Our Team

How it started

Founding partners Simmi and Symon have been radical collaborators since 2017, working together to design professional learning for learner-centered educators and school systems while at AltSchool (now Learner Centered Collaborative) and the Neurodiversity Alliance (fka Eye to Eye).  They quickly recognized that they share a set of core values about the promise and potential of learner-centered ecosystems for both adult and younger learners. These values underpinned a shared passion for supporting learner variability through their collective expertise of learning and experience design, facilitation, educational leadership, and systems thinking and design.  Joining together to co-create Inclusive Learning Design Co. is Simmi and Symon’s answer to ensuring they can co-create the conditions for organizations to find the right partner in this work.

Meet Simmi Goomer

Simmi is a learner and leader who has worked at the intersections of technology and learning for almost 20 years, with her roots firmly planted in the NYC specialized public school that she first began her special education career in. She has led classrooms, schools, and networks across the nonprofit, public, and private sectors. You can find Simmi’s consulting information at Sama Collective.

Simmi currently works in Leadership Programs at Netflix. Prior to that, Simmi was the Chief Operating Officer at edsUP, PBC and the Chief Learning and Impact Officer at the Neurodiversity Alliance, leading the national nonprofit’s research, program, impact, and learning strategy to support neurodivergent students and their educators.

Simmi delights in, and is deeply committed to, collaboratively shaping deliberate and emergent strategy, designing and facilitating impactful experiences, driving for operational cohesion, co-constructing communities of care, and stewarding innovative evolution.

  • My two daughters and I are taking virtual Punjabi classes to up our speaking game and connect on a deeper level to our heritage and cultural core. It’s always joyful to learn alongside them!

  • Beekeeping, honey production, and honey sales. I would love to do my part in safeguarding our environment, our flora and our food, and share some yummy honey with my loved ones along the way!

  • “We are each other's business; we are each other's harvest; we are each other's magnitude and bond.” - Gwendolyn Brooks

Meet Symon Hayes

With over 30 years of experience in education across the UK and USA, Symon brings a deep well of expertise as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, and professional learning designer and facilitator. His journey has spanned both special and general education, supporting students and educators from classrooms to districts, designing and facilitating impactful workshops and coaching experiences, both in-person and virtually.

Symon has held key roles at leading organizations shaping the future of education, including EL Education (project-based learning), Envision Learning Partners (performance assessment), Learner-Centered Collaborative, and the Neurodiversity Alliance, where he served as Senior Director of Learning Design. These experiences have grounded his approach in evidence-based practices and innovative models of professional learning that is not only research-based and practical, but also accessible and transformative for all educators. 

He founded DesignEd Professional Learning to empower teachers and leaders to design inclusive, equitable learning environments, where every learner feels seen, heard, and valued, and workshops and coaching are designed to spark curiosity, foster collaboration, and drive real change in practice.

Symon’s focus areas include Learner-Centered Education, Universal Design for Learning, Understanding by Design, Project-Based Learning, and Instructional Coaching.

You can learn more at DesignEd Professional Learning

  • I really enjoy pottering around in the garden; trying my hand and growing vegetables and other plants. It brings a calmness to the moment, and it’s good to eat what you grow, even though it’s not very much.

  • Pottery or woodwork. Particularly the skill of wheel throwing or using a lathe for wood. I love the idea of using hands for shaping and creating something new from natural materials. 

  • “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. “  -Maya Angelou. 

    “There are no rules here, we are trying to create something.” -Thomas Edison