Sheldon:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school.

                Today, I got two special guests with me, Dr. Daman Harris and Dr. Inger Swimpson is here today, and without further ado, thank you for joining us today.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

All right, thank you for having us.

Dr. Daman Harris:

Thanks, thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here.

Sheldon:

The pleasure is mine. I just was able to connect some dots just before we started to record. Dr. Daryl was on, Daryl C. Howard, was on with me live not too long ago. He was representing the BOND Project. I'm so excited because I have a few more guests that are representatives of the same project. Daman, I'd love for you to share a little bit about the work that you're doing with the BOND Project and maybe you can share a little bit more as far as what you currently do, I guess, during your daytime.

Dr. Daman Harris:

Sure thing. I'll start with my day job first. I'm a principal at elementary school in Rockville, Maryland, Wheaton Woods. I represent Wheaton Woods everywhere I go and I'm proud of that work we do there with our kids and their families.

                As far as the BOND Project, the BOND Project stands for Building Our Network Of Diversity. It is us an initiative that is grassroots, organized by some folks of color who want to support men of color in education. Inger started this idea way back in 2013 and we've been growing it ever since.

                We have a number of different things we do, strategies we use to try to support the recruitment, the development, the retention, and the empowerment of men and boys of color, particularly in the Montgomery County, Maryland, but also more regionally and even nationally in some regards. We do a number of different initiatives that Inger may speak to a little bit later.

Sheldon:

All right, that sounds good. We're going to bring it over to you, inger. Share a little bit about you and how you organize the BOND Project and how you got that off the ground.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Oh, happy to. I am in my 28th year of education in Montgomery County public schools and have worked in a number of capacities, most recently on the new, or one of the new, assistant principals at Winston Churchill High School. So this will be a new experience for me but absolutely excited and ready to do that work, especially as it relates to building our network of diversity.

                As Daman mentioned, the BOND Project was an idea that was just swirling around in my head in 2013 after looking at some of the data from our school system as it relates to male educators of color. Initially, I began looking at the data with black male educators and MCPS and noticed that they were coming in with a pretty good number of years of experience. The information that I looked at or the data I looked at that time, the average number of years of teaching experience for black male educators for that year was seven years. So they were coming to us as not as educators being new to the school system, not new to education, and they were leaving at a much faster rate. We weren't able to retain our male educators of color, especially black males.

                I mentioned to my colleagues at the time, it was Dr. Harris, Dr. Gail Epps, Dr. Brenda Delaney, and Mr. Troy Boddy, and just bringing together a group of people who I knew who would have the passion around the work but also had expertise in specific areas around diversity and equity and race, others who had experience with higher education with mentoring and with providing support to novice teachers.

                We just started meeting, as Daman mentioned, in a grassroots effort and would meet on our own time, meet on Saturdays. We would do research to find out whether or not this was actually a need and started with a white paper that Daman authored for us. Then we pulled together two focus groups. One focus group was novice teachers and new to MCPS that year and the other focus group were veteran teachers. We asked them very similar questions about their experience in the school system, what kept them there and what would make them leave and whether or not a mentoring program or just really a networking program that allowed male educators of color to come together would be helpful. Overwhelmingly, their response was absolutely, "Yes, this would have helped me as someone new to MCPS," and "help me as someone who's currently new to MCPS."

                Not wanting to be the face of an organization that was developed for black men, I stepped back and worked behind the scenes and still do that. We have an incredible leadership team. I cannot thank them enough for their commitment. Daman has been with me from day one with this. We brought on other leaders, Darryl Howard, Desmond Mackle, Thomas Ryan, just the number of individuals and I'm not including all of them, but they have just championed this effort in such a way that we're receiving local recognition, national recognition. We even have a BOND man who is international with but still stays connected. It's a crucial, crucial project and I'm so happy to have been a part of it.

                Hey, Sheldon, if I could add real quickly too, if folks want to hear that story in a more expansive form, in about 10-minute explanation, we go around the country talking about this work in one form or another for the last four or five years, but we haven't found a clearer spokesperson than our children and our students. There are a couple of high school students who are now in college, but while they were in high school, they filmed a documentary around the start of the BOND Project. You can find it on YouTube, it's called In Isolation: Teachers Of Color.

Sheldon:

I'll make sure that I'll link that up with the show notes for this episode so that our folks can get a chance to take a look. Thank you for bringing that up.

                Now, I'm excited today because we're talking about recruitment, but we're going to be a little bit more specific. Now, as I was looking at some topics that you and I can discuss, the three of us could discuss, I came across Inger's work, From Just Being Woke To Doing The Work Of Recruiting Diverse Teachers. I thought we could talk about that today and I'd love to get your take as both of you are administrators, you're leaders, and you work with communities of color, so I'm really excited for that.

                Let's dig in. My very first question that I have is the definition of wokeness. We hear that word a lot. You wrote this in 2018 and ... or at least it was published in ... I know how publishing goes. Sometimes you write something and they don't come out till the next two years later, but I think it's still relevant today, right? Because ...

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Absolutely.

Sheldon:

... when we talk about wokeness, I wanted you to kind of share with us, what does that mean? Define that and then how does that relate to our hiring practices?

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Okay, so I pulled together different definitions, one from the urban dictionary, which really speaks to knowing what's going on in a community, and then also looking at Merriam Webster and how that definition is socialized to really focusing on awareness. I pulled it together to mean, it's really recognizing that people of color are treated differently and are marginalized and often viewed from a deficit perspective. In order for us to change that narrative, especially in the classroom, we have to be willing to recruit from a space that does not see teachers of color from a deficit position but sees them as an asset to every single classroom that we have in this country.

                I see that as school systems waking up to the fact that in order to be woke, you have to be willing to have a conversation about our communities, about our students, about teachers of color and what their specific needs are, and what we talk about when we are not in spaces that are occupied by dominant culture, primarily by dominant culture, and that it's okay to be willing to invest in those kinds of conversations because that's how we build relationship.

                If we really, really want to engage with minority serving institutions, because the brunt of that recruitment work falls on minority serving institutions because most recruitment departments in K-12 are looking to those institutions for their candidates. But it goes beyond just can I come and harvest, reap your harvest of scholars, but it really focuses on, how do I build a relationship with your institution so that I know what you're doing around education research, so that I know what you're doing in terms of partnering with K-12 institutions, the grants that you all may have, the scholarly writing that you're doing, the research that you're doing. It's not just that one single opportunity that minority serving institutions, especially HBCUs and Hispanic serving institutions can offer. It's a whole realm of possibilities that we don't oftentimes take advantage of because we're so focused on, "Let me change the diversity of my classroom. Let me build the diversity of my school district." Very often, that's the sole focus. We don't think about, well, this is an institution of higher education so when I need someone to analyze whether or not my curriculum is a curriculum that speaks to all students, I need to be considering those institutions as well and not just going to predominantly white institutions, but looking at our minority serving institutions as research opportunities as well.

                I think that that's a missed opportunity because we so often just lean towards the recruitment piece but we don't consider that this is an academic institution and it needs to be recognized that way.

Sheldon:

I love that you're saying that we need to go beyond just, "Okay. We recognize that our teaching diversity is lacking in, so now we're going to go and find us some color and bring that in." You know? It's got to go beyond that. Daman, I'd love to get your thoughts on this as a school leader. How do you feel with your elementary students and just, I mean, what emphasis are you placing when it comes to your hiring practices and ensuring that the demographics match with the student demographics?

Dr. Daman Harris:

I push it in my school building, but also in our district more broadly, to also talk about the why. Why do we have this deficit? Why do we have differential rates of retention? And why now that we feel like we have a need to change our practices? I'm still not sure all districts, and I know I'm pushing my school in this direction, to recognize that a large reason as to why we're doing that is because we're centering whiteness. When whiteness is the default and it's the norm to which everything else is measured, then you have these issues where you don't recognize, as Inger said, the expertise that is that a school that might be led by folks of color. Or you don't think about the questions that you ask of candidates. You don't think about the fertile soil that you're trying to cultivate in your school district so that when folks come, when you plant those seeds of anti-racism or diversity, that they actually grow into oaks. We have to do that as a school district, as a state, as a country, but in my school is the space where I have the most control so I absolutely focus there.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

One thing I wanted to just add, Sheldon, you mentioned, why does it ... you asked to what are we doing to make sure that that matches so that we have a match? Why do we have to have a match? Why can't we have more teachers of color than we have white teachers? I think that's one of the things that we have to be open to. It may not be a match, that's maybe the minimum that we're trying to do, but let's prepare for a future where there may be are more teachers of color than there are white teachers who are educating students. Imagine what that would look like and imagine how we could change the narrative around people of color and the academic world, people of color and teaching and that as a profession.

Dr. Daman Harris:

Wwe certainly have more students to color than we have white students. In my school, we are 90% students of color, right? In our district, we are more students of color than we are white students. That's certainly the case so the ground is there, the pool is there. One of our operating tenets, sort of our theories of action at BOND, we're thinking about how can we grow this next generation of educators, is if school was a better place for male students of color or students of color in general. Then more of them will want to be teachers. If school was the better place for men of color and people of color in general, then more of them would stay teachers once they join us. So we're definitely pushing on both ends of that.

Sheldon:

I love what Inger, I love what you said. It's like, why do we need to just match? Why can't we have more? I think that's a conversation that we need to have as well. I think at these, a lot of the conversations that I've had in circles that I've been in, it's just more, "Man, can we just get a little bit more?" I think it's like 3% African-American males in education. I mean, that's so low. Right? A lot of the conversation is just like, can we just get more teachers of color in general, but I love how you brought that up. It's like, okay, well, we don't need to just stop at matching. If your demographics is, let's say it's 50-50, that don't mean that your teaching force has to be 50-50. You can have more.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Right? But that's so often what we look at. That's the goal, but it should go beyond that.

Sheldon:

I love that.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Yeah.

Sheldon:

Daman, I want to touch on something you mentioned earlier. You talked about the questions that you're asking, anti-racist questions and doing the interview process and just kind of taking things a little further than just saying, "Oh, you're black. Oh, you have a pulse or your alive? Why don't you just come to my school?" I love to hear a little bit more as far as your thoughts on the type of questions that school leaders can ask our potential teachers, counselors, whatever positions that we're hiring for, what are some of those questions that we can be asking?

Dr. Daman Harris:

Sure. Our school district is 200 schools, there are 166,000 kids, and there are about 13,000 teachers. So there's some sort of automaticity to some of the things that we do, some systematic questions we do with screening. Without digging too deeply into that, when I talk to candidates and I talk to staff members at different schools, we talk about, you're going to get questions about, "Hey, how are you relating to parents?" You're going to get questions about, "Hey, what are your experiences with diversity?" Which basically means what is your experience with non-white people, because diversity is more than that.

                However, when I'm asking questions at an interview and what I push my staff and my principal colleagues to do when we're asking at interviews are things that get at equity that we might not always connect with equity or diversity or any racism. For instance, we always ask the question, "Hey, tell me about what a lesson would look like?" To teachers. Or, "Tell me what your lesson plan looks like," or, "Tell me how your last lesson went in some particular area." Something like that, to talk about how they plan for instruction.

                Teachers talk about assessments and they talk about standards and they talk about some of the activities where they have a gradual release responsibility. All that stuff is awesome, but what we do as people who sit on the other side of the table, we often think of those things as disconnected from equity and diversity and any racism, because in that question, I am looking for someone to say a great lesson is tied to the students, it's lived realities. Like that, I am connected with them on such a way, on such a wavelength that I get where they're coming from. I know not just what activities to plan, I know what content that'll help bridge the gap between where they are and the standards that we need to reach. That piece there is essential that people don't think about often. Another example, I'll often ask questions ... well I'm giving out one now, so anybody who is interviewing with my school later on this summer, you can, if you listen [inaudible 00:19:34] inside baseball. But I ask a question that says something along the lines of, "Students who are English learners, who are in poverty, underperform and are performing at lower levels in my school. Is that been your experience? Why do you think that might be?"

                What I often hear are, well, kids don't know the language, parents working two jobs, poverty is hard, they don't read books and they have the childcare responsibilities, et cetera. What I'm looking for is for someone to say, "Because I haven't found a way to reach them yet. I haven't done the right things. I haven't pushed the right buttons. We haven't set up the right system of support." I'm looking for us to own the issue, not our students, because these are bright kids. They know more languages than I know. Right? They are bright kids. I don't like this, thinking about great and some of these other labels that we say kids need to have and some of these social, emotional learning, character education things. Man, you can't get to where we are in these spaces without working hard and having perseverance. Their families can't even get to our country without working hard and having perseverance. So it's something's either wrong with our students and their families, or something's wrong with our system that keeps putting them at the bottom of all the good categories and the top of all the bad categories. That's where [inaudible 00:21:13] with my staff. I'm looking for those types of responses. So we need to devise questions that give people opportunities to ask those things without being explicitly questioned about it.

Sheldon:

Okay. Thank you. Inger, did you have something that you wanted to add on to that?

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Yeah, I would say that was so many teachers of color in demand, they're interviewing us. They are absolutely interviewing us and we need to be ready to say how we respond to ... what's our position on racism and how do we respond? What does our website have in terms of how we are supporting students of color, families of color? What do we say? What's been our position on immigration? What's been our position on racial justice? If I go to that website, am I going to see something that welcomes me and says that my lived experiences are going to be recognized as educational opportunities that will help all students connect and have a better understanding of who we are as people of color. Do we show and demonstrate the importance of relationships? Do we show and demonstrate the importance of collectivism? All of those are components of the makeup, if you will, of people of color.

                How do we ensure that that comes across very clearly to any candidate, not just candidates of color but any candidate, because we oftentimes place the burden of interrupting racism on the shoulders of black and brown folks but it's everybody's responsibility. If we're not very clear with that, then we are going to see turnover in our schools. We're going to continue to see that because the space that needs to be created is one that supports who I am in every facet of my being. It's my lived experiences. It's the way that I wear my hair. It is the fact that I sometimes need to be in a space where I see people of color and I have an opportunity to talk to them and talk to them only. It's the importance of those affinity groups that allow me to connect when I sometimes don't have those same people of culture and race in my schools or in my office spaces. So how we ensure that we are creating those kinds of spaces for individuals to thrive?

Sheldon:

Now, you're leading me to my next question based off of that response. I think this is a key piece and it's something that you had in your article that we referred to earlier. Are we ready to do the work of culturally responsive recruiting? What does that look like? I'll throw that out to anyone that wants to take that one on, either you or Daman.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Daman, I'll start and then kick it to you. How's that?

Dr. Daman Harris:

That works.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Okay. In the article, I cite a quote from the book, What If by Steve Robinson, he says that taking steps to create a diverse workforce is one thing. Doing away with old structures and traditional methods so that the diverse workforce can excel is quite another. That's where we are. We are so stuck in our structures and traditions and making sure that ... as I said, we only focus on HBCUs. We aren't focusing as much as we should on building a culture and a climate that supports teachers, families, and students of color. We're working on it. We're working on it and it's something that I'm glad we're working on, but we have to be intentional about the way that we go about doing that. So when we look at culturally responsive recruiting, you have to know the institutions, especially if you're going to historically black colleges and universities.

                I graduated from North Carolina, A&T, Aggie Pride, and I am very proud of my alma mater. That's part of knowing who I am when you come to my school to recruit. It's part of knowing what our tradition is. It's part of knowing what we have done in terms of our academic program, our athletic program. What are we doing in the face of race and equity so that when you come to my school, you can speak to that. When you come to an institution, you should be able to speak to what they are doing to support their students and to support the community and really to support the entire arena around academia. In my opinion, that's one of the things that's missing. We oftentimes don't know little things about an institution other than, "I'm here, I'm at my recruitment table," but it's so much more if you are going to an HBCU in particular. It's so much more. Get to know the deans of those schools. Understand what they are doing and how you might even able to partner so that you're building the capacity of the students there.

                One of the things that I've talked about, and especially with some of the schools in my home state of North Carolina where they have a reduced tuition rate for students, imagine if the school district picked up the last, paid for a student's tuition in their senior year, and worked with that student in a mentoring program with the expectation that once the student graduated, they would be coming to that school district to teach, and connected them in the senior year with a mentor who can provide insight into the district, insight into the teaching profession, insight into the culture. Imagine how we would be able to change the way we go about recruiting with things like that. I think that that's one way that we can approach this.

                Also looking at, there's research that supports that students of color who graduate from institutions have a much higher loan debt. Is it possible that maybe we could, in some way incentivize our packages, our recruitment packages so that we help offset some of that loan debt for students? Those are the kinds of ways that I think we have to approach being more culturally responsive in our recruiting efforts.

Sheldon:

I love it.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

I'd add too, so that ... the acronym that Inger uses for in our article for WORK, that willingness, opportunity, relationships, responsiveness, and knowledge to step back to the W in willingness, that willingness to change that she just spoke about is also a part of the infrastructure that we sort of reimagine and recreate. For example, does the district have folks on staff whose job it is to support equity in any racism in the district broadly? Does it have folks whose job description mandates that they support the diversification of the workforce? Are there folks who own recruiting ... I mean, retention ... in the school system, so particularly of folks of color. We may have, at a particular school district, there may be six, seven, a dozen people who support recruiting and staffing in general, and nobody who's supporting retention on the backend and that's left just to schools. We need to have more ownership of that at the district level that sends a message to everyone.

Sheldon:

Well, I think that we have definitely created a sense of urgency when it comes to shifting our focus and our mindsets on how we're recruiting. We can't just, "Well, I can't find any people of color to come teach at my school." I think there's ... I think we've laid the groundwork as far as what needs to be done and I appreciate the two of you for coming on and for sharing more information on how we can be culturally responsive with our recruiting practices. I consider both of you as providing a voice in leading equity. Let's start with Daman. What is one final word of advice that you can provide to our listeners?

Dr. Daman Harris:

If I were to talk to prospective candidates through their lens, I'd really have asked you to think through when you're deciding where you want to go to be a teacher. Think through, have you seen those explicit statements from the school district? Do they have official policies, statements, reports, any blocks that are writing about diversity, any racism? I'd ask you to think about what, like I spoke earlier, do they have departments who are assigned to these roles who own this work and can support you when you arrive? What questions are being asked during your interviews? If they're not asking questions that are getting that equity and diversity, that's a red flag. You might be going to the wrong space.

                When you're there, inquire. Like Inger said earlier, you are interviewing us. So ask about what supports there are for teachers of color in particular at that school and in the district more broadly. You can also seek out some community perspectives about looking at the news. We have a heavy news presence, local news presence in our community where they write about schools constantly. So you can find out what the hot button issues are related to equity in any racism in the school district to which you're applying. f you're a candidate, I think you should have those types of questions, those types of items in mind when you're coming to interview, and if you are a school district, you should know the answers to those questions.

Sheldon:

Inger, what are your final thoughts?

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

My final thoughts would be related to the work. As I noted in the article, WORK, and Daman mentioned it as well, is the willingness, opportunity, relationships or responsiveness, and knowledge. So being willing to really know that culturally responsive recruiting, it demands a willingness to make sure that your district and the classroom climate goes beyond tolerance and welcoming teachers of color, but it also recognizes it interrupts with intentionality those structures that have traditionally led teachers of color out the door. It means making sure that the opportunities are present to students of color and teachers of color, and that we capitalize on the strengths of individuals of color. With relationships and responsiveness, be responsive. Make sure that participants or candidates know that you are seeking them and that you know about their institution. That's how you build relationship.

                Then having the knowledge. I'm not just talking about when we engage in conversations and being sincere and using the language that speaks to valuing, but also, it's the non-verbal language. Making sure that if I go on and follow you on Twitter or any of the other social media accounts, I see myself in that district based on how you are responding and based on your social media footprint. So making sure that we understand that teachers of color are out there, but we have to be willing to do the work and we have to stay woke.

Dr. Daman Harris:

We have to stay woke.

Sheldon:

Inger, If we got some folks that want to connect with you, maybe even connect with the BOND Project, what's the best way to reach you online?

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

We have a website, bondeducators.org is one way to reach us. You can also reach me on Twitter @DrIngerSwimpson.

Sheldon:

All right. Dr. Harris, Daman, what about yourself? If we want to get in touch with you?

Dr. Daman Harris:

Yep, so I'll throw out the BOND Twitter handle too, we are @bondeducators on Twitter. It's a good way to get in touch with us and really see the work that we're doing. It's a lot more real time than our website. You can find me on Twitter at Daman, D-A-M-A-N, underscore, Harris.

Sheldon:

All right. Well, I am so excited that I was able to chat with Dr. Daman Harris and Dr. Inger Swimpson. It has truly been a pleasure. Thank you.

Dr. Daman Harris:

Thanks.

Dr. Inger Swimpson:

Thank you. Same here.

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