Black teachers still strive for students’ success: “We don’t ignore anyone”

One sec High school graduation indicators For black students in California, and Suspension indicators have fallen, gaps in numerous learning results continue.

“I think the conversations have changed, but the results did not,” said Keli Redd, an English teacher in the Antelope valley, who worked as a teacher for almost two decades.

Redd and other teachers are now working on how to improve results for black students, because the federal government under Trump is trying Eliminate programs of diversity, justice and inclusion.

“We don’t ignore anyone,” said Pamela Lovett, the Long Beach Unified School District school district coordinator. “We set high reference points for all our children, but we are involved and we know that not everyone needs the same to get to the comparative test. We will have different approaches to make sure that we will meet the needs of students. “

Black children makeup 5% of public school students in California, Almost a third of people living in Los Angeles.

Teachers said Laist Kleas about helping students in success, regardless of their breed or ethnic origin, rely on examining data on mental health, test results and other academic results. They also include construction programs that include feedback from students and family and show students success models with which they can relate.

The teachers we talked to are a few of 800 people who gathered in the center of Los Angeles at a conference this month on the recommendation of black students. The College Board, the best known for designing SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, organized Dream -deferred conference Since 2005.

Raising awareness about the mental health of black youth

. Suicide indicator for black youth It grows faster than for young people of other breeds. In 2023, 1 in 5 black youth They reported that they were seriously considering suicide.

“I feel motivated to disseminate awareness about the problem, but also what to do with the problem,” he said Kimani Norrington-SandsLicensed clinical psychologist based in LA. “I think we can all make a change if we are all aware of what is happening.”

Norrington-Sands worked in Los Angeles Unified School District for 13 years, and her duties included staff training in the field of suicide prevention.

Kimani Norrington-Sands is a licensed clinical psychologist. She said that her work was also influenced by the death of her father by suicide.

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Thanks to the kindness of Kimani Norrington-Sands

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Norrington-Sands offered these tips for schools:

• Train all school staff, from teachers to guardians, to understand how the trauma affects students.
• Create the process of identifying students who are struggling with mental health.
• Provide support not only to students, but to their and families.

“I see well-being as a form of resistance,” said Norrington-Sands. “In this way I rely all oppression, it is to raise consciousness and help people throughout the country.”

Listening to students, families

In recent years, Long Beach Unified School District has turned to students and families Academic differences between black students and their peers.

“In the conversation it has changed that we must stop thinking that we know,” said Lovett, a district coordinator. “Because of course we know that it doesn’t work if we still get the same results and that we have to listen better.”

The district has created a program that convenes black students from the whole district to discuss literature based on the community feedback.

Pamela Lovett is a coordinator of perfection and capital at Long Beach Unified School District and claims that interest is growing in the Black Literary Society.

District Black literary society is based on 19th century predecessorswhere free blacks gathered to discuss reading, writing and current events.

“The whole goals were to learn the ways in which they can support themselves so that they could improve their conditions, to get help, not only themselves, but also those that were enslaved,” said Lovett.

About 70 students unpacked in the first year of the program School clothesA book that analyzes the educational experiences of black writers, political leaders and others.

“We had a diverse range of students,” said Lovett. “Not all our kids … were students, not all of these kids were at our most advanced courses.”

Students who met during lunch, after school and weekends, presented their teachings at the end of the year. The smaller group visited several historically black universities and universities (HBCU), in which the topics participated in the book.

“(Students) understood that if they confess their goals and help each other, they would be more likely to achieve their goals,” said Lovett. “(They) really reflect the students they studied.”

This year, Lovett said that the participation of black literary societies has almost doubled.

Change of narrative about black students

Jarvis Givens said he was confused by black educational narratives, which was presented as a student at UC Berkeley.

“They expected me to get to know the experience of a sense of alienation in schools, a narrative about a pipeline for school and having terrible experiences with teachers,” said Givens. “It wasn’t my experience.”

Jarvis Givens grew up in Compton, attended UC Berkeley and is currently a professor of educational and African and African -American studies at Harvard University. His work often emphasizes the less known narratives of perfection in black education. “It’s important for something more than just how we think about the past,” said Givens. “It’s about how we create young people the opportunity to become different versions of ourselves and have the opportunity to see different versions of themselves in the present in the future.”

Givens attended strong academic schools near his home in Compton, where most teachers were largely reflected in the black and Latin body of students, including King/Drew Magnet High School in Watts.

Now, as an author and professor of education, as well as African and African -American studies at Harvard University, Givens digs less known narratives of perfection in black education.

One example from his book Pedagogy fuckedThese are black schools that have been successful in Jim Crow South despite the oppressive conditions.

“All these schools cultivated all these important leaders, such as Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr.” Jarvis said. “Everyone went to sorted schools. They were not leaders who just fell out of heaven. “

He was also the author School clothesThe book included in the black literary associations of Long Beach Unified.

“It forces (students) to think about their experiences nowadays in a more critical way and realizing that they are also becoming something, someone,” said Givens.

He will become a mentor by building a path to difficult classes

Keli Redd has been a teacher in Los Angeles for 17 years and has spent the last two English teaching at Palmdale High School.

She left the conference, thinking about how her school can build a path to African American Studies, a course at which students can get a loan in college. (Black students are insufficiently represented in AP classes.)

Redd’s daughter takes class in another high school.

Redd said that she began to hear her colleagues more often discussing the definition of capital on the campus. “Some of them start by citing him or repeated, and even imitating the mantra, but this is how it begins to settle,” said Redd. “That you literally give students what they need when they need it, but I need it for a long time.”

“He returns home from this class and we spend an hour at dinner, talking only about things that appear in her class,” Redd said. These topics covered the case of the Supreme Court Plesses against FergusonUnevenness in Healthcare for black women AND Henrietta is missingwhose cancer cells, taken without her consent, are the basic part of medical examinations.

“Thinking on the spot, generating an idea on a place, and then the need to defend something you followed – I think this is a really nice way to influence research outside the English class,” said Redd.

Redd, who also sits in the capital team of his school, said that despite the support of administrators, Momentum released; Less of her colleagues appears at meetings and training.

“I can’t tell you why, when there is money behind it, when there is an initiative of the entire district – our director is the main master of justice,” said Redd.

Despite this, wins have been held over the past few years. Each member of the Capital Team mentors two to 20 students outside the class. Redd meets 15 students every week to review their grades and combine them with resources such as tutoring.

“I am only a small part, but my voice, as well as your voice, as well as their voice, adds up,” said Redd.