The Practice of Trust

In equity work, we say we want to build trust, but trust isn’t built—it’s practiced. Not with protocols or promises, but with presence, pressure, and proof.

The Practice of Trust. © 2025 forwardED LLC

The hardest part of equity work isn’t data analysis. It isn’t professional development. It isn’t political backlash. It’s trust—not just gaining it but deserving it.

If you’ve ever stepped into a vulnerable school or a fractured community with a clipboard full of good intentions, you’ve likely seen it in eyes, before you heard it in voices, hesitation, guardedness, and quiet doubt. “We’ve seen people like you before.” And they’re right because, before it leads to a strategy, a policy, or a professional learning plan, equity work is a test of character. It asks not just what we believe, but how far we’re willing to go for that belief. And the first proof people look for is trust.

But what is trust, really? Psychologically, trust is a relational posture built on three expectations: competence, integrity, and benevolence (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). It’s the fragile belief that someone not only can act on your behalf, but will—with consistency, care, and courage over time. Philosopher Annette Baier (1986) described it more intimately as “accepted vulnerability”—the decision to be open to another, despite the risk of betrayal. Trust, in this way, is not a soft virtue but an existential wager.

And yet, in education spaces—especially in those shaped by legacies of systemic harm—we often treat trust as a checkbox. We open sessions with circles and vision boards, assuming that a safe space can be summoned by a script. We say we want to “build trust” as if it’s something you can download and deploy. But, as we have learned at forwardED from working with a diverse range of partners across the U.S., you can’t protocol your way into people’s faith.

The reason trust is widely seen as a necessary first step in equity work is that, at its core, equity is about systems change, and systems change requires surrender: a letting go of what is, in service of what could be. And surrender is not possible without trust. In fact, research has long shown that schools and districts with higher relational trust—among leaders, teachers, students, and families—are more likely to see meaningful, lasting change (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). Trust creates the conditions for risk. And risk is the currency of transformation.

But here’s the problem: in too many equity initiatives, the version of trust we try to build is itself untrustworthy. Recently, a colleague from the Delaware State Education Department, reflecting on one of our shared projects, told me this: “The way folks try to build trust—it feels fake. Performative. Like emotional gaslighting with equity branding.” What she named, and what many in vulnerable communities already know, is that the traditional rituals of trust-building—check-ins, listening sessions, empathetic nods—can feel like cover. Like a script written in advance to manage perception rather than repair reality.

When people have been repeatedly harmed by systems, they don’t need you to feel their pain. They need you to change what’s causing it. Talking about trust without disrupting the conditions that erode it only makes things worse. It’s not trust—it’s theater.

Trust doesn’t grow from declarations. It grows from demonstrations. It’s not a performance. It’s a practice.

In our work at forwardED, we place trust at the beginning of our Equity Support Protocol (EQSP) not because we believe in beginnings that are easy, but because we believe in beginnings that are earned. We’ve learned that trust is not a door you walk through—it’s a road you build, brick by brick, under the feet of those who walk it with you. And that road begins with labor—the shared and sacred kind.

In one district we supported in rural Michigan, we were brought in to help revise disciplinary practices that had disproportionately impacted students of color. The skepticism was immediate and thick in the room. One parent put it plainly: “We’ve had folks promise change before. Then they vanish.” So, we didn’t start with promises. We started with presence. We sat in classrooms. Helped draft policy language with students. Co-taught alongside teachers. Held after-school meetings. Ate the food. Heard the stories. Felt the cold.

It was exhausting. And that was the point because what we gave wasn’t a toolkit. It was ourselves. And slowly, trust followed—not because we asked for it, but because we earned it by showing we could carry it.

Most equity assistance gets this wrong. It outsources the risk to the community. It asks those harmed to be open while those in power remain closed. It expects vulnerability from those least protected while offering very little in return.

Real trust is forged in mutual exposure. It’s when we let others see not only our competence, but our convictions. It’s when we’re willing to lose something—a contract, a reputation, a seat at the table—for the sake of what is right.

So, how do we practice trust?

1.     We stay when it’s hard. Not just when it’s celebratory. Trust comes from proximity under pressure. When we don’t cut and run at the first sign of resistance.

2.     We tell the truth. Not just the polished truth, but the raw, unvarnished kind. The kind that risks comfort in service of clarity. As Tschannen-Moran (2004) writes, trust thrives in environments where transparency is the norm, not the exception.

3.     We share the labor. Equity cannot be delivered. It must be co-created. This means involving communities not as “stakeholders” but as co-authors of their own futures, and ensuring that when the rewards come, they are shared—not hoarded.

In our years of working with systems across the U.S., we have learned that trust isn’t the absence of doubt but the presence of courage despite it. And that’s the real work: not to ask people to believe in us, but to act in ways that show we believe in them.

You don’t talk your way into trust. You work your way into it. Through sweat. Through risk. Through staying when it would be easier to leave.

If you want to build trust in equity work, don’t start with your intentions. Start with your footprint. Start with who you’ve stood beside. And keep going.

References

Baier, A. (1986). Trust and antitrust. Ethics, 96(2), 231–260. https://doi.org/10.1086/292745

Bryk, A. S., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. Russell Sage Foundation.

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9508080335

Tschannen-Moran, M. (2004). Trust matters: Leadership for successful schools. Jossey-Bass.

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Suggested citation: Kirkland, D.E. (2025). The Practice of Trust. In forwardED Perspectives, https://www.forward-ed.com/post/the-practice-of-trust.

David E. Kirkland, PhD, is the founder and CEO of forwardED. He is a nationally renowned scholar and leading expert on education equity. He can be reached at david@forward-ed.com.