Two Sessions, One Collective: Help Get CoCo to SXSW EDU 2027

Coaction Collective was built on a simple belief: the people closest to the work should be the ones shaping the conversation about it. That belief is showing up twice this year in the SXSW EDU 2027 PanelPicker, and we need your vote to help both sessions make it to the stage.

Two of our founding partners, Dr. Michael Andrews and Diana Suarez, have proposals live right now. Different topics, different formats, same throughline: research and lived experience, working together to move the field forward. Here's what they're bringing.

Reclaiming the School Choice Narrative: What Americans Want

Diana Suarez is teaming up with Ramin Taheri, CEO of Magnet Schools of America and Jonathan Voss, Founder at Voss Research and Strategy for a session grounded in national polling data on how Americans actually think about public school choice.

The conversation around school choice is loud, and it's often driven by assumption rather than evidence. This session flips that. It digs into what the data actually says about where magnet schools fit into the choice conversation, and it gives district and school leaders research-based messaging they can take home and use to engage their own communities honestly and effectively.

Diana brings a partnership lens to this work that reflects CoCo's broader philosophy: family and community engagement isn't a program you run, it's a narrative you have to get right. This session is about giving leaders the receipts to do that.

Vote for "Reclaiming the School Choice Narrative": https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1783623889259001iirz 

Who Holds the Camera Holds the Power: A Live PhotoVoice Session

Dr. Michael Andrews is proposing something that isn't really a session about PhotoVoice. It's an experience of it.

Participants will use their own phones to document what belonging and inclusion look like to them, then move into structured dialogue around those images, working together to uncover patterns and meaning in real time. The premise is straightforward and a little radical for a conference stage: the people closest to an experience are the experts on it, and for one hour, the room becomes a research collective.

This approach comes directly out of Michael's doctoral work, which used PhotoVoice methodology to study fathers in family-school partnerships. He's spent years thinking about what it actually looks like when we hand people the tools to tell their own story instead of narrating it for them. This session is that thinking, live.

If you've ever wondered what authentic voice, participatory research, or community-centered learning actually feels like in practice, not just in theory, this is the room to be in.

Vote for "Who Holds the Camera Holds the Power": https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1782244980008001IafD

Why This Matters for CoCo

Two partners: two very different sessions, both rooted in the same conviction that's driven Coaction Collective since 2021: real change in education happens when research, policy, and lived experience are in the same room, not talking past each other. Whether it's a father documenting what belonging looks like through his own lens, or a district leader armed with what the data really says about school choice, the work is about giving people the tools and the trust to lead the conversation themselves.

Community voting plays a direct role in which sessions make it to SXSW EDU 2027. If either of these conversations speaks to the work you're doing, take two minutes and cast your vote for both. Every vote helps bring this thinking to a bigger stage, and helps CoCo keep showing up in rooms where the future of this field is being shaped.