2026 Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice 

June 16 - 18, 2026

at the University of California, Riverside

Sponsored by The California Endowment and the UCR School of Education 
ITOC is an on-going professional development space designed to support wellbeing, strengthen racial literacy, and cultivate racial justice leadership capacities of teachers of Color and teacher educators of Color. A unique collaboration between the disciplines of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, and Ethnic Studies, this national conference rigorously selects and supports ITOC Fellows across the U.S. and beyond each year.

Applications for our 2026 Summer Convening & 2026-2027 Virtual Programming open on February 1st, 2026. Sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know when applications open!  

ITOC Fellows Selection Criteria:

Fellows are selected based on the following criteria:
ITOC Fellows and Teacher Educator Fellows:

• Identify as a Black, Indigenous, or person of Color (BIPOC) educator(pre-service teachers are eligible) or in a related capacity within K-12 schools
• Work (or will work) in a K-12 public schools serving majority BIPOC students
• Demonstrate an advanced level of racial literacy
• Have an asset framing of communities of Color
• Commit to critical and theoretically driven approaches to transforming schools
• ITOC Teacher Educator Fellows work in a university setting training K-12classroom educators

2026 Summer Conference Includes:

• Keynote Talks
• Workshop Sessions
• Racial Justice Action Plan Working Group Sessions
• Health, Wellness, and Creative Arts Programming
• Femtorship Program
• Breakfast and Lunch Daily
• One Community Dinner

Present at ITOC! Submit a Workshop Application! 

The Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (ITOC) seeks teacher leaders, community partners, teacher educators, and scholars to facilitate racial justice-focused workshops that center the experiences and needs of teachers of Color with advanced racial analysis. The goal of these workshops is to deepen their critical literacies and to support their transformative work in classrooms, schools, and communities.  We are specifically interested in workshops that engage critical theories, are interactive and engaging, and offer participants concrete strategies to work towards racial justice in K-12 education.
We welcome proposals that address a variety of critical topics, with particular interest in those that focus on:

• Strengthening teachers' critical consciousness and racial literacy  (i.e., addressing the complexities of intersectional oppression, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, bans on Critical Race Theory, etc.)
• Improving educational conditions for historically marginalized students and their communities (i.e., students who embody or are the intersections of multiple positionalities, such as ​undocumented students, emergent bilingual speakers, dis/abled students, students who are criminalized and overdisciplined, etc.)
• Transforming and reimagining classrooms (i.e., Ethnic Studies, critical pedagogy, abolitionist teaching, YPAR, restorative or transformative justice)
• Sustaining justice-oriented teacher leaders in the classroom (i.e., healing and wellness, self and community care, critical teacher development, racial justice teacher leadership, teacher organizing, etc.)

Workshop facilitators will receive an honorarium totaling $400 per workshop. For questions about proposal topics or submissions, please email us at [email protected]. We appreciate your interest in submitting a workshop for the 2026 ITOC gathering. The last day to submit a workshop proposal is Saturday, January 31, 2026. 

Submit a Workshop Application Here

 2026-2027 Virtual Programming Includes:

• Online programming throughout the school year including community building, speakers, and mini-sessions
• 2 Public Talks in Collaboration with UCR's K-12 Ethnic Studies Speaker Series
• Femtorship Program (fall and spring large group meetings and femtors/femtees independent meetings)
• Well-Being Collective
• Book Club

Registration Fees for Selected Fellows

Registration Rates
Please note that we offer financial hardship pricing. However, if this is still inaccessible, please email us at [email protected].
Early Bird Pricing (April 3rd - May 10th):
Summer Conference Registration:

• $400 Registration Rate
• $200 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

2025-26 Virtual Yearlong ONLY:

• $200 Registration Rate
• $100 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Combined 2025 Summer and 2025-26 Virtual Programming: 

• $500 Registration Rate
• $275 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employee)

Standard Registration Rates (May 11th - June 3rd):
2025 Summer Conference Registration:

• $450 Registration Rate
• $250 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

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2025-26 Virtual Yearlong ONLY:

• $250 Registration Rate
• $125 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Combined 2025 Summer and 2025-26 Virtual Yearlong:

• $600 Registration Rate
• $350 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Health and Safety Concerns: As an organization, we are committed to racial justice, which includes an intersectional analysis. As we learn and are led by intersectional scholars of disability justice, we are striving to center access in our practices and gathering spaces. For ITOC’s Summer 2025 convening, out of an abundance of care for our community, we encourage those attending to test for Covid-19 at home before coming, stay home if you are not feeling well, and be mindful about people’s boundaries around touch and space. We also will be providing masks and Covid-19 tests on site. 

Ways we are enhancing our practices:

• Registration tables outside in the mornings, and in a breezeway the rest of the day
  
• Masks, hand sanitizer and tests provided at the registration table
  
• Masks and hand sanitizer in all rooms 
  
• Leadership team will test before the conference begins
  
• Virtual programming all year long, including talks, workshops, bookclubs, femtorship, and wellness