ABSTRACT
The U.S. school system perpetuates intersectional marginalization in which students of color with and without dis/abilities are disproportionately subjected to exclusionary disciplinary practices. To address these racialized behavioral management and disciplinary outcomes, the Learning Lab methodology was developed. Learning Lab is a participatory systemic design intervention, where school professionals, families, students, and community representatives—especially those historically marginalized in and/or excluded from educational decision-making processes—collaboratively design a culturally responsive and inclusive behavioral support system. In Learning Lab, local community members actively engage in a dialectical problem-solving process, enabling them to critically examine systemic challenges within schools and develop contextually appropriate equity-oriented solutions. This paper introduces a systemic transformation effort led by an urban middle school community. This initiative was aimed at tackling the persistent overrepresentation of students of color with and without dis/abilities in school discipline. Drawing from this imitative, we seek to high-light the expansive potential of universal design for learning (UDL) as a lever for equity, guiding a systemic design process to dismantle the (in)visible racist and ableist infrastructure within schools.