What people are saying about EPG…

  • "As an educational leader who has known and worked with Jarrod for over a decade on various projects and programs, I have experienced first-hand the quality—and more importantly the impact—of his mission-driven skills as a consultant. Jarrod is professional, organized, approachable, and an effective communicator. The frameworks and protocols he employs are grounded in researched-based best practices while also adaptable to local context. Jarrod's expertise in the DEIJ domain is matched by his skills as a facilitator. Within our school district, hundreds of staff members, students, and families have experienced transformative growth due to the work Jarrod has led. In turn, the culture of our organization has shifted over time to one focussed on attaining equitable student outcomes through reforming approaches, policies, and practices."

    — S. Carey, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education (2020)

  • "Carmel, and Jarrod, Thank you for your rich and collaborative workshop last weekend. You have set a new standard for the virtual world, and I appreciate it. You made the material very accessible, worked great together, and while psychologists are not an easy audience, you were great at getting us engaged and participative."

    — P. Cronin, PhD, Clinical Psychologist (2021)

  • "Lena and Jarrod are truly wonderful to work with. They are incredibly thoughtful about DEIJ issues and bring relevant and well-researched theories and frameworks to their work. Though the workshops they led were in a virtual environment (due to COVID), they engaged participants and established a brave and safe environment for discussing sensitive ideas. Together, they created a space for our teacher candidates and faculty that invited participants to share authentically and dig deeply into their own thinking and teaching practice. Their workshops have also been a catalyst for us to unitedly and swiftly move toward creating a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just program for all of our students. We look forward to opportunities to collaborate further with Jarrod, Lena, and their consultants."

    — V. Harvey, Associate Director, Teacher Education Program, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of CA, Santa Barbara (2020)

  • "Jarrod Schwartz assists organizations to initiate and manage change by addressing the dynamics of equity and inclusion on both a personal and organizational level. He uses data and tools that encourage self-examination and systems thinking. Jarrod’s work with community-based organizations and school systems brought about a wave of awareness and action on California’s Central Coast long before the current (and long-overdue) national focus on DEIJ."

    — D. Green, Senior Manager, La Piana Consulting (2020)

  • "Jarrod and his team are true thought partners from vision and design to implementation and evaluation. He is thoughtful beyond measure when it comes to advancing critical conversations, deepening organizational development and supporting meaningful individual reflection. Master facilitators, the team is always on point and has become a partner of choice in our region."

    — D. Jenson, Director, Center for Nonprofit Leadership, California Lutheran University (2020)

  • "As principal of a large public high school, Jarrod Schwartz has been a valued partner in helping our school community address of equity and inclusion -- first through education, followed by helping us facilitate hard conversations with our staff. But most importantly, he helped us turn those conversations into actionable step to address gaps in access and success for our Latinx students. We are still on this journey but 'our north star' of truly seeing and celebrating our students and their diverse backgrounds continues in large part to the direction Jarrod helped us put in place."

    — B. Woodard, Principal, Dos Pueblos High School (2020)

  • "Working with Jarrod and Judy was like finding two new teammates in the effort to help my organization reach towards best practices in the nonprofit field. SBTHP contracted with Judy and Jarrod to host diversity, equity, inclusion, and implicit bias training for our board and staff, a rich process that lasted over 9 months. The work, however, extended before and after the training process. Jarrod and Judy are deep listeners and are committed to understanding the culture of an organization before they begin work. Now that the initial training is complete and we are in the implementation phase of the DEI plan that resulted, I am confident knowing that they will be with us through our ongoing journey to better serve our community. They have each inspired new directions for our work, helped build our network of colleagues and resources, and supported our evolution as we work through intentional but sometimes uncomfortable changes."

    — A. Petersen, Ph.D., Executive Director, Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (2020)

  • "Jarrod Schwartz is simply one of the most knowledgeable experts in the country. He not only understands racism, sexism and other types of cultural oppression, he also understands how individuals and groups change and what learning processes are needed for institutions to become more effective by valuing and respecting all cultural groups."

    — Dan Krichbaum, Former Chief Operating Officer, State of Michigan, Office of the Governor, Former Executive Director of The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) of Michigan