Follow the Money

Report Details

What is LiberatED LLC?

On Feb. 25, 2019, Dena Simmons registered LiberatED LLC with the Connecticut Secretary of State as a limited liability corporation, based in Waterbury, Connecticut.

According to her website, Simmons established the company as a “collective focused on developing  school-based resources at the intersection of social and emotional learning (SEL), racial justice, and healing.” Former assistant director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, where she says she “supported schools to use the power of emotions to create a more compassionate and just society.”

Previously, Simmons says she was an “educator, teacher educator, diversity facilitator and curriculum developer.” She describes herself as a “leading voice on teacher education,” writing and speaking “across the country about social justice pedagogy, diversity, emotional intelligence and bullying in K-12 school settings,” including at the White House, the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit, the United Nations, two TEDx talks and a TED talk on Broadway. 

She features profiles about herself in Education Week, the Huffington Post, NPR, the AOL/PBS project, “MAKERS: Women Who Make America” and a book, “Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists,” published by Beacon Press.

In August 2020, Edutopia published, “6 Ways to be an Antiracist Educator,” with a video interview with Simmons, with a credit line to the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

What services does LIberatED LLC offer?

LiberatED LLC offers consultations, trainings and briefings to schools and educators.

What K-12 work has LiberatED LLC done?

ILLINOIS

Naperville School District 203

Contract

Naperville School District 203 paid Simmons $10,500 to deliver a 60-minute virtual keynote address.