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 schools. Today's special guest is a second time on the show, so without further ado, I'm very excited to bring on Dr. Yvette Latunde here. So, thank you so much, Yvette, for joining us.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Thank you so much, Sheldon, for having me again.

Sheldon:

Always a pleasure, always a pleasure. I'm really excited about this topic, because today we're going to be discussing six ways we can utilize abundance within Black families and communities to support students. But before we get into that, for those who aren't familiar with the work that you do, we would love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Fantastic. First, I want to thank you for the work that you do. You have an amazing newsletter, and if anyone is listening and they haven't taken the time to subscribe, you're missing out. You have some great online courses and resources that go out regularly, and they've really helped me in my work. So I appreciate that.

Sheldon:

Thank you.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

I'm Yvette Latunde. I'm a professor at the University of La Verne out here in Los Angeles, California. I'm also a co-director of a center for educational equity that we have out here at the University of La Verne. I also own a consulting firm called Bridges Leadership and Education Services. So I work with school districts and county offices to support them in partnering with diverse families and creating more inclusive cultures and practices within their schools and school districts.

Sheldon:

All right, well, I always love it when I have qualified guests on the show. And so we're going to throw it out to you first, because you have six ways that we can utilize the abundance within Black families. So let's start with the first one. Go ahead and shoot it off for us.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Fantastic. So we know that historically our Black families have been pretty disconnected in schools, pretty isolated by systems and practices. So one of the first things that we can do, especially at the start of the year is not assume that people know other people. We want to take time to specifically connect our Black families to other people. You know, there's a song that used to say, sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name, right?

Sheldon:

Cheers.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

So when we look at research on people feeling a sense of safety and belonging, it's very important that they go or show up somewhere where at least one other person knows them. So you can help connect them to people. So if you're going to have a virtual meeting, you can make sure that you do pre-introductions. If you have someone that works at the school that is especially warm and knowledgeable, you can have that person to make virtual introductions or in-person introductions before people show up so they at least come into that setting having known another person. Or you tell them to invite a friend so they're not coming alone or a relative.

Sheldon:

I love this, because the thing about it is, and I get this a lot in Idaho, people just assume we all know each other, which I mean, I'll be honest, I do happen to know a lot of the Black people here, but I don't know everybody. And sometimes I get that whole, wait, wait, you don't know Johnny, you don't know Mary, you don't know, they've been here 20 years. So I said, I don't know them. I haven't met them yet. So I like that you started off with that, because sometimes we do tend to, especially if we're thinking about schools that don't have a large population of diversity or Black families are not represented heavily and so we just assume that they must know each other. So I'm glad you started off there. Let's go to the number two.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

All right. So the next thing would be to connect Black families to processes. What are important processes in schools? So sometimes we assume that people know how to navigate the system. How do you deal with lunches? What is the process for calling a meeting? What is the process for meeting with a teacher? What is the process for getting involved on a school campus? Believe it or not, I'm a pretty savvy engaged parent and my child attends a high school that I haven't been able to get into the PTA yet. And it's virtual, so it's like, what's the process? How do I get the link? So there's an assumption there.

               So another thing that they can do is connect families with important processes, have someone to walk them through. This is how you would access this resource. These are the steps you would follow if you needed to do A, B, C, or D.

Sheldon:

One might ask, or my thought was, okay, what makes it different for Black families, because I could see from an administrative side or the school side, oh, we've already sent out the instructions or we sent out emails or we put it on Facebook. Why do we need to specifically help our Black families out with this process? How would you respond to that?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Well, I would say that in looking at the way schools communicate now with families in that it might not be the top method for communicating with Black families. If I look at the way churches and community organizations communicate with Black families, people calling to check on them, there're telephone calls, and they used to be visits. So it's a little warmer of a communication than sending an email. And you have to think about, especially in the context of COVID, people are inundated right now with emails and electronic communication. So they really don't always know what to sort through, what's important and what's not important.

               So again, if there's a person assigned to walk them through the process, then someone can draw their attention to what processes are very important to, say, seniors that are graduating in high school. So again, a peer parent would be very helpful to the other parents that are coming into the district that have high school senior that are inundated with emails about graduation and ACT, but who's going to help them kind of navigate through the processes, and not in a baby, immature kind of way, but sometimes just saying, hey, did you know the ACT was happening on campus this weekend?

               Because again, you're inundated with information and you might not have had the capacity to look through a thousand emails and find that information, versus if someone called me, I was assigned to... Let's say Yvette is assigned to a small group of eight families that she makes contact with regularly to make sure they're connected to people, other people and to processes. So now it kind of demystifies the process for those families.

Sheldon:

So, and this kind of relates to the first point about the assumptions, right? We assume we sent out an email, we sent out a publication, we communicated already, and we put it even in their language. But however, just having a personal phone call is also great. And as I'm thinking about the importance of a personal phone call, sometimes we, as parents, we see personal phone calls or we see the school's number show up on our caller ID, and we're thinking, oh man, what did Johnny do this time? But just being able to have a pleasant phone call, hey, no, Johnny's fine. Johnny didn't do anything. We're just calling because we would love to invite you to our school so we can help you out with this process, or are you familiar with the PTA and would you like to be involved? I think those types of things are very important.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Absolutely. And it's going to change then the trajectory of the trust between the family, because now they're not on alert for a negative communication, which historically there's a lot of evidence that talks about when Black parents are communicated, it's usually about behavior or something negative. So that could be a trust building thing between the home and the school as well.

Sheldon:

All right. Love it. All right. So we're on a roll. So let's just recap, we started with not assuming that Black folks know each other. And then we went into the importance of connecting them to processes. What would be number three?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Well, and I want to go back to number one. It's not even just them knowing one another, but other key people that might be within a school district or a school. Sometimes those families don't always feel safe and welcome to show up to the coffee with the principal and things like that. Again, it will be a matter of Yvette saying, hey, Susan, why don't you come with me to the principal's coffee? That's a little different feel than a general email sent to everyone. And as a Black parent, I don't really know, should I go? What do I do? I don't know anyone.

Sheldon:

Thank you for clarifying. Thank you for clarifying that. So, what we have for number three?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Number three would be connecting Black families to the curriculum. So I did some research on the impacts of COVID on students and families. And during COVID, it was very difficult for families to not only help support learning at home, but it was also difficult for them to know what the child was studying. And that's not new information. So connecting Black families to the curriculum, very easy. This is what we're studying this week. This is our unit topic. Here are some outside resources that are electronic, some websites, but not only that, if you need a tutor, here are some tutors' phone numbers. We offer these services on campus for athletes that need tutoring. They meet at A Hall 11 at 3:00 PM, just very specific information that connects them to the curriculum and how they can support their scholar in the curriculum. So they know about the curriculum, but also what are direct services that can help the child with the curriculum as well. Where is the tutoring? Where are the guides? Where are the models? Where are the examples?

Sheldon:

Is this still on the same phone call? So this is a personal touch phone call as well in relation to connecting parents to the curriculum?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Well, this could be actually a little less personal. This could be coming from a classroom volunteer in a general kind of way to say this is the unit of study and here are some resources to help your scholar independently, but also here are some direct services, because sometimes families don't know about direct services. Who's offering tutoring? Are they tutoring at a cost? Is it a sliding scale? Are they in the vicinity of the school? Are they at the local college? Just basically information sharing.

               The work that I've done with African-American parents, through the advisory councils for the last, I'm going to say 13 years, one of the biggest problems has just been a lack of connecting all the dots. So this family will have these resources in this corner. This family and this region will know about this, but all the information rarely ever comes together. And so I don't know if that could look like sharing documents in Google. I don't know if it could look like utilizing the school or district website in new and different ways, or if those would be in-person kinds of meetings, but kind of making the connections between resources and curriculum.

Sheldon:

So I would add to this, because we didn't touch on it specifically, but I think what will be also important is connecting families, when we're talking about curriculum is like honors classes, advanced placement courses, SAT prep courses, ACT, these type of course, gifted and talented, just sometimes I think that part is important as well, because I know a lot of our Black families don't always know a lot of these courses that are available to their students.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Absolutely. That's a great point. Not only what those courses are, but how to access them. And there's been a shift in some districts. So in some districts, the students would have to make that decision. And in other districts it would be in the parents' purview to kind of make the decision for the child, but at least having the information and being informed about it would be definitely good.

Sheldon:

Okay. All right. So let's go to number four. What do we have?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Number four is resources. Where are the resources? Where are the things that are helpful and meaningful to Black families, not only in their parenting, but in their connecting with education. So we've done some research before and looked at how they rely on their village, people in their churches, communities, after-school program, parenting programs, Black, Greek organizations, all these different things kind of support them with gathering resources, but it never connects with the school. And so schools actually need to intentionally partner with those communities to bring those resources to the school sites and vice versa. And sometimes those places in the community are great places to share things with our Black families that don't always stop to attend the extra meeting that's at the school site. But if they see the flyer for tutoring at their church or community after-school program, it's another way to increase access to those resources.

Sheldon:

Well, give me some more example of that. Like, okay, so you mentioned church. Is that saying a school principal needs to reach out to the pastor or Bishop or whatever the clergy position is to try to connect with the church? Give me, tell me a little bit more if I'm a school principal so I can kind of figure out, okay, well, how do I reach out to the community?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

So let's say there's a great summer program that's happening at a local church. Well, the school might not know about it, so they can't advertise the program. So even if it's not that family's particular church, it's a resource in the community that they can utilize. So what I'm saying is the resources are disenfranchised in different places. And if there's a way to connect the resources, so if there's something being offered in schools that are helpful to families, sometimes we need to share that information with places in the communities where Black families reside, where they visit on a regular basis so they can increase access to even knowing about the information. And sometimes there are great helpful things going on in community centers that schools don't know about. So sometimes they're duplicating services or the resources are disenfranchised and disconnected because we're not having conversations about how we're all serving students. And so it's just really resource sharing more than anything, directing people.

Sheldon:

I like that idea. I could see a little bit of pushback from some folks thinking about, oh, well, there's supposed to be separation between church and state. And so we're violating some sort of protocol rule, but I think from your perspective, it's more of, we have tutoring services at both locations. Why can't we share resources or why can't we advertise for each other? I think it's helpful to each. It benefits the kids at the end of the day.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Absolutely. Yep. And it just breaks up some of the disconnection. And again, schools don't want to provide things that are redundant. Sometimes they're doing it because they don't know it already exists, and vice versa. So if we're really thinking about serving students, then we'll think about, well, how do we partner in really strategic ways to make sure that they get the resources that we said are important?

Sheldon:

Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. Okay. All right. Let's go on to number five.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

All right. Number five, I would say is hospitality. And so when I think about hospitality, I think of safety and a sense of belonging. So I think immediately when we're meeting with families, whether we're meeting with them virtually or in person, paying attention to the tone of the meeting, research on our Black families talks about it not, like you kind of decentralizing authority, not being too big on authority and having loosely structured kinds of meetings.

               So it's informal, but it's structured. So there's an agenda, but people have also been given an opportunity to speak into the agenda. And as things come up and if we can't deal with them right on the spot, you kind of don't do like a harsh shutdown. It's more of like, let's put this in the parking lot and have somebody follow up with you, because Black people are very sensitive to tone. They're very sensitive to body language. They're paying attention to communication that's happening that's not verbal.

               So you're thinking about what can create a sense of safety and belonging for Black families. And part of that is attention to how you do things, tone, paying attention to the aesthetics. So when I meet with Black families, I have backgrounds like this on purpose. I have particular music that I use that resonates with my Black families. And they're not a monolithic group so I have to learn about my Black families. They might like jazz. They might like classical, but they're going to show up and feel like the environment is centering them in the experience.

Sheldon:

Well, so here's my question. What if I'm not Black and I want to be hospitable to my Black families and I don't want to offend them by having Black art on the back of my Zoom. What would you say to someone that does not personally identify with the Black community, but they still want to be hospitable and not be offensive at the same time.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

That's a great question. And so I talk about that in my book that it's not about you being Black or not, it's about you representing ideas, life ways, and things that are important to the Black community. And there's ways for you to do that that's authentic to you. So I can do this, because this is authentic to me. I'm not just putting this up because I'm working with Black families. This is authentic to me.

               So you would have to learn about the families that you work with. You should have done some reading ahead to learn somethings about, for importance of aesthetics and tone and the role of music and arts and all of that in the Black community and Black families. And you're not going to be perfect at this. Even a person that is Black, working Black families is going to make mistakes and may be offensive at times. This is a lifelong process. We're all learning. And as you learn, you adjust, but they are looking for the representation. So what usually happens is we're saying that we're coming together to problem solve around Black students, but we don't change anything about how we do things to really center the people that we're supposed to be centering.

               So we come into meetings with an agenda that no one gave input to. The tone of the meeting is very abrupt and it makes people feel like, oh, you wanted me here, but you really didn't want me here. So you wanted my presence, but you don't want my gift of input or questions or concerns. All of those things are about representation. A big part of representation is, are you talking about Black students and problem solving on their behalf? Or are you calling us to another deficit meeting like Dr. McCray said, deficit. Are we sitting here talking four hours about an achievement gap, about a learning loss, about someone being at risk and how parents need to do A, B, and C.

               Okay. So let's identify a problem instead. Let's look at the strengths of the community that has lots of strengths and resources within students themselves and their families and communities. And then how do we create smart goals and plans to build everyone's capacity to meet the students' needs. That's a different conversation. So that's representation of you understand that I have a Black son, and you understand that I don't want to sit in a PTA meeting talking about fundraising. I'm concerned that my Black son is being racially bullied at school. I'm concerned that he's reading English literature and a curriculum that has not changed in 47 years that does not affirm or represent him at all. So those are just examples of representation that have nothing to do with the race or ethnicity of the person that's leading the work.

Sheldon:

So from what I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I think I heard, is even if you do not personally identify, and if you do personally identify, our experiences can be different. I always say my children growing up in Idaho as Black kids are not going to be the same experiences as a child growing up in Oakland. They're still Black, but they just have different experiences based off of their surroundings. So just because you may personally identify with a certain group, does not necessarily mean that you operate the same way. But whether or not you do personally identify or not, parents, families, students, they want to know that they're being heard and that you value them at the end of the day. That's what I'm hearing.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Absolutely. Yep. Well stated.

Sheldon:

I try, I try. Okay. So let's move to number six. What do we got?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

The last one would be, let me see, being relational with families, being related. So I'm going to combine them. I'm going to say relational and interactive. I think about the dual capacity building model that the United States Department of Education adopted as a framework for working with diverse families specifically. And I think about making sure that we're understanding that Black people are a collective group. They're relational. So they have collective traumas. They have collective joy, and there has to be time for relationship building.

               So when we're meeting with families or working with families, you always want to make time for people to connect, even if you start something early and it ended early. I would not say late. I'd say ended early and give time for people to make human connections, because people don't want to show up to something disconnected and leave disconnected. It makes them feel very, very empty.

               So relational means they're concerned about the collective. What are we doing for all students? What are we doing as a group to address issues? And we want to interactive. So no one wants to be a passive learner. No one wants to come to someplace and have information consistently thrown at them. What they want is even if I'm working with parents, we're having working groups. We've identified a problem, our meetings are working meetings. And actually if we use this approach more, we would increase the engagement of our male family members, because the male family members say that they don't come to a lot of things related to schools, because they say... This is what my husband says, you guys talk us to death. We're waiting for the task. What's the assignment? We've had five meetings about what we're going to do.

               So make things working interactive where people feel like they're a part of the problem solving. And a lot of research on Black families talks about they want to be problem solvers. They want to be a part of the solution in a very active way. So relational, thinking about making time for relationships, connectedness, being warm, warm tone, time for people to have icebreakers and get to know each other, people learning each other's names. It's amazing to me how many people get together for meetings on a regular basis and no one has each other's contact information. That's very disconnected. So if something happens... A relational would mean if there's a Black family that's been coming around and all of a sudden they're missing, who's reaching out to that family to say, hey, we noticed that. How are you doing? Is everything okay? Is there any way that we can support you? So, relational and interactive would be the last one.

Sheldon:

You would think that these things are common sense. We should be just doing these things already. I mean, I'm looking at the list. It's like, I thought you had some like magic beans or something that we need to utilize. These are simple tasks that on paper it doesn't sound like a big deal, but sometimes we miss the mark. And when I say we, I mean, we have the best intentions, but it's just these little things that if we just paid more attention to, I think will be so helpful. Again, I'll go down the list again, not assuming. I want to make sure I get this right. That we know the key people or we understand or know everyone, connecting to the processes, the importance of connecting to curriculum, resources, hospitality, relational, and interactive. Simple framework.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Yep. Well, and it's not that we don't do those things. The problem is that when we're in a majority minority setting, the focus of those things goes one way. So it's centralized around the largest group of people in that setting. And in most cases, African-Americans or Black people tend to be the smallest group in the setting. But unfortunately, even when we're working with a majority group, we're doing something with all Black families. We don't even have the skills to now shift from centering whiteness and majority to centering the people that we are trying to partner with and support.

Sheldon:

I love it. So I definitely consider you as providing a voice in leading equity. What is one final word of advice that you can provide to our listeners?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Take time to increase your self care so that you can grow in mindfulness and raise your awareness and consciousness as you work with Black families and Black students this year.

Sheldon:

Thank you. So if we have some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

You can go visit me at my website, www.bridgesleadership.com, is a way to contact me. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. So you can reach me that way too.

Sheldon:

All right. Good. Good. And we'll put the links in the show notes as well. So once again, I'm here with Dr. Yvette Latunde. And so, thank you again. It's always a pleasure connecting. Thank you for your time.

Dr. Yvette Latunde:

Thank you for what you do. Keep up the good work.

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