In the United States today, 9 out of 10 school superintendents are white and two-thirds are white men. When you think of a typical superintendent, the person you imagine probably doesn’t look like me. 

As a Latina, my leadership isn’t often expected, nor is it always welcome. 

Institutional biases block career advancement for educators of color, who constitute only 1 in 5 U.S. teachers and principals. We are promoted less often and experience higher turnover than our white colleagues. 

This is a serious problem: The caliber and stability of our educator workforce affects our education system’s quality and capacity for improvement. We must address these barriers: Educators of color enhance student learning and are key to closing educational gaps. 

Much has been written about why we need to break down barriers in order to diversify the educator workforce. Much less covered has been the formidable task of how to launch and sustain transformative solutions. I urge fellow superintendents from all racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds to act now.

That’s what we are doing inWaukegan public schools in Illinois, which serve a diverse population of about 14,000 students from preschool through high school, near Lake Michigan, about 10 miles south of the Wisconsin border. I am using my leadership position to take strong, unapologetic action so that every student can graduate from high school prepared and supported to pursue their dreams. 

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

Since taking on the superintendent role, I’ve found that when it comes to the young men in our district, we’ve got serious work to do. 

After analyzing a wide range of data and engaging in deep reflection last year, we realized that our Black male students often lack the necessary resources and support to reach their full potential. This aligns with national trends through which these students typically face low expectations, inequitable discipline that fuels the school-to-prison pipeline and a shortage of effective, culturally responsive teaching.

We launched an ambitious, systemwide, data-driven initiative aimed at creating equitable opportunities to help our Black male students and educators. I believe our efforts can provide an example for any school system dedicated to closing opportunity and achievement gaps for all students. 

Research confirms the intertwined success of Black students and educators. Studies show that low-income Black male students are 39 percent less likely to drop out of high school if they had at least one Black male teacher in elementary school. Our goal is to convince more Black male educators to build a career in our district because we know that hiring and retaining Black teachers and leaders can measurably improve math scores for Black students.

Related: White men have the edge in the school principal pipeline, researchers say

Some key insights from our work stand out as essential tools for continued success. First is the indispensable role of broad support from executive leadership. My commitment to addressing education inequities is deeply personal. I relate to many of the challenges our Black male educators face and, as a mother to a Black teenage boy, the urgency of this effort pulses through my veins.

Our board of education’s steadfast support has been equally key to launching our initiative, with board members helping drive us toward significant, measurable achievements.

Community engagement and leadership are our foundational principles. I know that the solutions we need won’t come from me alone. This acknowledgment led us to launch a task force that includes Black male students, teachers, principals, students’ fathers and other family members and community partners. 

We’ve also hosted planning sessions involving diverse stakeholders to try to foster buy-in and accountability as we move forward. And we’ve engaged national partners with unparalleled expertise to help us guide professional learning for district officials using an inclusive, equity-focused lens. 

We are also dedicating staff to oversee the work. We created a new position to catalyze our multiyear initiative and are investing in our teachers and leaders while we pursue systemic transformation. In particular, we launched a local leadership chapter for Men of Color in Educational Leadership, where our educators can share experiences, seek guidance and grow professionally within a community of practice.

We rely on a framework that highlights skills vital for the success of education leaders of color and contributes to the broader goal of systemic change in education. I often turn to these resources myself when reflecting on my own leadership as a woman of color. 

Acknowledging the extent of the challenge is just the start to fostering inclusive, equitable education. We have begun the critical process of setting goals so we can transparently track and communicate our progress. We are also trying to see how this focused initiative advances broader efforts to strengthen and diversify our entire educator workforce, including paraprofessionals, teachers and school leaders. 

Other superintendents can do this too. Find your champions, allies, community leaders and partners. The time for brave, visionary leadership is now.

Theresa Plascencia is superintendent of Waukegan Public Schools in Waukegan, Illinois. She sits on the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents Advisory Policy Committee and on the Men of Color in Educational Leadership National Advisory Council. 

This story about diversifying the educator workforce was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post SUPERINTENDENT VOICE: As a Latina, my leadership sets me apart and gives me a chance to set an example appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

On the first day of seventh grade, Elijah Brown clambered onto a bus and watched the tall buildings of the city slowly recede. He was part of a desegregation effort that took him from his predominantly Black neighborhood in St. Louis to a school in the predominantly white suburb of Wildwood, Missouri.   

The education was excellent, but students made denigrating comments about where he was from and his race. His mom worked hard – often two jobs – but sometimes there wasn’t enough money for rent. Some nights, he and his mom and sister slept in their car. Some days he could only eat when he was at school. 

Brown began to think of the University of Missouri as a way out of hard times. It was the only college he applied to, and he got in – but even with full federal financial aid, he would have needed to come up with thousands of dollars every year to cover the rest of tuition and room and board. 

To his overwhelming relief, he was awarded a prestigious George C. Brooks scholarship, which was designed to help students from groups underrepresented at the university and covered about 70 percent of tuition annually. 

“It changed my life, it really did,” Brown said.

The scholarship money meant that he didn’t have to work two or three jobs at Subway or the local gym like his friends. Brown graduated in three and a half years, in 2020, with a 3.98 GPA.

“I worked so hard. I was relentless with it, because I felt like I had something to prove,” he said. “I felt so grateful to be getting a Brooks scholarship.” 

That scholarship no longer exists. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to ban affirmative action, Missouri, like many other universities, dropped scholarships that until this year had been reserved for students from underrepresented racial groups, even though the Court’s ruling didn’t mention financial aid.

Students say the money allowed them to attend top colleges that otherwise would have been financially out of reach, putting them on a path to the middle class. The scholarships often included mentorship programs, which helped them succeed. The financial support freed them to focus on their studies without working too many hours. And – crucially – it helped them graduate without loads of debt.

Missouri’s interpretation – that the Supreme Court’s ruling applied to financial aid as well as admissions – swept through a swath of states last year. Colleges have canceled race-conscious scholarships worth at least $60 million, according to data from public universities; the total is likely significantly higher.

In some states, elected officials ordered institutions to change the scholarships in favor of ones that didn’t consider race. In others, universities preemptively made the change, fearing lawsuits from groups eager to test the Supreme Court’s willingness to prohibit the consideration of race not only in admissions but in financial aid as well.

Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.

But a survey of the country’s 50 flagship public universities – whose stated missions are to provide high-quality, affordable education to the residents of their home states – shows that not all have responded the same way. While at least 13 have changed or eliminated scholarships that took race into account, another 22 have kept them intact, according to spokespeople and scholarships listed on university websites. ​​The University of Wisconsin-Madison would only say that its scholarships were “under review.”

The remaining 14 flagships either never had race-conscious scholarships or use what’s known as a “pool and match” system that honors donors’ requests for race-specific awards without creating barriers to any student who applies. 

The University of Iowa changed the Advantage Iowa Award, which last year provided $9.4 million to more than 1,500 high-performing students from underrepresented racial groups, to a purely need-based scholarship. Administrators said they made the changes, “based on the principles articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The 22 schools that kept the scholarships interpreted the ruling differently.

Pennsylvania State University, for example, decided that because the Court’s ruling “focused solely on admissions, it did not impact Penn State’s scholarship awarding,” the university’s assistant vice president for strategic affairs, Lisa M. Powers, said in an email. 

Some experts worry that slashing the scholarships could increase educational disparity, discouraging more Black and Hispanic students from going to college. About 28 percent of Black adults and 21 percent of Hispanic adults have college degrees compared with 42 percent of white adults, the U.S. Census reports.

The changes could also deepen financial inequalities. In 2020, Black college graduates on average owed $58,400 in loan debt four years after graduating – 30 percent more than white graduates, according to the Education Department. Meanwhile, Black college graduates aged 25 to 34 on average earned about 25 percent less than their white counterparts in 2022, making loan repayment more difficult.

Last fall, just 4 percent of incoming freshmen at the University of Missouri, where Elijah Brown went, were Black, down from 8 percent five years earlier. Despite ending two scholarships previously designated for underrepresented students, which were awarded to more than 350 students each year, the university expects an increase in the number of underrepresented students enrolling in the fall, according to Christian Basi who was a spokesperson there until earlier this month. Students already enrolled and receiving the scholarships will not lose them, he said.

Brown says relying on merit for scholarships without considering race will hurt Black students. SAT scores – widely considered a measure of academic merit – for Black, Hispanic and Native American students lag significantly behind white and Asian scores. 

“People who say, ‘Oh, our scholarships are all available for everyone now.’ No, they’re not,” Brown said. “They’re still going to go to mostly white people who have already been set up, generations back, for college, whose parents are college grads, and who didn’t only apply to one school because they didn’t know any better.”

Related: How could Project 2025 change education?

After he graduated, Brown worked for the University of Missouri as an admissions representative assigned to recruit students from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented there. He drove to high schools in Kansas City and St. Louis to convince Black and Hispanic students to choose his alma mater over other options, such as colleges closer to home or historically Black colleges or universities.

At meetings with students, Brown told them what he had gained by going to the University of Missouri — from the organizations he joined to the guest speakers he got to hear to the classes he took. He told them about the Brooks scholarship, saying that if they worked hard, they could have the same opportunities he had. 

“I was telling them about my experience,” he recalled, “and their eyes would light up, and they’d get so excited, like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s possible.’”

When he heard about the university’s decision to cancel the Brooks scholarship, he was angry.

“I talked to these freshman and sophomore students, and it’s like I lied to them,” Brown said. “They will never be able to get that opportunity at Mizzou. It makes me sick to my stomach that so many of these kids will not get that experience.”

Eyram Gbeddy doesn’t remember any college representatives visiting his Pennsylvania high school during the Covid-laden winter of his senior year, in 2020-2021, but he did get a recruitment email with an offer he thought couldn’t be real.

The University of Alabama wanted to give him a full ride. He visited the campus and fell in love with it. His mom didn’t pressure him, but she was grateful for his decision.

“She told me she was praying that I would go to Alabama because it would be so helpful to the whole family,” he said, freeing up financial resources for his two brothers’ educations.

Alabama’s National Recognition scholarship, which was earmarked for high-performing Black, Latino, Indigenous and rural students, was discontinued starting with students entering this fall. Gbeddy, who is Black, said it had allowed him to concentrate solely on his studies, and he graduated this past spring – in just three years. He will enter Georgetown University law school in the fall, which he said would have been unthinkable if he had been carrying thousands of dollars in undergraduate loan debt (median federal student debt for all graduates of Alabama is close to $23,000).

“When I sit here and I think that there are students who are just like me – who are qualified, who are smart, who would make absolutely wonderful additions to the Alabama community – who aren’t even going to be able to consider Alabama,” said Gbeddy, who is 21 years old. “It’s just heartbreaking to me.”

Just a few years ago, the University of Alabama was touting the Recognition Scholarship and its positive impact on the campus’s racial diversity. 

Related: How did students pitch themselves to colleges after last year’s affirmative action ruling?

Black students made up 10 percent of freshmen at Alabama in 2022, while 32 percent of public high school graduates in the state were Black, but that gap has decreased over the past five years.

Gbeddy predicts ending the National Recognition scholarship will reverse that trend.

“When you lose these scholarships that are targeted at Black Americans,” he said, “at people from rural areas, people of Latino ancestry, you lose such a strong recruiting tool for a university that desperately needs it.”

The University of Alabama did not respond to questions about why they canceled the scholarship.

“[T]he University will continue to offer competitive scholarship opportunities to its students in a manner that complies with federal and state law,” the university’s associate director of communications, Alex House, said in an email. 

Kimberly West-Faulcon, a professor of law and the James P. Bradley chair in constitutional law at Loyola Law School in California,said decisions to end the race-conscious scholarships can boil down to weighing the possibility of lawsuits against an institution’s commitment to racial inclusion.

“Institutions are making decisions to not defend these kinds of policies,” but to change them, said West-Faulcon. “Why are they changing their policies, instead of going to court and defending them?”

Last year’s Supreme Court admissions decision has indeed prompted a flurry of lawsuits against race-conscious scholarships and a wave of complaints to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights by groups like the Equal Protection Project. That group, which sees the scholarships as discriminatory, says it has already succeeded in getting more than a dozen scholarship programs canceled or altered.

Indiana’s flagship was EPP’s most recent target, with a complaint filed in July against 19 private bequests that consider race. For example, one scholarship indicates a preference for an underrepresented minority student with financial need majoring in business and another for an African American law student who has at least one dependent.

“The source of funding does not matter,” William Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor who leads the Equal Protection Project, said in an email. “The scholarships are promoted by Indiana University to its students, and IU handles the application process through its scholarship portal. As such, it needs to adhere to relevant law governing educational practices.”

A group of white students even filed a class action lawsuit against the University of Oklahoma for its institutional aid program — which doesn’t take race into account. The suit claims that Black students have been receiving financial aid disproportionately.

Related: OPINION: Following the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, we must find new remedies to promote educational equity

Still, even with the legal uncertainties, some universities are holding the line. 

After consulting with legal counsel, the University of New Mexico decided to keep its National Recognition scholarship, since the Supreme Court didn’t mention financial aid and because the criteria for the National Recognition scholarship in particular are set by the College Board.

Last year, 149 Indigenous, Black and Hispanic high-performing students received these selective scholarships at the University of New Mexico, each worth about $15,000 per year. The graduation rate for students who receive those scholarships and the university’s other top merit-based scholarships ranges between 80 percent and 95 percent, the university said, compared with 52 percent for all students.

For Diego Ruiz, the scholarship, which is enough to cover tuition, fees, dorm costs and books, has been life-changing. 

“I can go to school and graduate and not have any debt,” said Ruiz, who was salutatorian of his Albuquerque high school and is entering his second year at the University of New Mexico. “This is all I wanted. This is all my parents wanted.”

Ruiz had considered going out of state for college, but the scholarship kept him in New Mexico. His mom’s family has lived in the state for many generations, mostly in rural areas, and his dad’s parents emigrated from a small town in Mexico. He is studying public health and wants to find ways to improve access to health care, especially in the rural areas of New Mexico.

He plans to go to graduate school in a medical field, which he says will be easier since he won’t have debt after college (this semester he’ll be working 20 hours a week on campus).

“I’m just really interested in trying to give back to the community that raised me,” said Ruiz, who is 19. “I’m super interested in battling the disparities that we have in New Mexico.”

Brown, the Missouri grad, just finished his first year at the University of Virginia School of Law. This summer, he worked at a top law firm and earned more than his mom does in an entire year.

In May, he took his entire family to a soccer game in St. Louis. He bought them jerseys. He gave them his credit card so they could buy whatever they wanted from the concession stand. “It was the first time in my life I’ve ever seen my mom and my stepdad so stress-free,” Brown said. 

“My mom loves me so much… I’m just so happy I can give back to her,” he said, fighting back tears. 

“I feel so blessed, because this is a life I could never have dreamed of growing up,” he said. “I’m just so grateful for my education.”

This story about scholarships based on race was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

The post Cutting race-based scholarships blocks path to college, students say appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

When people learn that I have a doctorate in educational psychology and quantitative methods, they often assume that I love math. And the truth is, I do now, although that wasn’t always the case.

Like many Black students, I faced challenges throughout my academic journey, with math tracking being the primary one. Despite high math scores in earlier grades and a passion for the subject, I was placed into lower-level math courses in middle school.

This experience happened more than two decades ago, but limited access to advanced and engaging math options is still a problem today, even for high-achieving Black and Latino students.

All students deserve to benefit from enriching math learning experiences and the promising future those experiences can unlock.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

When I was in elementary school, my father, a master carpenter and math enthusiast, played a significant role in shaping my love and curiosity for math. He believed that no concept was too complex to learn, and he used carpentry to help me understand the interconnectedness of math and the world around me.

I learned about fractions, angles, precision and spatial awareness using wooden blocks and puzzle pieces I helped my dad create. By the age of 11, I could read a floor plan and calculate the length of a diagonal roofline using the Pythagorean theorem.

My dad taught me that math makes the world better, and that learning math is key to understanding the world.

But in middle school, being tracked into lower-level courses contradicted my math identity and eroded my confidence to the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: I became a lower-level math student, which marked the beginning of a full-blown math identity crisis.

Frequent learning disruptions — a result of the lower-level classes also being used for students with behavioral challenges — combined with a curriculum without meaningful content facilitated a swift shift in my relationship with math.

Tracking also limited my access to advanced high school courses such as statistics and calculus that would have further developed my math skills and opened up numerous postsecondary opportunities.

Sadly, I was learning to hate math, despite my early love for it.

The tracked classes did, however, improve my social skills and popularity. Through regular exchanges of humorous insults with fellow classmates on various topics — such as who was the least intelligent or most economically disadvantaged — I developed a well-curated arsenal of diss material.

The joke-telling also became a great defense mechanism against the stigma of having been placed in lower-level classes. So instead of practicing math during study hall, I worked on refining my repertoire of jokes. I didn’t learn much math, but I did learn how to be funny.

Related: Racial gaps in math have grown. Could detracking help?

Unfortunately, my story is far too common. Indeed, more than half of U.S. states have recognized that their traditional approaches, including placement policies and limited math course options, often advantage an elite few while overlooking the needs of the broader student population.

While a lack of resources in underserved schools is a real issue, the most damage to students’ math identities and success can be attributed to dated perspectives on the type of math courses that should be offered and systemic racism dictating who they should be offered to.

I was fortunate to discover applied statistics in graduate school. This discovery marked a pivotal turning point in my post-elementary school relationship with math, which had, up until then, been more a “situationship” — a noncommittal and sporadic interest driven by prerequisite requirements.

For the first time since learning with my dad, I was engaged and sufficiently challenged while learning mathematics. Unlike my previous math classes, the statistics courses weren’t focused on rote memorization or problems that lack any relevance to the real world.

And since earning my Ph.D., I’ve used these skills across various professional domains.

I’ve used structural equation modeling to predict STEM access for underserved students and to make recommendations to broaden pathways to STEM. As a United Way director of education, I used statistical methods, such as linear regression, to make investment and funding decisions. During my 2019 run for Congress, my statistical expertise proved invaluable in analyzing trends, guiding campaign messaging and optimizing resource allocation. I felt empowered like never before, having the ability to make more accurate interpretations and informed decisions.

I recently co-authored a report addressing the equity dimensions of math education, delving into past policies and emerging strategies to better engage and prepare students for college and career in a data-driven society.

The report sheds light on the need to enrich students’ math experiences with challenging and relevant content that offers opportunities for deeper learning. This content should provide pathways for students to make connections between theoretical concepts and practical solutions, such as building sustainable communities in underresourced regions.

The most valuable lesson I learned throughout this journey was the inextricable link between math identity and math experiences. In other words, when people say they don’t like math, they really mean that they didn’t like their experiences learning math.

Students learn more than just mathematics in math class; they are affirming their abilities and math identities and discovering that they can have a place in shaping an advanced technological society. We owe it to our students to ensure that they have better math learning experiences than those I received decades ago.

Melodie K. Baker is national policy director for Just Equations, a nonprofit organization reconceptualizing the role of math to ensure educational equity.

This story about math tracking was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post OPINION: As a Black middle-school student, I was tracked into lower-level math classes that kept me back appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

It was the start of my sophomore year at a new public high school in New York City. With its dark brick exterior and barbed wire on the roof, my school already resembled a small prison — and staff had just installed several metal detectors at the front entrance.

As my classmates begrudgingly walked through security in packed lines stretching out to the street, I asked why. One of the administrators said, “Because it will keep everyone safe.”

This was a majority-Black high school, and I knew what that meant: We, the students, were perceived to be a threat — and we were being punished for something we didn’t do.

Situations like this are the reality for too many students across the United States. Black middle and high school students are over three times more likely than white students to attend a school with more security staff than mental health personnel. And data has consistently shown disparities in school discipline practices. Black students, for example, are 2.2 times more likely to be referred for disciplinary action than white students for school-related incidents.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

Meanwhile, the rising number of school shootings in our country has sparked an intense debate on how to best keep students safe. There’s a big push for more police in schools right now to provide an illusion of safety.

In my view, more law enforcement is not the answer. School safety doesn’t require more policing. Instead, schools need more structured support, such as access to mental health and counseling resources.

Increased police presence in schools is intended both to prevent and to disrupt active violence. But it can be woefully ineffective, as was the case during the Uvalde school shootings, when police not only delayed their response but also failed to adhere to safety protocols. The Uvalde disaster displayed the systemic challenges of using police in schools to create safety, including communication issues between a school district and law enforcement.

Yet despite research showing that increased physical security measures do not actually foster safe and inclusive learning environments, U.S. schools spend over $3 billion each year on security services and products, including surveillance cameras, metal detectors and armed guards or police, also known as school resource officers (SROs).

Disturbingly, SROs are more likely to be placed in schools with a high percentage of Black and Latino students, and the SROs who work in such schools are more likely to believe that the students themselves are the biggest threat, while those in white-majority schools are more likely to cite external threats. One study found that increased exposure to police in schools significantly reduced the educational performance of Black boys and lowered their graduation and college attendance rates.

Related: PROOF POINTS: Four things a mountain of school discipline records taught us

This extra policing of schools comes at a time when legislators are changing laws to subject young people, particularly Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds who are already overpoliced, to increasingly harsher criminal penalties. This trend includes Washington, D.C.’s anticrime bill and Louisiana’s slew of tough-on-crime bills.

The new measures reverse some recent progress: After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, many school districts listened to families and students and removed police from schools amid national protests about law enforcement.

But removing SROs wasn’t enough. Some students returning to school after the pandemic exhibited difficulty readjusting — a manifestation of pandemic loss, racial inequality, discrimination, mental health issues, loss or sickness of family members or caregivers and more. School districts should also have added the kinds of practices that are proven to create safer schools, such as including the voices and needs of students and families in the crafting of inclusive school policies, investing in restorative practices and social and emotional learning efforts, hiring and training culturally responsive school counselors or educators and creating multitiered systems of support.

After the pandemic, teachers didn’t have the resources essential to providing the care that students needed, most notably mental health support. As a result, school districts are now bringing school resource officers back, and it’s a mistake.

Effective approaches to school safety can give students a strong sense of belonging and support in handling conflicts appropriately — before they escalate to violence. To truly keep students safe, federal and state policymakers and school principals should champion policies that support students’ physical and mental well-being and consider proposals that provide federal funds to states and schools committed to reducing harmful disciplinary practices.

As part of this effort, they should support the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act and the Ending PUSHOUT Act, which would divert federal funding away from placing police in schools.

Now is an ideal time for school leaders to rethink their discipline policies and create a safe and welcoming school climate. School shootings are terrifying, but the correct response isn’t more police and metal detectors, especially in majority-Black schools that are already hyper-criminalized.

Students should not have to look back on their middle and high school years, as I do, and associate images of prison with their educational development. All students deserve an education in an inclusive, nurturing environment where they are not only safe, but can also learn and thrive.

Manny Zapata is a former teacher and is now a Ph.D. student and a policy and research intern at EdTrust, working on social, emotional and academic development.

This story about safer schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post OPINION: Instead of hiring security staff, let’s find other ways to create safer schools appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Inside a small, mural-covered building just outside Indianola, Mississippi, 14-year-old Tamorris Carter made the rounds, bouncing lightly on his heels.

He stopped frequently to explain objects of interest; pictures of class field trips to civil rights monuments, or a poster he made on “social dominance orientation,” a term that describes one’s tolerance for social inequality. Even in moments of pause, Tamorris found a way to remain in motion. He would smooth down the cap on his head, lean forward to pinch the bubbles of a rainbow-printed fidget toy, and trace the words of his poster.

Tamorris was giving a tour of the Sunflower County Freedom Project, an after-school and summertime educational program where he’d been a student for a little over two years. The Sunflower County Freedom Project is one location of the Freedom Project Network, an organization that gives Mississippi students “holistic and liberatory education experiences.”

At the Freedom Projects, students — called “Freedom Fellows” — learn about Black and Indigenous history, math, reading and public speaking. The program also prepares students for college. Freedom Fellows range in age from third to 12th grade.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

Most Freedom Fellows at the Sunflower County location are from Indianola, the county seat. Around 9,000 people live there; 84% of them are Black. Almost a third live in poverty. The town center is ringed by cotton fields, which in July, are low to the ground and bright green. In certain places, neat rows of small plants extend to the horizon. The Mississippi State Penitentiary, a place once described by historian David Oshinksy as “the closest thing to slavery that survived the Civil War,” is a short drive from Indianola. Last year, the town made national news when an Indianola police officer shot an unarmed, Black 11-year-old in the chest.

Other educational programs might prepare students to leave towns like Indianola. But the Freedom Project Network is “not an organization just trying to get kids into college,” emphasized LaToysha Brown, the organization’s executive director. “We are not trying to bring kids in to separate them from the community.”

Instead, she hopes Freedom Fellows will use their education to change their communities for the better.

An education that empowers

By early July, the Sunflower County Freedom Project was wrapping up its summer program. Tamorris and other Freedom Fellows moved from class to class in different parts of the building.

“This is our library,” Tamorris announced, cutting through a small room filled with books on Black history, social critique, philosophy, and young adult fiction. From there, he reached a large open area with mats on the ground. “This room is kind of like a gym,” he said. “This is where we do taekwondo.” He paused briefly to demonstrate a move, a decisive punch to the air.

Tamorris walked through a door at the back of the gym, which connected to a classroom with blue walls. A third-grade math class was in session, so he dropped the volume of his voice to a whisper. The classroom’s walls were covered in homemade posters left behind from student presentations. Among others, there were posters with information about historically Black colleges, “The Myth of Racial Progress,” and the signs of ADHD.

The Freedom Project Network takes its name from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Freedom Schools of 1964, whose alums are celebrating the schools’ 60th anniversary this year. The original Freedom Schools opened to educate young Black Mississippians on Black history and political activism. Charlie Cobb, the SNCC member who proposed the idea, wrote that segregated schools in Mississippi were “geared to squash intellectual curiosity and different thinking.” By contrast, Cobb hoped the Freedom Schools would provide Black kids with an education that empowered them. Eventually, these students would use their education to advocate for racial justice in Mississippi.

In 1998, three decades after the last Freedom Schools closed, a group of community members and Teach for America fellows established the Sunflower County Freedom Project.

Related: 7 realities for Black students in America, 70 years after Brown

LaToysha Brown, 28, grew up in Indianola and is a Freedom Fellow at the Sunflower County Freedom Project. From her perspective, the need for the Freedom Project Network was obvious.

“In Indianola schools, students do not receive a quality education,” she said. “When I was a student, we didn’t receive new textbooks, and we weren’t challenged to read many books. Our teachers were amazing with the resources they had. But our schools were under-resourced.”

In Indianola schools, “you’re never going to have an in-depth conversation about enslavement,” Brown said. Instead, the history of racial injustice is limited to “a paragraph or two” in a textbook.

The Freedom Project gave Brown an education she would not have received at school. Now, Brown works with students who attend that same school system — kids like Tamorris.

Filling in gaps

A photo of Tamorris Carter sitting next to a statue of Rosa Parks while on a field trip to Dallas hangs on the bulletin board at the Sunflower County Freedom Project. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50

Tamorris became a Freedom Fellow in eighth grade. By that point, he’d already gained an awareness of injustice, even if he couldn’t label it as such. He remembers looking around his middle school one day and noticing something strange — “I thought, ‘all I see is Black people.’”

He suddenly realized all his classmates were Black, as were the teachers and administrators at his school. This didn’t bother him, exactly, but it did make him wonder: Where are the white kids?

Related: As a 6-year-old, Leona Tate helped desegregate schools. Now she wants others to learn that history

After he joined the Freedom Project, a guest speaker gave him the answer he was looking for: Most white students in Indianola still attend the private Indianola Academy, established to maintain segregation in 1965. Each year, around 400 students attend Indianola Academy. In 2012, then-headmaster Sammy Henderson admitted to The Atlanticmagazinethat the school only enrolled nine Black students, but added that “we also have Hispanic, Indian, and Oriental students.”

For Tamorris, learning about Indianola Academy was a revelation. He had suspected his education was shaped by racism, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice those thoughts. “I didn’t want to be one of those guys that makes everything a conspiracy,” he said. But the guest speaker “gave me reassurance.” He felt — or, allowed himself to feel — that the reality of his life had been kept secret.

He began to see racism throughout his education. At school, teachers had barely mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer, who was born and raised in Sunflower County. They had not taught Tamorris about Juneteenth, either.

Indeed, it started to feel as though his entire life had been shaped by oppression. Tamorris’ mother sometimes struggles to afford food; before, this was an unfortunate fact of life. Now, Tamorris understands it as a symptom of a larger system of racial capitalism. “Screw capitalism,” he said with a grin. “Capitalism is what keeps me broke.”

This kind of thought process is a part of the Freedom Schools’ “liberatory pedagogy,” a teaching style that takes for granted that, according to Brown, “People already know what’s happening to them. They just need the language.”

Brown acknowledges that Tamorris is an extraordinary student. Still, she said, “a lot of our students walk into our space feeling like something just isn’t right in their lives. We fill in the gaps. We give them language. We allow them to share their experiences with each other about what’s happening in their community.”

On July 12, Tamorris and a few other freedom fellows gathered to present a project of their choosing to their family members and supporters. Tamorris gave a presentation on social dominance orientation, which he argues plays a role in the continuation of oppressive systems.

These presentations are a major aspect of the Freedom Project’s teaching style; they are intended to get Freedom Fellows comfortable educating their community members. From Brown’s perspective, a student like Tamorris is perfectly capable of analyzing society by himself, without the assistance of the Freedom Project. But to Brown, analysis is only part of the process.

“I said, ‘Great, you have this great big analysis of the world,” said Brown of Tamorris. “‘Now, I want you to apply that. How can you use that analysis to organize with the people around you?’”

Rebecca Cadenhead is the youth and juvenile justice reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. She is also a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Email her rebecca.cadenhead@mlk50.com.

This story was written by MLK50 and reprinted with permission.

The post At this summer school, students learn about liberation and leadership appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Nota de la editora: Este reportaje sobre las escuelas de Russellville fue producido por palabra, una iniciativa de la Asociación Nacional de Periodistas Hispanos,  The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro que se enfoca en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación, y AL.com.

RUSSELLVILLE, Alabama — Lindsey Johnson y Yesenia de la Rosa estaban usando estrategias diferentes para impartir la misma lección de inglés sobre letras mudas, sentadas en extremos opuestos de ese salón de clases de primer grado en la Escuela Primaria West. En esa tarde de marzo, Johnson, la maestra del aula, estaba leyendo un cuento con niños de 6 y 7 años que dominaban el inglés. Los estudiantes de la asistente bilingüe, De la Rosa, aún estaban aprendiendo el idioma, así que, aunque les estaba leyendo el mismo cuento, iba más lento, traduciendo palabras, actuando emociones y mostrándoles fotos en su iPhone.

Valentina, de 6 años, que llevaba puesta una camiseta negra con un logo de Nike en dorado y mallas, había llegado hacía menos de dos semanas desde Guatemala. Sentada en el suelo, cerca de la silla de De la Rosa, su mejilla casi tocaba la pierna de su maestra. De la Rosa solía trabajar con ella de forma individual, ya que la niña no sabía letras ni números, ni en español ni en inglés. Cuando Valentina fue al kínder en su país natal, lo único que hacía era colorear. “Así que cuando llegó aquí, eso es lo que pensaba que iba a hacer. Solo dibujar”, dijo De la Rosa. “Pero aquí es distinto”.

El distrito escolar de la ciudad de Russellville creó el puesto de De la Rosa a principios de 2021, como parte de un esfuerzo más amplio por ayudar a educar a su creciente población de alumnos que hablan inglés como segundo idioma. Muchos de los estudiantes de inglés, como se les llama, tienen padres provenientes de México o Guatemala que trabajan en una planta avícola cercana y en empleos locales en la industria y la construcción. Hoy, el 60% de los niños del distrito son hispanos/latinos y aproximadamente un tercio son estudiantes de inglés.

Johnson dijo que, sin De la Rosa, no podría comunicarse con más de la mitad de sus alumnos, ni entender los desafíos a los que se enfrentan. Johnson sabía que Yeferson, un estudiante de inglés de Guatemala, era uno de los niños más inteligentes en la clase, ya que leía más de 100 palabras, muy por encima de la meta de 60. “Es una esponja. Lo absorbe todo”, dijo Johnson. Pero ella supo gracias a De la Rosa que Yeferson se estaba destacando a pesar de sus muchas responsabilidades en casa: su mamá trabajaba turnos nocturnos, por lo que Yeferson lavaba la ropa, fregaba los platos y cuidaba de sus hermanos menores. Dijo Johnson: “Tener un asistente bilingüe hace una gran diferencia”.

Russellville quizás no dé la impresión de ser una comunidad que va a invertir e innovar a favor de los estudiantes inmigrantes. Es una ciudad políticamente conservadora del noroeste de Alabama, con una población aproximada de 11.000 habitantes, y en la que un 72% de los votantes optó por Donald Trump en las últimas elecciones presidenciales. 

Cuando la planta de procesamiento avícola abrió, en 1989, la población hispana de Russellville era aproximadamente el 0,5% del total de habitantes. En 2000, había aumentado al 13% y, en 2020, era casi del 40%. Al principio, al distrito escolar, como a muchos otros del país, se le hizo difícil dar cabida al creciente número de estudiantes de inglés, que abandonaban los estudios en altos porcentajes, estos eran empujados a clases de educación especial y después mostraban escasos progresos académicos. Sin embargo, sus logros importan: hoy en Estados Unidos, más de uno de cada 10 estudiantes es un estudiante de inglés como segundo idioma y, en una época en la que la matrícula en los centros públicos en general está disminuyendo, se encuentran entre los grupos de estudiantes que más rápido están creciendo del país.

A principios de 2015, cuando el entonces superintendente anunció su retiro, el distrito reclutó para el puesto a Heath Grimes, que en aquel momento era el superintendente del sistema escolar del cercano condado de Lawrence. Grimes, de 48 años, quien se autodenomina sureño conservador y hombre de fe de la Alabama rural, se propuso abordar la reforma de la enseñanza para los estudiantes de inglés por completo, estableciendo actividades extracurriculares culturalmente relevantes y conectando con la comunidad hispana. Se sintió el impacto de dichos esfuerzos: la porción de estudiantes hispanos que tomaron clases de nivel avanzado (AP, por sus siglas en inglés), así como cursos de doble matrícula en el colegio comunitario local, aumentó. También lo hizo la participación de los padres. Y Grimes lideró un esfuerzo para convencer a los legisladores de que cambiaran la fórmula de financiación del estado de Alabama para los estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma, multiplicando por más de ocho la asignación estatal, hasta llegar a los $18,5 millones. El distrito y Grimes recibieron el reconocimiento estatal y nacional por su labor con los estudiantes de inglés.

“Cualquier distrito con una población significativa de estudiantes de inglés ha acudido a Heath (Grimes) porque él se adelantó a los acontecimientos ”, dijo Ryan Hollingsworth, director ejecutivo de los Superintendentes Escolares de Alabama, que representa a los 150 distritos escolares del estado. “Es simplemente increíble ver lo que ha podido lograr en un distrito pequeño sin muchos recursos”.

Pero a medida que la figura de Grimes ascendía a nivel estatal, según los educadores y residentes locales, su relación con los dirigentes de la ciudad comenzó a desmoronarse. Luego, a mediados de mayo de 2023, un miembro de la junta escolar le informó a Grimes que su contrato, que terminaba en junio de 2024, no sería renovado. Grimes aceptó retirarse cuando terminara su contrato al año siguiente, a cambio de un aumento en el salario de su último año. A partir de noviembre, intenté hablar con miembros de la junta escolar, con el alcalde y con miembros del ayuntamiento acerca del distrito escolar y de Grimes, y en un principio no respondieron a mis reiteradas solicitudes de entrevistas. (Cuando me presenté ante al alcalde, David Grissom, sobre la calle en Russellville, me dijo “sin comentarios” y se marchó). Pero a  lo largo de los meses, sin embargo, pude hablar con más de 60 funcionarios estatales, administradores locales, docentes, exmiembros de la junta escolar, líderes comunitarios y residentes, incluyendo personas que conocí en negocios y en la calle, en Russellville. Dichas entrevistas indican que la decisión de forzar a Grimes a dejar el cargo como superintendente surgió de una maraña de políticas de pueblo pequeño, una antipatía profundamente arraigada hacia los inmigrantes y una añoranza de la ciudad que Russellville solía ser.

“Heath Grimes puso a los estudiantes primero. Y esto al final pudo haberlo perjudicado”, dijo Jason Barnett, superintendente del Consejo de Educación de la ciudad de Guntersville, en el norte de Alabama, y uno de las docenas de líderes de distrito en el estado que trabajaron de cerca con Grimes. Aproximadamente, 18 educadores y líderes comunitarios en Russellville, muchos de ellos con conocimiento de los acontecimientos, me dijeron que el apoyo de Grimes a la creciente población de estudiantes que aprenden inglés fue clave para que perdiera el apoyo entre los principales dirigentes de la ciudad. Muchos de los líderes pidieron no ser citados por temor a represalias o a tensar las relaciones en esta pequeña comunidad. Un administrador escolar, que no quiso ser identificado por miedo a perder su empleo, dijo de Grimes: “Muchas personas dijeron que el aumento en la población indocumentada se debía a que él hizo de las escuelas de Russellville (y por ende la ciudad) un lugar acogedor en el que los inmigrantes querían vivir. A la gente no le gustó eso”. 

A principios de julio volví a buscar a Grissom; a Daniel McDowell, al abogado de la junta escolar,  y a Greg Trapp, quien fue hasta hace poco el presidente de esa misma junta. Les compartí mis hallazgos tras meses de reportajes, junto con una lista detallada de preguntas para ellos. McDowell y Grissom respondieron con declaraciones por escrito en las que afirmaron que los estudiantes de habla hispana habían prosperado en el distrito mucho antes de que llegara el superintendente Grimes, y negaron que su dedicación a los estudiantes de inglés hubiera propiciado su partida. “Los inmigrantes de los países latinoamericanos han venido mudándose a Russellville durante los últimos 25 años y siempre han sido bienvenidos en la ciudad y al cuerpo estudiantil”, escribió Grissom. “Mirando hacia atrás, nuestra escuela preparatoria ha coronado a una reina latina de baile de bienvenida, votada por el cuerpo estudiantil, y ha reconocido al primer estudiante latino graduado con las mejores calificaciones. Esos eventos ocurrieron mucho antes de que el Dr. Grimes llegara a Russellville”.

Inmigrantes no bienvenidos 

Antes de que Grimes llegara a Russellville, los legisladores estatales aprobaron, en 2011, la ley HB 56, considerada ampliamente como la ley antiinmigrante más severa del país. Dicha ley daba a la policía la autoridad para detener a las personas que creían que no tenían documentos legales para vivir en Estados Unidos, y tipificaba como delito que las empresas contrataran a estas personas a sabiendas y que los propietarios alquilaran a quienes carecían de documentación. Además, las universidades públicas no podían admitir estudiantes sin documentos de inmigración y, aunque, según la ley federal, las escuelas K-12 están obligadas a acoger a los estudiantes sin importar su estatus de ciudadanía, la legislación de Alabama también exigía que los distritos escolares recopilaran información sobre el estatus de ciudadanía de sus estudiantes. Aunque partes de la ley fueron posteriormente anuladas por un tribunal federal, el mensaje era claro: los inmigrantes no eran bienvenidos.

Por todo eso, cuando Greg Batchelor, entonces presidente de la junta escolar de la ciudad de Russellville, buscaba un nuevo superintendente escolar, en el 2015, sabía que las cosas se volverían controversiales. La población hispana de la ciudad era del 22% y seguía creciendo. Algunos antiguos residentes “anglo”, como se autodenominaban los miembros de la población de raza blanca, se referían despectivamente al centro de la ciudad como “Pequeño México”, y se quejaban de oír hablar español y de ver las casas coloridas que asociaban con la comunidad hispana.

Batchelor y otro exmiembro de la junta escolar, Bret Gist, recordaron haber oído a antiguos residentes decir que estaban inscribiendo a sus hijos en escuelas privadas o marchándose de Russellville porque no querían que sus hijos fueran “la minoría”. A otros les preocupaba que los estudiantes de inglés hicieran bajar las calificaciones de los exámenes y dañaran la reputación de su distrito escolar. En aquel entonces, apenas cinco distritos del estado tenían una población de estudiantes de inglés superior al 10%; la de Russellville era la segunda más alta, con un 16%.

Batchelor, que también es presidente de la junta directiva de CB&S, uno de los bancos comunitarios más grandes de Alabama, dijo que sabía que la futura economía de la ciudad dependía del próximo líder escolar: “Si nuestra comunidad sobrevive y le va bien, solo podrá ser tan buena como eduquemos a nuestros niños”. También expresó que creía que los estudiantes hispanos de la ciudad merecían las mismas oportunidades que sus compañeros de clase, y que estaba profundamente influenciado por su padre, quien fue miembro de la junta escolar de Russellville durante 20 años. “Mi papá solía decir que todos se ponen los pantalones de la misma manera, una pierna a la vez”, recordó Batchelor.

En ese momento, Grimes, un exmaestro de educación especial  y entrenador de fútbol americano,  se encontraba en su sexto año como superintendente del condado de Lawrence. En su primer mandato de cuatro años, había cerrado tres escuelas secundarias debido a una caída de la matrícula y a un déficit presupuestario que heredó. “Es muy inusual en Alabama que un superintendente cierre escuelas en un condado y luego sea reelecto, y él fue reelecto”, dijo Batchelor. “Sentí como que él no temía tomar decisiones difíciles”. Gist, el exmiembro de la junta escolar, recuerda la emoción que sintieron los integrantes de la junta tras la entrevista con Grimes. “Yo estaba listo para que llegara y tuviera un gran impacto”, dijo Gist.

El 11 de mayo de 2015, Grimes fue votado por unanimidad como el nuevo superintendente escolar de Russellville. 

Nuevas estrategias

Kristie Ezzell, quien se jubiló de las escuelas de Russellville en 2022 después de 31 años en los que trabajó bajo cuatro superintendentes, presenció la transformación de primera mano. Como maestra de segundo grado en la década de 1990, enseñó a una de las primeras estudiantes de inglés del distrito. Ezzell recordó a una niña pequeña que intentaba una y otra vez comunicarse, pero a quien Ezzell no podía entender. “Comenzó a llorar y luego comencé a llorar yo, y las dos nos quedamos paradas ahí y nos abrazamos y lloramos”, recordó Ezzell. “La barrera idiomática entre nosotras era simplemente desgarradora”. 

El crecimiento rápido de la población de estudiantes de inglés había tomado por sorpresa a los educadores de Russellville. En todo el distrito, había apenas un maestro titulado para enseñar inglés como segundo idioma, ningún intérprete y muy poco desarrollo profesional. “Nos llegaban estudiantes que no hablan una pizca de inglés, sus padres no hablan una pizca de inglés, y se espera que nosotros los eduquemos”, me dijo una maestra, quien pidió no ser identificada para evitar consecuencias. “Y yo ni siquiera sabía si están pidiendo ir al baño o si tienen hambre”. La situación también era injusta para los estudiantes angloparlantes, que perdían tiempo de aprendizaje porque sus maestros tenían la mente en otras cosas, dijo . “Simplemente era un desorden en todos los sentidos”.

Grimes, que no habla español y tenía poca experiencia con estudiantes de inglés en sus roles anteriores, dijo que lo primero que escuchó fue: “¿Cómo vas a solucionar esto?”. “Creo que pensaban que yo iba a hacer, de alguna manera, que la población de estudiantes de inglés desapareciera”, me dijo. “Y mi actitud fue: ‘No, no vamos a hacer eso’”. En lugar de ello, les pidió a los educadores: “Aceptar, Acoger, Celebrar”. “Primero, tienen que aceptar que su distrito está cambiando. Y, cuando abracemos ese cambio, vamos a ver algunos cambios muy positivos que vamos a poder celebrar”, recuerda que les dijo. “Y todo eso se ha hecho realidad”.

Para entonces, Ezzell era directora de la Escuela Primaria de Russellville. Recordó la primera reunión que tuvo Grimes con maestros, en la que presentó las calificaciones de los exámenes de los estudiantes, desglosados por escuelas. “Me hundí en mi asiento y vinieron lágrimas a mis ojos porque nuestros resultados no eran muy buenos”, me dijo.

Su mensaje, según Ezzell, fue simple: “No más excusas. Nuestros maestros ya no van a decir: ‘Bueno, son estudiantes de inglés’. Eso no está bien. (Estos estudiantes) van a crecer igual que todos los demás”. Mientras exponía sus expectativas, los maestros comenzaron a mirar nerviosos a su alrededor, recordó. Algunos lloraron y uno tuvo que dejar el salón. A algunos les preocupaba que Grimes estuviera criticando sus competencias; otros lo desestimaron por forastero, dijo Ezzell. Pero, ella recordó, una cosa estaba clara: “Sabíamos que hablaba en serio”, dijo. “Era muy empático con todo lo que estábamos enfrentando, pero afirmó: ‘Esto no puede continuar’”.

Cuando Ezzell se fue a casa esa noche, no podía dejar de pensar en la reunión. Era consciente de lo duro que trabajaban sus maestros. “Nunca dejaron de enseñar”, dijo. Pero las pésimas estadísticas le demostraron que no se estaban enfocando en las cosas indicadas. Ezzell me dijo que, desde ese momento, ha comenzado una misión para encontrar mejores formas de educar a sus estudiantes: “Dediqué mi vida a ello”.

Grimes dijo que la actitud predominante era que los estudiantes de inglés eran una carga, una percepción similar a la que se tenía de los estudiantes de educación especial a los que él una vez enseñó. Entonces trajo a una profesora y asesora educativa, Tery Medina, que explicó que los niños inmigrantes eran estudiantes del distrito bajo la ley federal. Siendo ella misma refugiada cubana, dirigió debates con los docentes sobre las similitudes entre la cultura hispana y la sureña. “Aman a la familia. Son trabajadores y muchos tienen fe en Cristo. Eran todas esas cosas con las que todos se podían identificar”, recordó Grimes. Por su parte, Medina dijo que estaba impresionada con la apertura que Russellville tuvo con estos estudiantes. Durante el mandato de Grimes, “Russellville fue una pequeña joya”,  dijo, “allí no se veía a los estudiantes de inglés como una carga”.

El distrito también invirtió en el desarrollo profesional de los maestros, asegurándose de que tuviera lugar durante las horas de trabajo, dijo Ezzell. Expertos, libros, videos, planes de lecciones detallados… para los maestros, en ese momento, era como una maraña de aprendizaje continuo. Lentamente, los educadores comenzaron a compartir estrategias y a impartir clases juntos. “¿Conoces el dicho, ‘Cuando sabes más, haces mejor?’”, me preguntó Ezzell. “Eso fue lo que sucedió”. Los maestros experimentaron, hicieron sus lecciones más interactivas y se guiaron por las más recientes investigaciones. Algunos maestros incluso crearon lo que se convirtió en una premiada clase de ciencia en tres idiomas: inglés, español y q’anjob’al, un dialecto guatemalteco. “Les dedicábamos tiempo para que fueran a aprender las mejores prácticas. Y eso benefició a todos los estudiantes, no solamente a los estudiantes de inglés”, dijo Ezzell.

No todos en el distrito aceptaron el cambio. Grimes recordó haberse reunido con una maestra que estaba a cargo de una clase en la que el 30% de los estudiantes estaba reprobando. Ella no lo veía como un problema, dijo Grimes. “(Su actitud) era como: ‘Vengo haciendo esto durante 20 años y no vas a decirme lo contrario’”. Según Grimes, dicha maestra se jubiló poco después; algunos otros maestros renunciaron.

Pero los maestros que se quedaron dijeron que podían ver que los estudiantes empezaban a responder a los nuevos enfoques. Los estudiantes de inglés comenzaban a participar más en clase; ya no se sentaban al fondo del salón. Muchos más de ellos comenzaron a tomar clases AP, de nivel avanzado, así como también clases de doble inscripción en el Colegio Comunitario Northwest College. “Los motivamos. Y cuando motivas con amor, vas a tener éxito”, dijo Ezzell.

El distrito comenzó a acumular galardones. Varias de sus escuelas recibieron el codiciado Blue Ribbon School of Excellence (un premio a la excelencia). Desde 2021, la escuela secundaria Russellville ha sido nombrada una de las mejores 25 escuelas en Alabama por U.S. News & World Report. En 2022, fue el único distrito de Alabama en el que predominan las minorías que recibió una nota  “A” en el boletín de calificaciones del estado; en 2023, Russellville fue uno de los dos únicos en el estado nombrado como “Spotlight District” (Distrito destacado) en lectura y alfabetización, y su escuela secundaria fue reconocida como Escuela de Excelencia A+ College Ready, designación otorgada por una organización sin fines de lucro contratada por el departamento de educación estatal para maximizar la preparación para la universidad.

El núcleo de las estrategias de Grimes, además del fomento del conocimiento  cultural y del desarrollo profesional, eran los educadores bilingües. En un principio, Grimes colocó intérpretes en cada escuela para ayudar con las traducciones cotidianas, pero sabía que los maestros necesitaban aún más ayuda en los salones de clases. Sin embargo, una escasez nacional de educadores bilingües exigía creatividad. Grimes decidió enfocarse en contratar asistentes bilingües, que ganaban la mitad del sueldo de un maestro. Se comunicó con el reverendo Vincent Bresowar, de la Iglesia Católica del Buen Pastor de Russellville, para que lo ayudara a correr la voz sobre los puestos que se ofrecían.

El tamaño de la congregación de Bresowar había crecido a medida que habían ido llegando familias inmigrantes a Russellville; su iglesia había construido recientemente un nuevo edificio de $4,5 millones para adaptarse a ese aumento. 

Sus feligreses, mientras tanto, trabajaban largas e irregulares jornadas, tenían problemas económicos y a menudo cargaban con traumas. “El sufrimiento es muy intenso y puede ser muy difícil”, me dijo Bresowar. Además, sabía cómo la barrera idiomática podía exacerbarlos malos entendidos. El reverendo dijo que su propia comprensión y aprecio por la comunidad hispana cambió una vez que aprendió a hablar español y compartió tiempo con ellos. “Creo que mucha gente tiene miedo porque no puede comunicarse y eso hace más difícil acortar la brecha”, dijo Bresowar. 

Él puso a Grimes en contacto con feligreses y, en 2021, usando fondos destinados a la pandemia, Grimes contrató a una docena de asistentes bilingües de esa comunidad. Al mismo tiempo, puso a esos asistentes en contacto con un programa de aprendizaje, gestionado por la organización sin fines de lucro Reach University, para que ellos pudieran simultáneamente formarse como docentes. “Fue un punto de inflexión”, dijo Grimes sobre esa ayuda adicional en las escuelas. 

Elizabeth Alonzo fue una de esas asistentes bilingües. Se incorporó al plantel de la Escuela Primaria West, de Russellville, (la escuela de la maestra Johnson y de la asistente bilingüe De la Rosa), en 2021, donde trabajaba mayormente con estudiantes de segundo grado en pequeños grupos y también servía de intérprete durante actividades escolares y para comunicarse con los padres. Mientras caminaba por un pasillo en una reciente jornada escolar, niñas hispanas de otras clases dejaron sus filas y corrieron a darle un abrazo rápido.  “Al principio era como: “Oh, ¿tú hablas español? Sus rostros se iluminan, ¿sabes?”, dijo Alonzo, quien nació en Alabama y fue criada allí por padres inmigrantes. En el pasado mes de diciembre de 2023, completó los cursos para convertirse en maestra y espera quedarse en West. 

Si lo consigue, será la sexta maestra hispana del distrito, mientras que, cuando llegó Grimes, había solo una. El nivel de recursos para los estudiantes de inglés es muy distinto del que había cuando ella iba a la escuela. Cuando Alonzo estaba en el kinder de una escuela del condado, su prima fue retirada de su clase de primer grado para hacer de intérprete para ella, recordó. “Y, luego, cuando yo estaba en primer grado, me sacaban de clase para ayudar a mi hermano menor”. Alonzo asistió a las escuelas de Russellville de 2008 a 2013. 

Otro maestro de Russellville, Edmund Preciado Martínez, también recordó haberse sentido aislado cuando era estudiante en Alabama a fines de la década de 1990. A veces, confundía palabras en español y en inglés, dijo, por lo que a menudo se sentía demasiado avergonzado como para hablar en clase. “Eso me llevó a educación especial porque pensaban que algo andaba mal conmigo”, recordó.

Era maestro en un distrito cercano cuando se enteró de los cambios que Grimes estaba implementando en Russellville y decidió solicitar un empleo. Hace seis años, fue contratado para trabajar con estudiantes de inglés en la escuela secundaria de Russellville.

Cada año, dijo Preciado Martínez, los docentes eligen un lema alrededor del cual unirse, como #whateverittakes (lo que sea necesario) or #allin (completamente comprometidos). La camaradería allí es muy diferente a las historias que ha escuchado de sus colegas en otras partes del estado, quienes hablan de compañeros que se quejan de los estudiantes de inglés e incluso se refieren a ellos de manera despectiva y con insultos.

“Siempre que necesitamos algo, simplemente lo pedimos y ellos hacen su mayor esfuerzo por conseguírnoslo”, dijo Martínez refiriéndose a los líderes de su distrito. “E incluso, si no pueden, buscan alternativas que podemos utilizar”.

“Hay espacio para todos nosotros” 

Grimes también se enfocó en involucrar a los padres hispanos en la educación de sus hijos. Se dio cuenta de que muchos de ellos se sentían demasiado intimidados o avergonzados para hablar con los educadores; en sus países natales, a veces se consideraba una falta de respeto cuestionar a un docente o incluso preguntarle sobre el progreso de su hijo. Así que se dedicó a entablar relaciones, frecuentando comercios hispanos, reuniéndose con líderes comunitarios y traduciendo al español todos los anuncios en la página web y Facebook del distrito escolar.

Dichos esfuerzos cambiaron la experiencia escolar de la madre Analine Mederos. Ella había abandonado la escuela en México en séptimo grado y deseaba con desesperación que sus hijos recibieran una buena educación. Pero, dijo Mederos, cuando su hija mayor se inscribió en las escuelas del distrito de Russellville, en 2006, ella no estaba involucrada en su educación en absoluto. “No interactuaba con los maestros porque no hablaba mucho inglés. La mayor parte del tiempo me daba miedo hablar”, me contó. Sentía que los empleados de la escuela la miraban por encima del hombro por la barrera idiomática, y no le veía sentido a hablar. “Si tienes preguntas, ¿quién te va a ayudar?”, dijo. “Así que, dijeran lo que dijeran, yo decía: ‘Bueno, está bien’”.

Pero con su segundo hijo, que ahora está en el décimo grado, ha tenido una experiencia completamente distinta. “Grimes ha hecho un gran… no sé ni cómo decirlo… un gran impacto. Especialmente con la comunidad hispana”, me dijo. Y agregó que a su hija le encanta la escuela, y que a su hijo, que está en la enseñanza media, no ve la hora de hacer la prueba para el equipo de fútbol. Cuando ve a Grimes en la comunidad, dice que se siente lo suficientemente cómoda como para hablarle de sus hijos: “Te va a escuchar. No va a fingir que te está escuchando. No; realmente escucha”. 

Ahora, a Mederos se le hace más fácil seguir las reuniones escolares. Hace apenas unos años, en la escuela primaria, había apenas un intérprete para 600 niños, por lo que la escuela solamente podía programar reuniones con los padres cuando un niño estaba en problemas o reprobaba. Ahora, con seis asistentes bilingües, el personal de la escuela puede tener reuniones individuales con cada familia al menos una vez al año, y también ofrecen dos días completos de actividades para padres en inglés y en español. Los padres saben que habrá un intérprete presente y eso manda un mensaje claro. “Nuestros padres saben que los estamos acogiendo y que los valoramos”, me dijo la directora Alicia Stanford.

El evento Mes de la Herencia Hispana que Grimes inició en la escuela secundaria Russellville se ha convertido en una gran celebración para todo el distrito, en la que los estudiantes aprenden sobre distintas culturas y tradiciones, hacen presentaciones de baile, leen a autores célebres e investigan sobre figuras históricas. Pero quizás sea el programa de fútbol, que Grimes puso en marcha, el que  ha obtenido la mayor respuesta. Antes de la llegada de Grimes, los estudiantes habían hecho lobby por el programa, sin éxito, pero él comprendió que era una parte querida e importante de la cultura latinoamericana. “Querían algo que fuera suyo”, dijo Grimes. 

Grimes no tenía fondos para una nueva cancha de fútbol, por lo que mandó a reemplazar el césped del campo de fútbol americano, y los estudiantes comenzaron a jugar allí en 2017. En 2021, cuando el equipo de fútbol de Russellville, los Golden Tigers, jugó en las semifinales estatales, tanto familias hispanas como no hispanas acudieron en masa. “Todos estaban animando, ‘Sí, se puede’, ‘Yes, we can‘”, recordó Grimes cuando nos reunimos en su oficina en marzo. El logo de la escuela es una antorcha como la de la Estatua de la Libertad, y hay una tradición escolar de levantar los puños cerrados para mostrar unidad y orgullo. “Toda la comunidad latina se pone de pie con sus antorchas en alto ―añadió―, y están cantando: ‘Russ-ell-ville, Russ-ell-ville’. Eso fue muy, muy poderoso”.

La pared de la oficina de Grimes estaba adornada con trofeos deportivos de eventos como este, junto con credenciales académicas enmarcadas, incluido su título de doctorado. Fue el primer miembro de su familia en ir a la universidad. También había fotos familiares y de antiguos alumnos, junto con una Biblia desgastada en su escritorio.

Batchelor, el expresidente de la junta escolar, dijo que, aunque en algunas ocasiones el proceso fue difícil, gracias a los esfuerzos sostenidos de Grimes y a su ejemplo, familias de todos los orígenes poco a poco vieron que mejorar los resultados de los estudiantes de inglés significaba que todo el sistema escolar mejorara. “Creo que la comunidad ha aceptado que hay espacio para todos nosotros”, dijo Batchelor.

No todas las ideas de Grimes funcionaron. Al principio, separó a los estudiantes de inglés del resto de los alumnos durante las clases curriculares, pero luego abandonó la idea cuando los maestros le dijeron que no estaba funcionando. Ahora, las escuelas combinan la enseñanza a los alumnos de inglés en grupos pequeños, por un lado, y por otro, con lecciones junto a toda la clase. Luego de que un acto de “vuelta a clases” demorara más de lo previsto, porque Grimes pidió que cada frase fuera traducida, él decidió realizar reuniones escolares simultáneas donde los padres podían elegir entre escuchar en inglés o en español.

Y no ha sido fácil sostener todo lo conseguido. Entre 2019 (cuando los asistentes de educación bilingües fueron contratados) y 2021, los estudiantes de inglés de algunos grados registraron grandes avances en los exámenes para medir su nivel de dominio del idioma inglés. Por ejemplo, los niveles de desempeño de los estudiantes de segundo grado pasaron del 46% al 84% y, los estudiantes de tercer grado, del 44% al 71%. Pero el progreso desde entonces no ha sido consistente; los porcentajes de estudiantes que dominan el idioma en algunos grados cayeron en 2023 por debajo de las cifras de 2019. Los administradores dicen que se debe a que la cantidad de estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma sigue aumentando mientras que el número de educadores no, lo que significa que los niños reciben menos atención individualizada.

Pero la buena disposición que Grimes género al abrazar a las familias hispanas dio sus frutos de maneras inesperadas. En 2018, el distrito necesitaba reparar los techos de los edificios escolares pero no tenía los fondos para completarlos, dijo Grimes. Alguien de la comunidad hispana llamó a Grimes, ofreciendo hacer el trabajo gratis, dijo. “Ofrecieron voluntariamente su tiempo, sus esfuerzos, su energía y sus materiales, y completaron esos edificios”, él me dijo.

Hoy en día, los comercios hispanos dominan el centro de la ciudad, un área de unas pocas manzanas que hasta hace poco estaba llena de edificios deteriorados y vacíos. Hay tres panaderías mexicanas, dos tiendas de comestibles atinas, tres barberías, salones de manicura y una carnicería. Los dueños de los comercios se esfuerzan por apoyar al sistema escolar, dijo Yaneli Bahena, quien hace cuatro años se graduó  en el distrito escolar de Russellville y ahora es propietaria de un negocio llamado The Ville Nutrition.

Un restaurante mexicano se encargó del catering para un evento de “vuelta a clases” de 200 personas, las panaderías suelen donar pan y dulces, y algunas peluquerías ofrecen cortes de pelo gratuitos antes del comienzo del año escolar.  El campo de fútbol está rodeado de carteles de negocios hispanos locales que han patrocinado al equipo. La propia Bahena patrocina comidas para eventos escolares, y dona mochilas y material escolar. “La escuela me dio un sentimiento de esperanza”, dijo. “Tuve muy buenos maestros. Todos se preocupaban por mi”. En la escuela secundaria, notó que, a diferencia de años anteriores, se incluía a los estudiantes en las excursiones y se los animaba a cursar materias optativas. Bahena dijo que algunos de sus compañeros de clase se quedaron en la escuela en lugar de abandonar los estudios para irse a trabajar gracias al “empuje de ayuda” de los educadores. Ella también le dio crédito a Grimes: “Todo lo que han puesto para estos niños no sería posible sin el superintendente”.

Abogando a nivel estatal 

En 2019, ansioso por encontrar socios y apoyo para su labor con los estudiantes de inglés, Grimes comenzó a hablar con otros líderes del distrito que enfrentaban desafíos parecidos, y a intercambiar sobre cómo sería abogar por esos estudiantes en todo el estado. A nivel nacional, aproximadamente cinco millones de niños son estudiantes de inglés y la mayoría de ellos hablan español en casa. Pero, aunque la mayoría son ciudadanos estadounidenses, rara vez reciben el apoyo que necesitan, en parte porque su educación ha sido politizada, según Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana, una exsuperintendente y secretaria auxiliar de educación K-12 de Estados Unidos en la administración de Barack Obama. “La gente ve el mundo (en términos de) una cantidad de recursos limitada. Entonces siente que, ‘si les estás dando tal cantidad a ellos, entonces me la estás quitando a mi’”, dijo.

En parte como consecuencia de dicha actitud, dicen los expertos, las calificaciones de lectura y matemática de estudiantes de aprendizaje de inglés a nivel nacional se encuentran entre las más bajas de todos los subgrupos de estudiantes, sus índices de graduación de la escuela secundaria van a la zaga y tienen menos probabilidades de ir a la universidad. “Necesitamos a estos niños, y los necesitamos que se eduquen”, dijo Patricia Gándara, codirectora del Proyecto de Derechos Civiles en la UCLA y experta en estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma. “Representan una parte muy grande del futuro de este país”.

Al año siguiente, en 2020, Grimes fundó una coalición de superintendentes llamada Alabama Leaders Advocating for English Learners (Líderes de Alabama abogando por los estudiantes de inglés), bajo el paraguas de una operación estatal, el Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (Consejo de líderes de escuelas de Alabama). “Su pasión era evidente y no se iba a detener”, dijo Hollingsworth, de Superintendentes Escolares de Alabama. “Si sigues tocando la puerta, tocando la puerta, eventualmente alguien va a abrir la puerta. Y eso fue más o menos lo que pasó”.

La coalición de superintendentes encabezada por Grimes logró presionar a la legislatura para obtener más fondos para los estudiantes de inglés, hasta $150 por estudiante, frente a los $50 a $75 de 2015. Los distritos con una población de estudiantes de inglés superior al 10% reciben $300 por estudiante. Para Russellville, eso significó un aumento cuadruplicado de los fondos dedicados a los estudiantes de inglés, llegando a $400.000, en un momento en el que los fondos de la ciudad disminuyeron. Grimes recibió un premio estatal por sus “excepcionales aportes y defensa incansable de la financiación para los estudiantes de inglés en las escuelas de Alabama”. Gracias, en parte, a sus esfuerzos, el estado ahora tiene apoyo educativo para los distritos, 12 instructores y un director estatal de aprendizaje de inglés. Grimes también abogó por que las calificaciones de los estudiantes de inglés en los exámenes solo se tuvieran en cuenta en el boletín estatal de notas después de que hubieran estado matriculados por cinco años (aproximadamente lo que tardan los estudiantes en aprender un nuevo idioma). Esa ley, que tiene sus críticos, entró en vigor el año pasado.

Barnett, del Consejo de Educación de la ciudad de Guntersville, dijo que los esfuerzos de Grimes por los estudiantes de inglés ayudaron a persuadir a otros líderes de distrito de que ellos también podían hacer ese trabajo. “Russellville es un gran lugar, pero no hay nada especial allí que no pueda suceder en cualquier otro lugar”, dijo. “No hay nada en el agua. Definitivamente se puede replicar”.

Durante siete años, Grimes y la junta escolar de Russellville trabajaron bien juntos, dijeron tanto él como exmiembros de la junta. Pero el disgusto de otros líderes de la ciudad surgió pronto, me dijeron varias personas. Grimes había comenzado a chocar por cuestiones de financiamiento con el alcalde de la ciudad, David Grissom, quien fue electo por primera vez en 2012. Un residente de Russellville cercando al funcionamiento del gobierno de la ciudad ―que pidió no ser identificado por temor a represalias― dijo que Grimes había hecho enojar a Grissom y a algunos miembros del ayuntamiento desde el principio, cuando señaló públicamente que su presupuesto para las escuelas era de $200.000 menos que el de su predecesor. (McDowell, escribió un correo electrónico en el que me decía que antes de ocupar el puesto se le informó a Grimes sobre el recorte y que había estado de acuerdo con el mismo). Los miembros del ayuntamiento “no tomaron bien que se les pusiera contra la pared o que se les hiciera quedar mal. Así que, desde ese momento, Grimes estuvo marcado”, me dijo el residente. Grimes también enfureció a Grissom cuando se negó a apoyar públicamente al candidato preferido del alcalde para un puesto en el ayuntamiento, en 2020, prefiriendo mantenerse neutral, me dijeron varias personas. 

Al responderme, Grissom no hizo comentarios sobre esos detalles específicos, pero escribió que “había entrevistado y había sido entrevistado por varias cientos de personas de todas las razas y etnias” sobre el desempeño de Grimes y que algunas de las personas con las que habló estaban insatisfechas con el superintendente. Planteó preguntas sobre si Grimes había estado en su oficina a diario, si trataba a los empleados de manera diferente y si gastaba demasiados fondos del distrito en conferencias. Grimes dijo que a veces viajaba por todo el estado por su trabajo, que las conferencias eran para el desarrollo profesional y (estaban) aprobadas por la junta, y que, como líder, a veces tenía que tomar decisiones que desagradaban a la gente, porque estaba sopesando diferentes perspectivas y necesidades. Dijo que estaba asombrado por las declaraciones del alcalde, porque ni el alcalde ni nadie más le había mencionado tales preocupaciones anteriormente. Gist y Batchelor, antiguos miembros de la junta escolar, dijeron que nunca habían escuchado semejantes quejas de nadie en los casi ocho años que llevaban trabajando con Grimes. “Ni una sola palabra”, dijo Gist. El expediente laboral de Grimes no contenía información alguna que indicara que había preocupaciones con el desempeño del superintendente. Ni el alcalde ni el abogado de la junta escolar ofrecieron aclaraciones sobre por qué, si existían tales quejas, no fueron comunicadas a Grimes. 

Mientras tanto, a medida que Grimes seguía invirtiendo esfuerzos para ayudar a los estudiantes de inglés, sus números aumentaban todos los años, duplicándose durante su mandato, hasta alcanzar el 33% de los estudiantes.

Después de aquella elección para miembros del ayuntamiento de 2020, en un esfuerzo ampliamente visto como destinado a destituir a Grimes como superintendente, Grissom e integrantes del ayuntamiento comenzaron a reemplazar a los cinco miembros de la designada junta escolar que había apoyado a Grimes. (En su correo electrónico, el alcalde Grissom escribió que los miembros del ayuntamiento tienen el derecho a reemplazar a los integrantes de la junta escolar y que lo habían hecho también previo al mandato de Grimes). En mayo de 2023, Greg Trapp, el miembro de la junta escolar, le informó al superintendente que no iban a renovar su contrato al expirar el año siguiente.

Gist, el exmiembro de la junta escolar, dijo que, aunque en un principio quedó sorprendido por la decisión del Ayuntamiento de reemplazarlo a él y a otros, tenía lógica dada la antipatía que tenía dicho organismo hacia Grimes. “Así es la política en un pueblo pequeño. Para que ellos pudieran controlar el sistema, tenían que deshacerse de los miembros de la junta escolar que estaban haciendo las cosas bien”, dijo. Y agregó: “Esa era la única manera en la que podían sacarlo”. Lo que les disgustó fue saber que la decisión no estaba motivada por lo que era mejor para los estudiantes. “Si hubieran querido reemplazarme por alguien mejor, eso está bien”, me dijo Gist. “Pero cuando lo hicieron por razones personales, eso me molestó”.  (Intenté comunicarme con Trapp por lo menos tres veces, y también traté de contactar a otros miembros de la junta, y no respondieron a mis solicitudes de comentarios.) Batchelor, quien fue reemplazado poco después de que votó a favor de mantener a Grimes, también dijo que la decisión mayoritaria de la junta fue un error: “Creo que es el mejor superintendente en el estado de Alabama”.

En marzo de 2024, el distrito nombró a un nuevo superintendente, Tim Guinn, un exdirector de la Preparatoria de Russellville, quien también había sido candidato a superintendente cuando Grimes fue electo. Más recientemente, había trabajado como superintendente del distrito de Satsuma. Guinn no respondió a repetidas solicitudes de entrevista.

Programas se desmoronan

Algunos de los programas y las prácticas que Grimes implementó parecen estarse desmoronando. A partir de junio, la mayoría de los asistentes bilingües, cuyos salarios se pagan con dinero de la asistencia por la pandemia y expira en septiembre de 2024, no habían sido contratados de nuevo. Además, los contratos de algunos docentes bilingües no fueron renovados. La junta escolar no ha dicho si tiene previsto seguir adelante con las mejoras que Grimes había planificado para los estudiantes de inglés de secundaria y preparatoria. Una escuela chárter de inmersión en dos idiomas, por la que Grimes había abogado y la junta había aprobado, estaba programada para abrir en 2025. Sin embargo, el proyecto ha sido descartado. (McDowell no comentó en un correo electrónico sobre los planes del distrito para los estudiantes de inglés. En cuanto a los asistentes bilingües, escribió que algunos de ellos no habían sido recontratados de nuevo porque los subsidios federales habían expirado. Grimes dijo que tenía previsto pagar por sus salarios mediante una combinación de fondos de las reservas del distrito escolar y fondos resultantes de la jubilación de algunos docentes: “Tomas decisiones con base a tus prioridades”, comentó. 

Grimes y la junta escolar habían acordado que él permanecería en su cargo hasta el final del año escolar de 2023-2024, mientras el distrito buscaba un reemplazo. Pero una semana después de mi visita a Russellville, McDowell acusó a Grimes de intimidar a la gente que hablara conmigo, según Grimes, y le dijo al superintendente que no podía pisar propiedad escolar o hablar con empleados del distrito fuera de su papel de padre, según Grimes. En ese momento, Grimes dejó las responsabilidades cotidianas de su cargo, pero seguirá en la comunidad hasta que su hija de 14 años termine la secundaria. Su esposa también sigue siendo maestra en el distrito. (En un correo electrónico y en una entrevista, McDowell dijo que nunca había acusado a Grimes de intimidar a nadie y que tampoco le prohibió al superintendente pisar terreno escolar.)  Fue también después de mi visita que más de una docena de educadores con los que hablé en Russellville me dijeron que ya no se sentían cómodos siendo identificados, por temor a perder sus empleos. The Hechinger Report y palabra acordaron retrasar la publicación de este artículo hasta que Grimes recibiera su último sueldo el 30 de junio.

En julio de 2024, Grimes empezó a trabajar a tiempo completo en Reach University, la organización sin fines de lucro que forma a asistentes bilingües para que se conviertan en docentes, como su director regional de asociaciones en Alabama, Misisipi y Tennessee. 

Los últimos seis meses han pasado factura. Grimes ha dicho poco públicamente sobre su partida y le ha dicho a la mayoría de las personas de la comunidad que se está jubilando. Cuando estuvimos almorzando juntos en un restaurante local, El Patrón, otros comensales se acercaron una y otra vez para desearle lo mejor. Dos de ellos le dijeron en broma que se veía demasiado joven para jubilarse. Grimes se rió y les siguió la corriente pero, una vez que se fueron, sus hombros se hundieron y parpadeó para contener las lágrimas.

“He pasado mi carrera muy entregado, muy comprometido en hacer lo que era mejor para los niños”, me dijo en voz baja. “No sentía que yo mereciera acabar de esta manera”. 

Afirmó que no se arrepiente de los cambios que hizo por los estudiantes de inglés de la ciudad. “Jesús amaba a la gente que los demás no amaban. Y ese fue parte de su mensaje: amas a tus enemigos, amas a tus vecinos, amas a los extranjeros y amas al pecador”, dijo. “Yo veo a Dios en esos niños”.

The post ¿Un trabajo demasiado bien hecho? appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

RUSSELLVILLE, Ala. — Lindsey Johnson and Yesenia De La Rosa were taking different approaches to teaching the same English lesson on silent letters as they sat at opposite ends of this first grade classroom in West Elementary School. On this March afternoon, Johnson, the classroom teacher, was reading a story with the 6- and 7-year-old children who were fluent in English. The students of bilingual aide De La Rosa were still learning the language, so while she read the same story, she went slower, translating words, acting out emotions and showing them pictures on her iPhone.

Valentina, 6, wearing a black T-shirt with a gold Nike logo and leggings, had arrived less than two weeks earlier from Guatemala. She sat on the floor near De La Rosa’s chair, her cheek almost touching her teacher’s leg. De La Rosa worked with her individually because she didn’t know any letters or numbers, in Spanish or in English. When Valentina went to kindergarten in her home country, all she did was color. “So when she came here, that’s what she thought she was going to do. Just drawing,” De La Rosa said. “But here it’s different.”

The Russellville City school district created De La Rosa’s position in early 2021 as part of a larger effort to help educate its growing population of students who speak English as a second language. Many of the English learners, as they’re called, have parents from Mexico or Guatemala who work at a nearby poultry plant and in local manufacturing and construction jobs. Today, in the district, 60 percent of children are Hispanic/Latino and roughly a third are English learners.

Without De La Rosa, Johnson said she wouldn’t be able to communicate with more than half of her students, or understand the challenges they face. Johnson knew that Yeferson, an English learner from Guatemala, was one of the smartest children in the class, already reading more than 100 words, well above the goal of 60. “He’s a sponge, he soaks everything up,” Johnson said. She learned from De La Rosa that he’s doing well in spite of his many responsibilities at home: His mom works night shifts, so Yeferson does the laundry, washes the dishes and looks after his younger siblings. Said Johnson: “Having a bilingual aide makes a world of difference.” 

Russellville may not seem like a community that would be home to investment and innovation for immigrant students. It’s a politically conservative city in northwestern Alabama of about 11,000, where 72 percent of voters chose Donald Trump in the last presidential election. When the poultry processing plant opened in 1989, the Hispanic population was about 0.5 percent. By 2000, it had grown to 13 percent, and in 2020, it was almost 40 percent. The school district, like many around the country, struggled early on to accommodate the rising numbers of English learners, who were dropping out at high rates, being pushed into special education classes and showing little academic progress. Yet their success matters: Today in the U.S., more than 1 in 10 students are English learners and, at a time when overall public school enrollment is falling, they are among the country’s fastest-growing groups of students.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

In early 2015, when its superintendent announced his retirement, the district recruited Heath Grimes, then superintendent of the nearby Lawrence County school system, for the job. A self-described Southern conservative and man of faith from rural Alabama, Grimes, 48, set about overhauling instruction for English learners, establishing culturally relevant extracurriculars and reaching out to the Hispanic community. Those efforts had an impact: The share of Hispanic students taking Advanced Placement classes and dual enrollment courses at a local community college went up. Parental involvement increased. And Grimes led an effort to lobby lawmakers for a change in the state funding formula for English learners, boosting the state’s allocation more than eightfold, to $18.5 million. The district and Grimes won state and national recognition for their efforts with English learners.

“Any district with a significant English learner population has looked to Heath because he’s been ahead of the game,” said Ryan Hollingsworth, the executive director of the School Superintendents of Alabama, which represents the state’s 150 school districts. “It is just amazing to see what he’s been able to do in a small district with not a lot of resources.”

But as Grimes’ star rose statewide, according to local educators and residents, his relationship with city leadership started to unravel. Then, in mid-May 2023, a member of the school board told Grimes that it would not be renewing his contract, which was to end in June 2024. He agreed to retire when his contract ended the following year in exchange for a bump in his final year’s salary. Starting in November, I tried to talk with school board members, the mayor and City Council members about the school district and Grimes, but they did not respond initially to my interview requests. (When I introduced myself to the mayor, David Grissom, on the street in Russellville, he told me “no comment” and walked away.) But over the months, I was able to talk to more than 60 state officials, local administrators, teachers, former school board members, community leaders and residents, including people I met in businesses and on the street in Russellville. Those interviews suggest that the decision to force out Grimes as superintendent stemmed from a tangle of small-town politics, deep-rooted antipathy toward immigrants and a yearning for the city Russellville used to be.

“Heath Grimes put students first. And this ultimately may have hurt him,” said Jason Barnett, superintendent of the Guntersville City Board of Education in northern Alabama and one of dozens of district leaders in the state who worked closely with Grimes. Approximately 18 educators and community leaders in Russellville, many of them with knowledge of the events, told me that Grimes’ support for the growing English learner population was key to his loss of support among top city leadership. Many asked not to be quoted for fear of retaliation or straining relationships in this small community. One school administrator, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing their job, said of Grimes: “Many folks said the increase in the undocumented population was because he made Russellville schools a welcoming place that immigrants wanted to live in. People didn’t like that.”

In early July I went back to Grissom, school board attorney Daniel McDowell, and Gregg Trapp, who was until recently school board president, with my findings from months of reporting and a detailed list of questions. McDowell and Grissom replied with written statements that said that Spanish-speaking students had thrived in the district long before Grimes’ arrival and denied that the superintendent’s commitment to English learners had led to his departure. “Immigrants from Latin American countries have been moving to Russellville for the past 25 years and have always been welcomed into the city and the student body,” wrote Grissom. “Looking back, our high school has crowned a Latina Homecoming Queen, as voted by the student body and has recognized the first Latino Valedictorian. Those events took place long before Dr. Grimes came to Russellville.” 

Before Grimes arrived in Russellville, state lawmakers in 2011 had passed HB 56, widely considered the harshest anti-immigrant law in the nation. It gave police authority to stop individuals they believed did not have legal documents to live in the United States, and made it a crime for businesses to knowingly hire, and landlords to rent to, those who lacked documentation. Public colleges couldn’t admit students without immigration documents and, even though, under federal law, K-12 schools are required to serve students regardless of citizenship status, the Alabama legislation also called for school districts to collect information on their students’ citizenship status. While parts of the law were later struck down by a federal court, the message was clear: Immigrants weren’t welcome.

So when Greg Batchelor, then president of the Russellville City school board, was looking for a new school superintendent in 2015, he knew things would get controversial. The city’s Hispanic population was 22 percent and growing. Some longtime “Anglo” residents, as members of the white population call themselves, derisively referred to the city’s downtown as “Little Mexico” and complained about hearing Spanish spoken and seeing the colorfully painted houses they associated with the Hispanic community.

Batchelor and another former school board member, Bret Gist, recalled hearing from longtime residents who were enrolling their children in private schools or leaving Russellville because they didn’t want their kids to be “the minority.” Others worried that the English learners would drag down test scores and hurt their school district’s reputation. At that time, only five districts in the state had an English learner population above 10 percent; Russellville’s was the second highest, at 16 percent.

Batchelor, also chairman of the board of CB&S, one of Alabama’s largest community banks, said he knew the city’s future economy depended on the next school leader: “If our community survives and does well, it’s only going to be as good as we educate our kids.” He also said he believed that the town’s Hispanic students deserved the same chance as their peers, and he was deeply influenced by his father, who’d served on the Russellville City school board for 20 years. “My dad used to say everybody puts their britches on the same way, one leg at a time,” Batchelor recalled.

At the time, Grimes, a former special education teacher and football coach, was in his sixth year as Lawrence County superintendent. In his first four-year term, he had closed three high schools because of falling enrollment and a budget shortfall he inherited. “It’s very unusual in Alabama for a superintendent to close schools in a county and then be reelected — and he was reelected,” said Batchelor. “I felt like he’s not afraid to make tough decisions.” Gist, the former school board member, remembers the excitement the board felt after Grimes’ interview. “I was ready for him to come in and make a big impact,” Gist said.

On May 11, 2015, Grimes was voted in unanimously as Russellville’s new school superintendent. 

Kristie Ezzell, who retired from Russellville schools in 2022 after 31 years under four superintendents, saw the transformation firsthand. As a second grade teacher in the 1990s, she taught one of the district’s first English learners. Ezzell remembers a little girl who kept trying to communicate, but Ezzell couldn’t understand her. “She started crying and then I started crying and we both stood there and hugged and cried,” Ezzell recalled.“The language barrier between us was just heartbreaking.” 

The rapid increase in the English learner population had taken Russellville educators by surprise. The entire district had just one teacher certified to teach English as a second language, no interpreters and very little by way of professional development. “We had students come in that don’t speak a lick of English, their parents don’t speak a lick of English, and we’re expected to educate them,” one teacher, who asked not to be named to avoid repercussions, told me. “And I didn’t even know whether they are asking to go to the bathroom or are they hungry.” The situation was also unfair for the English-speaking students who missed out on learning time because their teachers were preoccupied, she said. “It was just a mess all the way around.” 

Grimes, who does not speak Spanish and had little experience with English learners in his previous roles, said the first thing he heard was: “How are you going to fix this?” “I think they thought I was going to somehow make the English learner population go away,” he told me. “And I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’” Instead, he asked educators to “Accept, Embrace, Celebrate.” “You first have to accept that your district is changing. And when we embrace that change, we’re going to see some very positive changes that we’ll be able to celebrate,” he recalled telling them. “And every bit of that has come true.”

By then Ezzell was principal of Russellville Elementary School. She recalled Grimes’ first meeting with teachers, where he presented student test scores broken down by school. “I sunk down in my seat and tears came to my eyes because our data was not very good,” she told me.

His message, according to Ezzell, was simple: “No more excuses. Our teachers are not going to say anymore, ‘Well, they’re English learners.’ That’s not OK. They are going to grow just like everybody else.” As he laid out his expectations, teachers started looking around nervously, she recalled. Some cried and one had to leave the room. A few worried that Grimes was criticizing their competence; others dismissed him as an outsider. But she says one thing was clear. “We knew he meant business,” she said. “He was very empathetic for everything we were dealing with, but he said, ‘This cannot continue.’”

When Ezzell went home that evening, she couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting. She knew how hard her teachers worked. “They were never not teaching,” she said. But the dismal statistics proved to her they weren’t focusing on the right things. From then on, Ezzell told me, she was on a mission to find better ways of educating her students: “I dedicated my life to it.”

Related: English learners stopped coming to class during the pandemic. How one group is helping

Grimes said the prevailing attitude was that English learner students were a burden, similar to perceptions of the special education students he once taught. So he brought in a professor and education consultant, Tery Medina, who explained that immigrant children were district students under federal law. A Cuban refugee herself, she led discussions with teachers on similarities between Hispanic and Southern culture. “They love family. They’re hard workers and many have faith in Christ. It was all these things that everyone could relate to,” Grimes recalled. For her part, Medina said she was impressed with Russellville’s embrace of these learners. Under Grimes, “Russellville was a little gem,” she said, “where English learners were not seen as a burden.”

The district also invested in professional development for teachers, ensuring that it happened during work hours, said Ezzell. Experts, books, videos, detailed lesson plans — to teachers at the time, it felt like a blur of continuous learning. Slowly, educators began sharing strategies and co-teaching classes. “You know the saying, ‘When you know better, you do better?’” Ezzell told me. “That’s what happened.” Teachers experimented, made their lessons more hands-on and followed the latest research. Some teachers created what became an award-winning science class in three languages: English, Spanish and Q’anjob’al, a Guatemalan dialect. “We were making time for them to go and learn best practices. And it benefited all students, not just English learners,” Ezzell said.

Not everyone in the district bought into the change. Grimes remembers meeting with one teacher who led a class in which 30 percent of students were failing. She didn’t see it as a problem, Grimes said: “It was like, ‘I’ve been doing this for 20 years and you’re not going to tell me different.’” She retired soon after, Grimes said; some other teachers resigned.

But teachers who stayed said they could see that students were beginning to respond to the new approaches. English learners began participating more in class, no longer sitting at the back of the room. More started taking AP exams, as well as dual enrollment classes at nearby Northwest Shoals Community College. “We pushed them. And when you push with love, you’re going to have success,” said Ezzell. 

The district began to accrue accolades. Several of its schools received the coveted Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. Since 2021, Russellville High has been named one of the top 25 schools in Alabama by U.S. News & World Report. In 2022, it was the only majority-minority district in Alabama to receive an “A” grade in the state report card; in 2023, Russellville was one of only two in the state named a “Spotlight District” for reading and literacy, and its high school was named an A+ College Ready School of Excellence, a designation given by a nonprofit contracted with the state education department to maximize college readiness.

Core to Grimes’ strategy, along with building cultural understanding and professional development, were bilingual educators. Early on, Grimes placed interpreters at each school to help with day-to-day translation, but he knew teachers needed more help in the classroom. A national shortage of bilingual educators, though, required creativity. Grimes decided to focus on recruiting bilingual aides, who earn half the pay of teachers. He reached out to the Rev. Vincent Bresowar at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Russellville to help spread the word about the positions. 

Bresowar’s congregation had ballooned in size as immigrant families moved to Russellville; his church had recently built a new $4.5 million building to accommodate the increase.

His parishioners, meanwhile, worked long, irregular hours, struggled financially and often carried trauma. “The suffering is very intense and can be very difficult,” he told me. In addition, he knew how the language barrier could exacerbate misunderstandings. Bresowar says his own understanding and appreciation for the Hispanic community changed once he learned Spanish and spent time with them. “I think a lot of people are scared because they can’t communicate and it makes it harder to bridge the gaps,” Bresowar said. 

He connected Grimes to parishioners, and in 2021, using pandemic funds, Grimes hired a dozen bilingual aides from that community. At the same time, he connected them to an apprenticeship program, run by the nonprofit Reach University, so they could simultaneously train to become teachers. “It was a game changer,” Grimes said about that additional school help. 

Elizabeth Alonzo was one of those bilingual aides. She joined the staff at West Elementary in 2021, where she worked mostly with second graders in small groups, as well as interpreting for school activities and communicating with parents. As she walked down a hallway on a recent school day, Hispanic girls from other classes broke out of their lines and ran to give her a quick hug. “At first it was like, ‘Oh, you speak Spanish?’ Their face just lights up, you know?” said Alonzo, who was born and raised in Alabama by immigrant parents. Last December, she completed the coursework to become a teacher and hopes to stay on at West. 

If she does, she’ll be the sixth Hispanic teacher in the district, up from just one when Grimes arrived. The level of resources for English learners is very different from when she was in school. Her cousin was pulled out of first grade class to interpret for her when she was in kindergarten in a county school, she recalled. “And then when I was in first grade, I would be pulled out of class to help my younger brother.” Alonzo attended Russellville schools from 2008 to 2013. 

Related: Inside the Christian legal campaign to return prayer to public schools

Another Russellville teacher, Edmund Preciado Martínez, also remembers feeling isolated as a student in Alabama in the late 1990s. He sometimes confused Spanish and English words, he said, so was often too embarrassed to talk in class. “It landed me in special education because they thought something was wrong with me,” he recalled. 

He was a teacher in a nearby district when he heard about the changes Grimes was making in Russellville and decided to apply for a job. Six years ago, he was hired to work with English learners at Russellville High School. 

Every year, he says, teachers choose a slogan to unite around, like #whateverittakes, or #allin. The camaraderie is very different from stories he’s heard from counterparts around the state, who talk about their colleagues complaining about English learners and even referring to them with derogatory language and slurs.

“Whenever we need something, we simply ask for it and they do their best to get it for us,” Martínez said of his district’s leadership. “And even if they can’t, they find alternatives that we can use.”

Grimes also focused on involving Hispanic parents in their kids’ education. Many were too intimidated or embarrassed to speak to educators, he realized; in their home countries, it was sometimes seen as disrespectful to question a teacher or even ask about their child’s progress. So he set about building relationships by patronizing Hispanic businesses, meeting with community leaders and translating into Spanish all announcements on the district website and its Facebook account.

Those efforts changed the school experience of parent Analine Mederos. She’d dropped out of school in Mexico in seventh grade, and was desperate for her children to get a good education. But when her eldest daughter enrolled in Russellville schools in 2006, Mederos says she wasn’t involved in her education at all. “I was not interacting with the teachers because I didn’t speak very much English. I was afraid to talk most of the time,” she told me. She felt school employees looked down on her because of the language barrier, and she didn’t see a point in speaking up. “If you have questions, who’s going to help you?” she said. “So whatever they say, I was like, ‘OK, fine.’” 

But with her second child, now a 10th grader, it’s been a completely different experience. “Grimes has done a huge, I don’t even know how to say like a big impacto, especially with the Hispanic community,” she told me. Her daughter loves school, she said, and her son in middle school can’t wait to try out for the soccer team. When she sees Grimes in the community, she said she feels comfortable enough to talk to him about her children: “He’s going to listen. He’s not going to act like he’s listening. No, he does listen.”

Mederos finds it easier to follow school meetings now. Just a few years ago at West Elementary, there was just one interpreter for 600 children, which meant the school could schedule meetings with parents only when a child was in trouble or failing. Now, with six bilingual aides, school staff can have one-on-one meetings with every family at least once a year, and they also offer two full days of programming annually for parents in English and Spanish. Parents know there will be an interpreter in the room and that sends a clear message. “Our parents know we’re embracing them and we appreciate them,” Principal Alicia Stanford told me. 

A Hispanic Heritage Month event that Grimes started in Russellville High School has now grown into a big districtwide celebration, where students learn about different cultures and traditions, perform dances, read celebrated authors and research historical figures. But a soccer program Grimes started has received perhaps the biggest response. Students had lobbied for the program before Grimes’ arrival with no success, but he understood that it was a beloved and important part of Latin American culture. “They wanted something that was theirs,” he said. 

Related: English language teachers are scarce. One Alabama town is trying to change that

He didn’t have funds for a new soccer field, so he had the football field re-turfed, and students began playing in 2017. In 2021, when the Russellville Golden Tigers soccer team played in the state semifinals, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic families turned out in droves. “Everyone was cheering, ‘Sí, se puede,’ ‘Yes, we can,’” recalled Grimes when we met in his office this March. The school’s logo is a torch like that on the Statue of Liberty, and there’s a school tradition of holding up clenched fists to show unity and pride. “The whole Latino community stands up with their torches raised,” he added, “and they’re chanting, ‘Russ-ell-ville, Russ-ell-ville.’ That was very, very powerful.” 

Grimes’s office wall was decorated with sports trophies from events like these, along with framed academic credentials including his doctorate degree. He was the first in his family to attend college. There were also photos of his family and past students, along with a well-worn Bible on his desk.

Batchelor, the former school board president, says that, while the process was sometimes challenging, through Grimes’ sustained efforts and example, families of all backgrounds gradually saw that improving the outcomes of English learners meant that the entire school system was better. “I think the community has embraced the fact that there’s room for all of us,” he said. 

Not all of Grimes’ ideas worked. Early on, he separated English learners from other students during academic classes, but scrapped it after teachers told him it wasn’t working. Now schools do a combination of teaching English learners in small groups and with the entire class. After a back-to-school event took hours longer than expected because he asked for every sentence to be interpreted, Grimes decided to hold separate but simultaneous school meetings, where parents could choose to listen in Spanish or English. 

And it hasn’t been easy to sustain all of the gains. Between 2019 (when the bilingual aides were hired) and 2021, English learners in some grades recorded big increases on language proficiency tests. For example, proficiency levels for second graders went from 46 to 84 percent, and for third graders, 44 to 71 percent. But the growth since then hasn’t been consistent, and proficiency levels in 2023 for some grades fell below 2019 numbers. Administrators say that is because the number of English learners continues to increase while the number of educators has not, so children are receiving less individualized attention.

But the goodwill Grimes generated from embracing Hispanic families has paid off in unexpected ways. In 2018, the district needed roof work on school buildings but didn’t have the money to complete it, Grimes said. Someone in the Hispanic community called Grimes, he said, offering to do the work for free. “They volunteered their time, their efforts, their energy and their materials, and they completed those buildings,” he told me.

Today, Hispanic businesses dominate the downtown area of a few blocks, which until recently was full of deteriorating, vacant buildings. There are three Mexican bakeries, two Latin grocery stores, three barber shops, nail salons and a carnicería, or butcher shop. Business owners make it a point to support the school system, said Yaneli Bahena, who graduated four years ago from the Russellville school district and now owns a business called The Ville Nutrition. 

A Mexican restaurant catered a 200-person back-to-school event, bakeries often donate bread and treats, and some salons provide free haircuts before school starts. The soccer field is ringed by banners from local Hispanic businesses that have sponsored the team. Bahena herself sponsors meals for school events and donates backpacks and school supplies. “School gave me a sense of hope,” she said. “I had really good teachers. Everyone cared about me.” In high school, she noticed that, unlike in years past, the students were included on field trips and encouraged to take electives. Bahena said some of her classmates stayed in school instead of dropping out to work because educators “pushed help.” She, too, credited Grimes: “Everything they put into these kids would not be possible without the superintendent.”

In 2019, eager to find partners and support for his work with English learners, Grimes began chatting with other district leaders facing similar challenges and discussing what it would look like to advocate for those students statewide. Nationally, about 5 million children are English learners and most of them speak Spanish at home. But even though most are U.S. citizens, they rarely get the support they need, in part because their education has become politicized, according to Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, a former superintendent and assistant U.S. secretary of K-12 education in the Obama administration. “People see the world [in terms of] a limited amount of resources. And so they feel, ‘if you’re giving them that amount, then you’re taking away from me,’” she said.

In part as a result of that attitude, experts say, reading and math scores for English learners nationally are among the lowest of all student subgroups, their high school graduation rates lag behind, and they are less likely to go to college. “We need these kids and we need them educated,” said Patricia Gándara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and an expert on English learners. “They represent a very large part of the future of this country.” 

The next year, in 2020, Grimes founded a coalition of superintendents called Alabama Leaders Advocating for English Learners, under the umbrella of a state operation, Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools. “His passion was evident and he was not going to stop,” said Hollingsworth of the School Superintendents of Alabama. “If you keep knocking on the door, knocking on the door, eventually somebody’s going to open the door. And that’s kind of what happened.”

The superintendents coalition led by Grimes successfully pressed the Legislature for more funding for English learners, to $150 per student, from about $50 to $75 in 2015. Districts with an English learner population above 10 percent receive $300 per student. For Russellville, that meant a fourfold increase to $400,000, at a time when city funding declined. Grimes received a state award for his “remarkable contributions and tireless advocacy for English Learner funding in Alabama schools.” Thanks in part to his advocacy, the state now has instructional support for districts, 12 coaches and a state director of English learning. Grimes also advocated for English learners’ test scores to count on the state report card only after they’ve been enrolled for five years (approximately the time it takes for students to learn a new language). That law, which has some critics, went into effect last year.

Related: How one district is addressing the trauma undocumented students bring to school

Barnett of the Guntersville City Board of Education said Grimes’ efforts with English learners helped persuade other district leaders that they could do the work too. “Russellville is a great place, but there’s nothing special there that it can’t happen anywhere else,” he said. “There’s nothing in the water. It certainly can be replicated.”

For seven years, Grimes and the Russellville school board worked well together, he and former board members said. But discontent among other city leaders surfaced early on, several people told me. Grimes had started to clash with the city’s mayor, David Grissom, who was first elected in 2012, about funding. A Russellville resident close to the workings of city government who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation says Grimes had angered Grissom and some City Council members early on when he noted publicly that his schools budget was $200,000 less than that of his predecessor. (McDowell, the school board lawyer, wrote in his email to me that Grimes was made aware of this cut after he took office and had agreed to it.) City Council members “did not take kindly to having their feet held to the fire or being made to look bad. So from then on, Grimes was marked,” the resident told me. Grimes also angered Grissom when he declined to publicly support the mayor’s choice for a City Council seat in 2020, preferring to stay neutral, several people told me. 

In his response to me, Grissom did not comment on those specifics but wrote that he “had interviewed and have been interviewed by several hundred people of all races and ethnicities” about Grimes’ performance and that some of those he spoke with were dissatisfied with the superintendent. He posed questions about whether Grimes had been in his office every day, treated employees differently, and spent too much district money on conferences. Grimes said that he sometimes traveled around the state for his work, that the conferences were for professional development and approved by the board, and that as a leader he did sometimes have to make decisions that displeased people because he was weighing different perspectives and needs. He said he was shocked by the mayor’s statements because neither the mayor nor anyone else had previously brought such concerns to him. Gist and Batchelor, the former school board members, said they had never heard any such concerns from anyone in their roughly eight years of working with Grimes. “Not one word,” said Gist. Grimes’ personnel file did not contain any information indicating concerns with the superintendent’s performance. Neither the mayor nor the school board lawyer would provide any clarification about why, if such complaints existed, Grimes was not notified. 

As Grimes continued to invest in efforts to help English learners, their numbers rose every year, doubling in size during his tenure, to 33 percent. After the 2020 City Council election, in an effort widely seen as intended to remove Grimes as superintendent, Grissom and City Council members began replacing members of the appointed five-member school board that had supported Grimes. (In his email, Mayor Grissom wrote that the council has the right to replace board members and had done so prior to Grimes’ tenure as well.) In May 2023, Greg Trapp, the school board member, informed the superintendent they would not renew his contract when it expired the following year.

Gist, the former school board member, said that while he was shocked at first by the City Council’s decision to replace him and others, it made sense given the Council’s antipathy toward Grimes. “That’s small-town politics. In order for them to control the system, they had to get rid of the school board members that were doing it right,” he said, adding: “That’s the only way they could remove him.” What upset him was knowing the decision wasn’t driven by what was best for students, he said. “If they wanted to replace me with somebody better, that is fine,” he told me. “But when they did it for a personal reason, that bothered me.” (I reached out to Trapp at least three times, as well as to other board members, and they did not respond to my requests for comment.) Batchelor, who was replaced soon after he voted in favor of keeping Grimes, also said the board’s majority decision was a mistake: “I think he’s the best superintendent in the state of Alabama.”

In March 2024, the district named a new superintendent, Tim Guinn, a former Russellville High School principal, who was also a candidate for the superintendent position when Grimes was chosen. Most recently he’d worked as superintendent of the Satsuma district. Guinn did not respond to repeated interview requests. 

Already, some of the programs and practices Grimes put in place appear to be unraveling. As of June, most of the bilingual aides, whose salaries are paid for by pandemic aid that expires in September 2024, had not been rehired. In addition, some bilingual teachers did not have their contracts renewed. The board has not indicated if it has plans to move ahead with improvements Grimes planned for middle and high school English learners. A dual-language immersion charter school, which Grimes had advocated for and the board had approved, was set to open in 2025. It has been scrapped. (McDowell did not comment in an email on the district’s plans for English learners. Regarding the bilingual aides, he wrote that some of them were not rehired because the federal grants had expired. Grimes said he had planned to pay for their salaries using a combination of district reserves and funds he would save from teachers retiring: “You make decisions based on what your priorities are.”)

Grimes and the board had agreed for him to stay on until the end of the 2023-2024 school year as the district searched for a replacement. But a week after my March visit to Russellville, McDowell, the school board lawyer, accused him of intimidating people into talking to me, according to Grimes, and told the superintendent that he could not be on school property or speak to district employees unless it was in his capacity as a parent. At that time, Grimes stepped down from the day-to-day responsibilities of his job, but he will remain in the community while his 14-year-old daughter finishes high school. His wife also remains a teacher in the district. (In an email and in an interview, McDowell said that he had never accused Grimes of intimidating anyone nor banned the superintendent from school grounds.) Also after my visit, more than a dozen educators I spoke with in Russellville told me that they were no longer comfortable being identified for fear of losing their jobs. The Hechinger Report/palabra agreed to delay publishing this piece until Grimes received his last paycheck on June 30.

Last month, Grimes started a full-time position with Reach University, the nonprofit that trains the bilingual aides as teachers, as its regional director of partnerships in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. 

The past six months have taken a toll. Grimes has said little publicly about his departure and has told most people in the community that he’s retiring. When we were having lunch together at a local restaurant, El Patron, other diners kept stopping by to wish him well. Two of them joked about how he looked far too young to retire. Grimes laughed and played along, but after they left, his shoulders slumped and he blinked away tears.

“I’ve spent my career very invested, very committed to doing what was best for kids,” he told me quietly. “I didn’t feel like I deserved for it to end this way.” 

He said he doesn’t regret the changes he made for English learners in the city. “Jesus loved the people that everybody else didn’t. And that was part of his message — you love your enemies, you love your neighbors, you love the foreigners, you love the sinner,” he said. “I see God in those children.” 

Rebecca Griesbach of AL.com contributed reporting.

This story about Russellville schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and palabra, an initiative of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, along with AL.com. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. Subscribe to palabra’s newsletter.

The post A superintendent made big gains with English learners. His success may have been his downfall appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Too many of our public schools are missing teachers, especially in hard-to-staff subject areas. We have a teacher shortage, and it could get worse.

According to a recent report, last school year, 45 percent of public schools said they were understaffed, and nearly 9 in 10 school districts reported struggling to hire teachers heading into the 2023-24 school year. They are still struggling. In addition to the current shortage, our teacher-preparation programs report decreased enrollment.

Shortages are most common in the traditionally tricky subject areas of special education, math, science and foreign languages. School districts in high-poverty areas or those that predominantly serve students of color have been especially hard hit.

There is an emerging solution: Partnerships at the local level between minority-serving institutions and local districts can help more children learn from highly effective, well-qualified teachers.

These partnerships can be far more effective than many current efforts to fill vacancies that resort to rushing adults who are not fully certified into the classrooms.

As you’d expect, those newly minted teachers need additional training in order to provide their students with the high-quality education they deserve. As a former college of education dean, I’m confident we can increase the number of high-quality teachers in the classrooms while closing the teacher diversity gap.

We can do this by investing in, supporting and leveraging the unique role of educator preparation programs at minority-serving institutions, which have a long and successful track record of preparing diverse educators to persist and thrive in teaching.

Related: Widen your perspective. Our free biweekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in education.

Minority-serving institutions include our nation’s historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities and institutions serving 25 percent or more of Asian Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Many of these schools prepare their graduates to be effective teachers from day one, emphasizing subject and content knowledge along with teaching techniques. They train new teachers to recognize and value diversity as an asset and encourage engagement with families and local communities. They create lesson plans and curriculums that are both rigorous and accessible and foster environments in which all students can thrive.

In the 2020-21 academic year, minority-serving institutions enrolled 28 percent of all education prep candidates nationwide and 51 percent of all candidates of color, according to federal Title II data. Many of these schools actively engage in robust partnerships with their local education systems to strengthen teaching and learning.

One example: A partnership between Laredo Independent School District and Texas A&M International University’s Educator Preparation, which relies on high expectations and data-informed recruitment to develop terrific local teachers.

The partnership features initiatives like expanded dual credit programs to improve access to higher education and an effort to promote career mobility for students in Laredo ISD. It also fosters trust-based relationships and a collective vision, so that the entire local education ecosystem is deeply committed to the preparation and success of teacher candidates.

Another example comes from the organization I lead, the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, or BranchED, and our National Teacher Preparation Transformation Center. In North Carolina, we helped get faculty and teaching candidates from North Carolina A&T working alongside teachers in Guilford County Schools.

These collaborative efforts more effectively prepare novice teachers for the realities of teaching while enhancing their skills and knowledge for a smoother transition into the education system.

Also, more than a dozen teams from teacher preparation programs at minority-serving institutions are working with local district partners to support school hiring needs using BranchED’s Vacancy Data Tool. The tool helps align district teacher staffing needs and teacher preparation program certification areas, and it supports the development of targeted recruitment efforts to meet those needs.

Early results for all these partnership efforts are promising, prompting discussions on candidate placement strategies, district recruitment processes and marketing opportunities for upcoming vacancies. And we can further develop these partnerships by building additional tools that leverage the unique strengths and assets of districts and educator preparation programs to meet the needs of the communities they serve.

Related: OPINION: Arkansas is having success solving teacher shortages, and other states should take notice 

Nationally, over 300,000 teaching positions were vacant or filled by teachers who were not fully certified in recent years. That’s why better alignment between teacher preparation programs’ production of teachers and school district staffing needs is warranted.

Through community partnerships, we can build a pipeline of educators equipped to thrive in today’s classrooms on day one, delivering a more inclusive and equitable education system for all.

Minority-serving institutions are doing their share by partnering with their communities to solve persistent problems at the local and district levels. They are also becoming more prominent players in our teacher preparation environment, leading the way in addressing local teacher shortages and driving innovative pathways into the profession.

By 2025, students of color will comprise nearly half of all college students. As minority-serving institutions continue to be major accelerants of this progress, these historic institutions will play a pivotal role in building a high-quality teacher workforce that looks more like America’s students.

Cassandra Herring is founder, president and CEO of Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity.

This story about the teacher shortage and minority-serving institutions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post OPINION: Powerful partnerships can help solve the national teaching shortage appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Leaders have been lied to for decades about DEIA. We’ve been told there is a clean, clear way to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism into an organization and that simply making a statement, changing hiring demographics by a percentage point or investing in training is enough.

All of those things are positive; all are progress. However, human beings aren’t data points that can easily be changed and manipulated. We’re complex individuals with many layers and connecting identities. The equity we are hoping to see will not be reached by easy-to-achieve metrics alone.

That’s why we must push ourselves and our organizations to lead our DEIA work by accepting the mixed and unique nature of all our identities, so we can better serve our students, staff and families.

This sounds incredibly messy because it is.

The oppressive structure of systemic racism in this country is powerful, poisonous and must be explicitly combatted. Anti-racism must remain a core part of our DEIA work. We must talk about the hard things.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

As a Black man and leader in public education, I have grappled with the complexities of race and identity throughout my life. My entry into this topic was — and largely still is — grounded in my racial identity and my upbringing in Texas, something I’m reminded of every time I look at my birth certificate and see the word “Negro” on it.

Yet we are all more than our race. It’s all too easy to focus solely on the parts of who we are that are the most visible or important to us. I am Black, I am a cisgendered man, I am heterosexual, I am Texan, I am a father and so much more.

Inclusion and belonging work is more than race too. In addition to grappling with our own personal DEIA journeys, we must navigate the surrounding political environments of our schools. These contexts often lead teachers and leaders to cherry-pick aspects of DEIA that seem easier to address, or more palatable, while neglecting others.

For example, many teachers struggle to tell parents about books and materials that feature religious or sexual identities. Yet these same teachers find it easy to vocalize the needs of students with learning disabilities.

Schools nationwide celebrate Black History Month enthusiastically, yet voice concerns about whether Pride Month should be recognized. Staff members urge schools to prioritize hiring diverse educators, yet advocate against using school budgets to update school facilities for all bodies.

With such messy work, it’s natural to cling to what feels most achievable or comfortable. Educators are overwhelmed by challenges, from the pandemic’s impact on learning to resource gaps, safety concerns and a myriad of society’s ills.

Facing down systemic racism can feel impossible, as can dismantling overlapping systems of oppression. When we see DEIA as a singular objective to achieve or a single battle to win, we can feel defeated.

But when educators adopt DEIA as a mindset and approach, that discipline allows us to make slow but steady progress toward a more just future. This is forever, all-encompassing work. The growth and progress for each of us is never done and requires us to lean into productive struggle.

To make real gains in creating inclusive schools, we need to go beyond just meeting goals and instead commit to making sometimes difficult choices and confronting uncomfortable truths to create a new world of standards. As we approach decisions, we must ask ourselves not only what measurable outcomes our choices will achieve, but also how they will change our culture. Just as systemic racism is entrenched in American culture, we need to entrench DEIA in the work of schools.

Does that sound hard? Yes.

Related: OPINION: This is no time to ban DEI initiatives in education; we need DEI more than ever

At the charter network I lead, DEIA is everyone’s responsibility. This commitment is rooted as much in mindset as it is in accountability. It’s the lens we use to critically examine our systems, policies, programs and interactions as we aim to eliminate inequitable and exclusionary practices — without focusing solely on one identity, but instead considering how different identities interact with one another.

In the classroom, we introduced reading programs that acknowledge literacy as a key factor in creating an anti-racist education; our literacy efforts are complemented by classroom library selections for all grades that promote an inclusive learning environment for students of all identities.

We see the work as both immediate and ongoing. We name and embrace that complexity. More than 79 percent of our staff do not identify as white; 64 percent identify as Black. The majority of our school leaders and executive team reflect a similar mix of identities. Every staff member is required to engage deeply with our value of centering justice.

We’re actively working to increase religious and gender inclusion, such as with designated prayer spaces and more all-gender bathrooms, so students feel supported every time they enter our buildings.

Much more work remains to be done. We will hold ourselves to it and continue to move forward, and I remain hopeful that we’re moving in the right direction.

It’s time for all of us to dive into the mess.

Recy Benjamin Dunn is CEO of Ascend Public Charter Schools, a network of K-12 public charter schools serving nearly 6,000 students in 17 schools across Brooklyn.

This story about DEIA work was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post OPINION: The real work of equity and inclusion is difficult, messy and absolutely necessary appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

The proposals in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project — known as Project 2025 and designed for Donald Trump — would reshape the American education system, early education through college, from start to finish. 

The conservative Heritage Foundation is the primary force behind the sprawling blueprint, which is separate from the much less detailed Republican National Committee 2024 platform, though they share some common themes.

Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage and its lobbying arm, Heritage Action, said in an interview with USA TODAY that Project 2025 should be seen “like a menu from the Cheesecake Factory.” No one president could take on all these changes, he said. “It’s a manual for conservative policy thought.”

The fast-changing political landscape makes it difficult to say which of these proposals might be taken up by Trump if he wins reelection. He has claimed to know nothing about it, though many of his allies were involved in drafting it. The exit of President Joe Biden from the presidential race may have an impact on Project 2025 that is still unknown. Finally, many of the broadest proposals in the document, such as changes to Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, would require congressional action, not just an order from the White House.

However, it remains a useful document for outlining the priorities of those who would likely play a part in a new Trump administration. The Hechinger Report created this reference guide that digs into the Project 2025 wishlist for education.

Early childhood

Child care for military families

Project 2025 calls for expanding child care for military families, who have access to programs that are often upheld as premier examples of high-quality care in America. – Jackie Mader

Head Start and child care 

Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Office of Head Start, which would lead to the closure of Head Start child care programs that serve about 833,000 low-income children each year. Most Head Start children are served in center-based programs, which have an outsized role in rural areas and prioritize enrolling a certain percentage of young children with disabilities who often struggle to find child care elsewhere. Head Start also provides a critical funding and resource stream to other private child care programs that meet Head Start standards, including home-based programs. – J. M.

Home-based child care

A conservative administration should also prioritize funding for home-based child care rather than “universal day care” in programs outside the home, Project 2025 says. That funding would include money for parents to stay home with a child or to pay for “familial, in-home” care, proposals that could be appealing to some early childhood advocates who have long called for more resources for informal care and stay-at-home parents. – J. M.

On-site child care

If out-of-home child care is necessary, Congress should offer incentives for on-site child care, Project 2025 says, because it “puts the least stress on the parent-child bond.” Early childhood advocates have been wary of such proposals because they tie child care access to a specific job. It also calls on Congress to clarify within the Fair Labor Standards Act that an employer’s expenses for providing such care are not part of the employee’s pay.– J. M.

K-12 education

Data collection  

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” should release student performance data based on “family structure” — in addition to existing categories such as race and socioeconomic status — Project 2025 argues. Family structure, the document says, is “one of the most important — if not the most important — factor influencing student educational achievement and attainment.” The document goes on to endorse “natural family structure” of a heterosexual, two-parent household, “because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” — Sarah Butrymowicz 

LGBTQ students 

Project 2025 advocates a rollback of regulations that protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It calls for agencies to “focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.’” 

The plan also calls on Congress and state lawmakers to require schools to refer to students by the names on their birth certificates and the pronouns associated with their biological sex, unless they have written permission from parents to refer to them otherwise.

The plan also equates transgender issues with child abuse and pornography, and proposes that school libraries with books deemed offensive be punished. — Ariel Gilreath

Privatization 

In place of a federal Education Department, the blueprint calls for widespread public education funding that goes directly to families, as part of its overarching goal of “advancing education freedom.”

The document specifically highlights the education savings account program in Arizona, the first state to open school vouchers up to all families. Programs like Arizona’s have few, if any, restrictions on who can access the funding. Project 2025 also calls for education savings accounts for schools under federal jurisdiction, such as those run by the Department of Defense or the Bureau of Indian Education. 

In addition, Project 2025 calls on Congress to look into creating a federal scholarship tax credit to “incentivize donors to contribute” to nonprofit groups that grant scholarships for private school tuition or education materials. — Ariel Gilreath and Neal Morton

School meals 

The federal school meals program should be scaled back to ensure that only children from low-income families are receiving the benefit, the document says. Policy changes under the Obama administration have made it easier for entire schools or districts to provide free meals to students without families needing to submit individual eligibility paperwork. — Christina A. Samuels

Special education 

Project 2025 says that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides $14.2 billion in federal money for the education of school-aged children with disabilities, should be mostly converted to “no-strings” block grants to individual states. Lawmakers should also consider making a portion of the federal money payable directly to parents of children with disabilities, it says, so they can use it for tutoring, therapies or other educational materials. This would be similar to education savings accounts in place in Arizona and Florida. 

The blueprint also calls for rescinding a policy called “Equity in IDEA.” Under that policy, districts are required to evaluate if schools are disproportionately enrolling Black, Native American and other ethnic minority students in special education. Districts must also track how these students are disciplined, and if they are more likely than other students in special education to be placed in classrooms separate from their general education peers. Current rules, which Project 2025 would eliminate, require that districts that have significant disparities in this area must use 15 percent of their federal funding to address those problems. — C.A.S.

Teaching about race 

Project 2025 elevates concerns among members of the political right that educating students about race and racism risks promoting bias against white people. The document discusses the legal concept of critical race theory, and argues that when it is used in teacher training and school activities such as “mandatory affinity groups,” it disrupts “the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.” 

The document calls for legislation requiring schools to adopt proposals “that say no individual should receive punishment or benefits based on the color of their skin,” among other recommendations. It also calls for a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights that would give families a “fair hearing in court” if they believed the federal government had enforced policies undermining their right to raise their children. — Caroline Preston

Title I

This program, funded at a little over $18 billion for fiscal 2024, is the largest federal program for K-12 schools and is designed to help children from low-income families. The conservative blueprint would encourage lawmakers to make the program a block grant to states, with few restrictions on how it can be used — and, over 10 years, to phase it out entirely. Additionally, it says, lawmakers should allow parents in Title I schools to use part of that funding for educational savings accounts that could be spent on private tutoring or other services. — C.A.S.

Higher education

Affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion 

The document calls for prosecuting “all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” that maintain affirmative action or DEI policies. That position matches the views expressed by Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, about the use of race in college admissions and beyond. — Liz Willen 

Data collection 

In higher education, the proposal argues that college graduation and earnings data need a “risk adjustment” that factors in the types of students served by a particular institution. While selective colleges tend to post the highest graduation rates and student earnings, they also tend to enroll the least-“risky” students. A risk adjustment methodology could benefit community colleges, which often have low graduation rates but enroll many nontraditional students who face obstacles to earning a degree. It would also likely benefit for-profit colleges, which similarly tend to accept most applicants. Historically, for-profit schools have received scrutiny under Democratic administrations for poor outcomes and for allegedly misleading students about the value of the education they provide. Republican administrations typically have supported less regulation of for-profit institutions. — S.B. 

Parent PLUS loans and Pell grants 

The blueprint calls for the elimination of the Parent PLUS loan program, arguing that it is redundant “because there are many privately provided alternatives available.” Originally created for relatively affluent families, the PLUS loan program has become a crucial way for lower- and middle-income families to pay for college. In recent years, it has sparked criticism due to rising default rates and fewer protections than are afforded to other student loan borrowers.  

At present, interest rates for private loans are significantly lower than Parent PLUS rates, but they come with fewer protections, and it is more difficult to get approved for a private-bank loan. Project 2025 would also get rid of PLUS loans for graduate students.

If the federal PLUS programs were eliminated, it could stem one portion of the rising tide of families’ education debt, but it would also make the path to paying for college more difficult for some families. 

Project 2025 does not call for a change to the Pell grant program, which provides federal funding for students from low-income families to attend college. Some advocates have called for doubling the annual maximum allotment, which is $7,395 for the 2024-25 school year, far below the cost to attend many colleges. — Meredith Kolodner and Olivia Sanchez

Student loan forgiveness 

Project 2025 would end the prospect of student loan forgiveness, which has already been largely blocked by federal courts; the Biden administration, in a sort of game of Whac-a-Mole, has proposed still more forgiveness programs that are being fought by Republican state attorneys general and others. Project 2025 would also dramatically restrict what’s known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which forgives loans borrowed to pay for colleges that closed or have been found to use illegal or deceptive marketing. Largely restricting the Education Department to collecting statistics, Project 2025 would shift responsibility for student loans to the Treasury Department. — Jon Marcus

This story about Project 2025 was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. 

The post How could Project 2025 change education? appeared first on The Hechinger Report.