Becki Cohn-Vargas

Becki Cohn-Vargas, EdD, spent over 35 years as a teacher, principal, curriculum director, and superintendent. In each setting, she focused on educational equity and effective strategies for diverse populations. Her educational mission is ensuring identity safe classrooms where teachers strive to assure students that their social identities are an asset rather than a barrier to success in the classroom.

Partnering with identity safety researcher Dorothy Steele, she coauthored Identity Safe Classrooms: Places to Belong and Learn, aimed at K–5 teachers. This was followed by Identity Safe Classrooms Grades 6–12: Pathways to Belonging and Learning, with Alex Creer Kahn and Amy Epstein. This summer, her third book, co-authored with Kahn, Epstein and Kathe Gogolewski, Belonging and Inclusion in Identity Safe Schools: A Guide for Educational Leaders, focused on school transformation will be available.

Currently Becki is an independent consultant and presenter. She was hosted at the White House by President Obama’s education staff, and has worked to create inclusive climates in over 150 schools across the U.S. Dr. Cohn-Vargas and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have three adult children and one grandchild.