustained an inclusive school community and curriculum and fulfilled the School’s diversity and inclusion goals. Working closely with school administrators, he directed recruitment and retention initiatives to broaden the diversity of the student body and among faculty and staff.

Brandon has presented at the NAIS People of Color Conference, the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools, ADVIS, PAIS, and SAIS conferences. He is a well-known thought leader and is consistently invited to serve on panels, lead workshops, and speak on topics of equitable hiring and retention, diversity and equity strategic planning, curriculum design, climate assessments, and board governance. Brandon matriculated from the College of Wooster (OH) where he studied sociology and communications. He went onto to graduate from Saint Joseph’s University with a Master’s of Educational Leadership.