Issues Now! Conversations About Equity

On today's episode I speak with Jovan Denaut, our equity leader here in Cumberland County about the plans that CCS has for the upcoming school years to begin addressing equity and working toward our vision in the CCS Strategic Plan. "Every student will have equitable access to engaging learning that prepares them to be competitive, collaborative, and successful in our global world."

On today’s episode we will be wrapping up our series entitled From History to Healing with a conversation with several educators in Cumberland County on how to address issues of social justice and diversity in the classroom.  We will hear from various perspectives including a beginning elementary school teacher to a district curriculum specialist and everything in between.  To hear more on my perspective of this issue, join me and several equity leaders from around the state for a panel through NCSU School of Education on May 5 at noon.  Registration Link

On today’s episode we continue our series entitled From History to Healing with a conversation about the emotion behind race related issues from a psychological and practical perspective.  Today, I am joined again  cohosts Maureen Stover (NC TOY), Nicole Rivers (CCCS TOY), and Chris Lucas (CCS Runner-Up TOY) and also two more guests, Dr. Myra Robinson and Mr. Brandon Price.  Both Dr. Robinson and Mr. Price bring unique perspectives to this conversation about how our emotions and feelings play a huge role in moving toward a place of unity.

On today’s episode we will be continuing with our series entitled From History to Healing.  I am again joined by our teacher of the year partners, Maureen Stover, Nicole Rivers, and Chris Lucas. But we will also be joined by two of our colleagues who have a deep understanding of the problematic history surrounding race in our country, Daniel Scott from Onslow County and Demetrius Haddock, from Cumberland County.  I hope you will enjoy this conversation about the history of race in America.

Today we begin a new series entitled From History to Healing. I am partnering with Maureen Stover, NC Teacher of the Year and finalists for the National Teacher of the Year; Nicole Rivers, current Cumberland County Schools and Sandhills Regional Teacher of the Year; and Christopher Lucas, Cumberland County Schools runner up for Teacher of the Year. We will be discussing some of the problematic history in our country and the effect is has had on our education system. We will also discuss why it is so difficult to have these conversations both inside and outside of the classroom. Today, we will get to know the co-hosts of this series as well as hear the why behind the series.

On today’s episode we will be learning about a new initiative that is starting in Cumberland County Schools to address the issue of access to highly effective teachers for historically underrepresented students. Opportunity Culture is a program that addresses this issue while keeping equity at the center of its core beliefs. I am so excited about this initiative and look forward to how it will help students at my school and across Cumberland County.

For this episode, I will be talking with several faculty members from Ashley Elementary School in Fayetteville, NC. We disucss a professional development they participated in last fall that took a deep dive into the historical aspect of systemic racism and how it is still affecting the schools today. We discuss the need for all educators to participate in these types of conversations and their "takeaways and ahas."

On today's episode I welcome back my good friend Tianna O’Brien and members of the new developed Equity Team from Bill Hefner Elementary School. As you will hear- Tianna started this team after the same Professional Development that led to the creation of this podcast. We talk about how they started their team and what they are doing to address inequities in their school.

On this episode, I continue my conversation with the school counselors from Cumberland County about the professional development they embarked on in the fall. Today they share with us some of their next steps. I am so grateful for them and the work they are doing in our schools. I am blessed to have had this conversation with them and as I stated before I will truly never forget where I was and who I was with (even though it may have been virtual) when the tragic events on the afternoon of January 6, 2021 took place. Issues Now exists to highlight issues of inequity and injustice and we denounce the acts of violence and hatred that occurred that day. We look forward to the day when our country lives out the truth that all people were created equally.

Our first mini series of Season Two will focus on some of the equity work that is being done in Cumberland County Schools. I want to highlight those that are addressing the inequities of the educational system by hearing from them. Our first discussion will be with Kristy Newitt, who is the Counselor Coordinators here in CCS along with three school counselors from our district, Shacarra Taylor, Rangel McLaurin, and Deborah Martin. Kristy led a PD last fall with all of the counselors in our district based on the book Interrupting Racism: Equity and Social Justice in School Counseling by Alicia Oglesby and Rebecca Atkins.

On today’s episode, the last of Season One, we will get a look into equity from our superintendent’s perspective, Dr. Marvin Connelly Jr. Following my conversation with him, I will debrief some of my big takeaways from this episode as well as reflect on the season as a whole. To provide your feedback on Season One and give ideas for Season Two, please fill out this google form. Season Two- coming January 2021.

On today’s episode we will be continuing our conversation about equity with the 20-21 Cumberland County Principal of the Year- Suzanne Owen from Cliffdale Elementary School and the Assistant Principal of the Year- Tianna O’Brien from Bill Hefner Elementary School.

Today we begin our final mini series of Season 1 of Issues Now! Conversations About Equity. I will spend the next three weeks talking with leaders from around my district about what our goals should be and what ideas we have about how we can create a more equitable school system. Today we begin with a conversation with the 20-21 Cumberland County Schools Teacher of the year- Nicole Rivers from Grays Creek High School, and first runner up-Chris Lucas from Cape Fear High School.

On today’s episode, I talk with my good friend, Duncan McMillan about many aspects of equity in early childhood education. We look at some of the disparities in the statistics that face our young students of color and really get into how we can be equitable practitioners in early childhood education.For more information about the NC Early Childhood Action Plan, please visit, https://files.nc.gov/ncdhhs/ECAP-Report-FINAL-WEB-f.pdf.

On this episode, we will be wrapping up our series on LGBTQ issues in schools. This was originally supposed to be a two part series, but my dear friend Kandy Cox Dillion who was on the first two episodes about this topic pushed me to do a third where we look at this issue from the parent perspective. So, today I welcome back Kandy along with two other parents of LGBTQ youth, Samantha Boyd and Heather Reisenbeck to discuss their experiences with the school system while raising a teenager that is part of the LGBTQ community.

On this episode, I welcome back Ashley Boles, Dustin Best, and Kandy Cox Dillion to discuss their personal experiences as an educator who is also a member of the LGBTQ community. I am so grateful to these three amazing educators for sharing their personal experiences to help others learn and grow.

On this episode we are diving into a new topic about equity in education. We will spend the next three episodes exploring issues related to LGBTQ students and staff. Today’s episode will focus on the importance of, and how to create welcoming spaces for our LGBTQ students. I am thrilled to welcome three of my friends, Ashley Boles, Dustin Best, and Kandy Cox Dillion for this conversation about equity.For more information about this topic, please visit The Trevor Project and GLSEN.

In this episode we are dig a bit deeper into the classroom application of becoming an anti-racist ELA teacher. Last week, I talked with three professors from NC State University about their white paper about this topic. Today, I talk with two English teachers from Grays Creek High School, Melissa Bishop and Joel Mayo, about how they are putting some of these practices into action in the classroom. Melissa is also the president of the North Carolina English Teachers Association and talks briefly about what that organization is doing to promote anti-racist work through North Carolina. To nominate someone for the NCETA Anti-Racist Teaching Award, please visit: https://forms.gle/QxGHCcKhmPsvij3r6

In this episode I with three professors from NC State University on how to work towards becoming an Anti-Racist ELA Teacher; Dr. Michelle Falter, Dr. Chandra Alston, and Dr. Crystal Chen Lee. These three ladies worked together in the summer of 2020 to write a white paper outlining the steps that teachers, specifically ELA teachers, should take towards becoming Anti-Racist teachers. To read the entire paper, please visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wwUDyWOeiXaYpSlzaE6LvAMG-NJnumnHl-Ud1fiPII/edit?usp=sharing

In part three of our series on White Privilege, I talk with three colleagues from CCS- Larry Parker, Dr. Lillian McDavid, and Jovan Denaut about the importance of having access to teachers of color for our students of color. We talk about the difficulties of recruitment and the importance of staff development in cultural responsive teaching- no matter the race of the teacher.

In this second part of our White Privilege in schools series, we take a look at the disproportionate access to AIG services and AP classes for students of color and highlight a grassroots initiative to counteract this data.

In this first episode of a three part series about where we see white privilege in schools, we talk with Jeff May, Youth Development consultant currently residing in Houston, TX and Kailey Hill, an elementary principal in Spring Lake, NC. We take a look at some recent discipline data and discuss how it portrays the white privilege that is so apparent in the public school system and give suggestions to teachers and administrators about how to counteract the disproportionate numbers.

On this episode, I interview two of my colleagues from Cumberland County Schools. Kristy Newitt, the Coordinator of school counseling for the district, and Bridgett Pridgen, educator and advocate for Social Emotional Learning. We discuss the importance of SEL in creating equitable schools and give strategies for incorporating SEL during this uncertain time in education.

In this episode of Issues Now! we talk with Graig Meyer, a NC Representative and co-founder of Equity Collaborative about the biggest issue facing schools right now, school re-opening. Can we do this equitably?

In this first episode of Issues Now! Conversations about Equity, I interview several educators from Cumberland County Schools in North Carolina. We delve into what equity in education means; diversity, inclusion, and equity; highlight some equitable practices taking place in our county; and discuss our why for making sure our schools are equitable, inclusive environments where each and every student can learn.