Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

What's up advocates? Dr. Eakins is here with another episode. As always, this show is sponsored by Leading Equity: Becoming an Advocate for All Students which is available online for pre-order. It should arrive to your home in July. So, we're about a month away.

               Also, I want to send a shout out to all my fathers or those who serve as fathers, as we are celebrating Father's Day. If you're looking for some training, key notes, any of those type of things, you can always reach out to Leading Equity Center. I'd love to work with you and your team.

               You can always book a free 30 minute consultation with me, and let's chat. I'd love to learn about you and your organization, your needs, and see if there's some ways that we can collaborate with each other.

               If you're looking for a student affinity spaces work, I mean, this work I believe is so important these days. We have the Advocacy Room, an affinity space for student voices that we offer due to Leading Equity Center.

               I want to send a quick shout out to Burlington public schools. We did some work with their students. Here's a message that was shared with me as we completed the Advocacy Room with the district.

               It says, "Good evening, Dr. Eakins and Darlene." Darlene is our student trainer here at the Leading Equity Centers.

               The message reads, "I just wanted to share the presentation that our Burlington high faculty advisors shared with our school committee tonight about our first year of the Advocacy Room. We had a couple of students speak during the meeting about their experiences. One student noted that it was the only opportunity he had to learn a solid understanding of contemporary and past struggles of minority groups. I could go on, but I just want to say, thank you. Listening to our students during the Advocacy Room was a highlight of the year for me."

               Shout out to the Burlington public schools for the work that they're doing and for providing a space for students to learn more about social justice and how they can support each other.

               If you are interested in the Advocacy Room, we are currently scheduling for the upcoming school year, the 22/23 school year. Again, my trainer, Darlene Reyes, she is awesome. She speaks three languages. Man! I wish I had that skill set: Portuguese, Spanish, and English as well.

               There is a link in the show notes for more information about our student affinity space. The thing I love about this program is it's not just a venting session. It is a series of sessions that allows students to learn more about how they can support each other, especially when it comes to identities and challenges that students face in the school. But it also provides opportunity for students to work together, to create a plan, to present to their leadership with solutions and suggestions on how they can feel more welcomed and included within the school or your school district.

               So again, there's a link in the show notes if you are looking for more information. Again, free 30 minute consultation. I'd love to meet with you and work with your team or students. Either way, we're here to help.

               On today's episode, I brought on Dr. Jerri A. Johnson. Dr. Johnson is author of the book Imagine That! Chronicles Of an Urban School Principal. In this conversation, Jerri shares some of her experiences as a urban school principal.

               We talk about the importance of understanding the backgrounds of our students and what trauma they might be bringing to school, some supports for them as they heal through trauma. And then Jerri gets vulnerable and shares some of her experiences as a school leader and the self-care that she needed to lead her school. Definitely, a show that you don't want to miss.

               Welcome to the Leading Equity Podcast. My name is Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins. And for over a decade, I've helped educators become better advocates for their students. What is an advocate? An advocate is someone who recognizes that we don't live in a just society.

               Advocates aren't comfortable with the status quo and are willing to speak up on behalf of others. No matter where you are in your journey towards ensuring all of your students are equipped with the resources they need to thrive, I'm here to help you build your knowledge and confidence to ensure equity at your school.

               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 Dr. Jerri Johnson. So without further ado, Jerri, thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Thank you for having me. I am so excited to be here today.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Pleasure is mine. I'm excited as well to have this conversation. Now, we've connected on Instagram and I know you have a book and we'll definitely talk about that. But for those who aren't as familiar with you, could you share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Absolutely. Well, currently I am job searching.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Here we go, interview right now.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

[inaudible 00:05:36].

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Appreciate your honesty.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Exactly.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

However...

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

However.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

In previous lives, I am a 20 plus year educator, which I will always be an educator at heart. I have had the honor of serving as a classroom teacher at various grade levels, instructional coach, reading specialists, assistant principal, principal, and district administrator.

               My most recent position as a principal was actually here in Texas in DeSoto, Texas. This past school year, I had to step out of that position; however, because of personal family reason.

               My superintendent was so gracious as to let me out after I moved to Texas. And then previous to that, I was the director of education for a nonprofit in St. Louis, Missouri. I worked with the local school district there with partnerships, trainings, coalitions, all types of things in the education space as well.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay. Okay. So just so we're clear of those potential superintendents out there. What type of position are you currently looking for?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Currently, I am looking in the nonprofit space. However, I've also talked to some people in learning and developments. I've been most recently pulled into the HR space, but also have been propositioned for superintendent positions in several places as well.

               So I'm entertaining different things just simply because my heart is truly in education and growth of people. So that could span a whole lot of different industries if I would like to, but I am an educator at heart, will always be.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Got you. Okay, okay. I didn't mean to call you out like that. I probably could have asked you before we even started about the position, I just... But I think this works. This works out.

               Let's talk about the... Real quickly, you have a book Imagine That! Chronicles Of an Urban School Principal. Tell me a little bit about the book.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

My book is actually something that had been on my heart for a long time to write. When I say that God pushed me to do it during COVID, during my seventh layoff in my career, I was pushed to go ahead and sit down and write.

               I wrote the book in about 10 days. It is about five scenarios. It's a pretty short read. I didn't want to make it too long because I do have a lot of scenarios from my urban school principal experience.

               But it's about five scenarios that has parent tips, and there're teacher tips, and also leadership tips. Just a compilation of some scenarios that I've been through and just wanted to let people know, let other educators know or parents that you're not alone.

               We all have a story. We all have things going on in our lives and just a call to be gracious, just to give people grace on a daily basis. It's hard for educators. It's hard for parents out here, especially nowadays. And I think we all just need to know that we're not alone.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah. I'm glad you're saying that because we're not alone. And sometimes it does feel like we're in an isolated position, especially if you're in a leadership role.

               I know a lot of principles that say they feel isolated and they feel like it's just a challenge to get anything done because they get a lot of pushback. I'm just curious, would you be open to sharing maybe one of your scenarios in the book?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Oh, it's so many. Okay. So one particular scenario in the book is about a young man that tried to set a fire in the school.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

He actually did it because he wasn't scared of fire. He was used to setting fires in his home, which was different for me to try to understand, but also it was calming to him.

               So when you think about students who have suffered trauma, we need to know these backgrounds of our students because he did what he did in the bathroom of the school, but he was so upset at the end that he didn't want to kind of disappoint his teacher.

               He ran. Of course, he ran away. We caught him, but his thing was, he really didn't want to disappoint his teacher.

               So the relationship between he and his teacher was important enough for him to want to not get caught, but it was not important enough for him to find some calm at school, which was basically starting that fire.

               When you begin to talk about your topics of equity and things like that, I began to talk about the supports that we ended up putting in place for this student after...

               The fire department had to come, the police had to come, they wanted to put him in handcuffs. It was just a whole ordeal and this was... I didn't give the grade level, but it was a second grade student.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Second grade student?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Second grade, who had-

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

They wanted to arrest him?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Yes, and he had a juvenile... He had already had a DJL, because he had already done something at home. I didn't find this out until this incident happened.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Wow.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Yes. He broke down because he didn't, of course, want to be handcuffed and all this type of stuff. But he ended up coming back to school with supports and he actually ended up having a great year.

               The interesting thing about this was that he hadn't been in trouble the whole year until this one incident, and it was around October, November of the school year. So, he was fine up until that time.

               I didn't hear a peep from him. And I was wondering, "Why didn't I hear a peep from him this whole time, but today?" And so, there was some background to that, why he came to school the way he came to school and why he felt like he needed to calm himself by starting that fire.

               He wasn't scared of a fire, but he was scared of his teacher and the relationship with the teacher being damaged, which was something that I ended up using as a leader was that relationship building piece that he had with his teacher and putting some supports in place.

               At the end of the year, he ended up not coming back to school the next year. He's one of those students who was very transient, hopping from school to school because of family situations and things like that.

               But I was happy that the rest of the year, we didn't have any issues because we began to focus on the child and the supports he needed in place rather than just suspending him, throwing it away, getting him out of the school because it actually was a violation of a federal law for him to start a fire.

               So he could have been kicked out of school for that, but to see a second grader go through that, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

               We did some other things that we needed to do for him for the rest of the year. The teacher was very supportive. The class was very supportive, even though they knew what he did. The students in the classroom rallied around him, and we called ourselves a school family. So, we set some things in place to help him.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

I think that grace piece that you mentioned earlier on is really key in this scenario, this story. Some principals would automatically...

               I mean, the fire department and thinking about, "Is this going to hit the news?" And all these different things that, as a leader, those are your thoughts.

               How were you able to provide more of a graceful mindset in this scenario because this could have easily gone a different direction?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

How I was able to was to look at what I... Honestly, to look at what I didn't do. I did not, at the beginning of the year go through...

               This was my first year as a head principal in a school of improvement. So, you know what all comes along with that? The state's looking at you, all that type of stuff.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Right.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

I did not look at all of the students that were my high flyers and look at their previous behaviors and possible... That's how I didn't know he had a DJL. I didn't know he had a juvenile officer assigned to him.

               What I had to do was look at what I didn't do first because we could have put some supports in place for him at the beginning of the year, rather than letting it get to that point.

               So looked at what I had to do, recognize that it slipped through me because I'm the leader. I got to take the L on that. And then sometimes leaders got to take Ls, right?

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah, yeah

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

And then I moved on from there. So looking at what they tried to do the year before, looking at the resources that we actually had that year, because we were a school of improvement. We had over a half million dollars that was coming to us to put into these types of resources: mental health, behavioral health.

               I got a social worker that was there every day. My counselor started checking in. The DJL started checking in with the counselor, the parent liaison, all of that.

               Having a team of people that were tag teaming him daily, everybody had a time that they had to tag team him, even if somebody was out on my leadership team, they knew who would have to step in for it. So, having...

               I had to have the grace because I had to look at me first and the fact... I had to forgive myself for not doing what I needed to do. You need to look at those students that are your high flyers. You need to get to the root cause of why they are doing what they're doing in some way, shape or form. And then you need to start putting supports, wraparound services in place for those students to try to help them.

               Now, there are some students that won't respond to it. However, he was one of those cases that responded very positively to it even without the parental support. He had none. He had none. He had us, and that's all he had.

               So, the only thing that we could do was work within the framework that we've been given and give him the time that he needed at school so that he would be able to make those decisions that he needed to make while he wasn't with us. That's all we could do.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. You're sharing some vulnerability with us and I think it's a learning experience that you had based off of, again, how could I have been more preventative as opposed to being more reactionary?

               I'm curious, as far as... Because you mentioned that there were things that you put in place to support him, supports that were put in place for this child. Could you share a little bit about what those type of supports were?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Sure. We ended up upping his visits from the DJL. That was number one. The DJL was kind of staying back because he hadn't heard from the school. And so, he thought everything was going fine.

               So, we upped those visits. He ended up being in a support group with the counselor. My counselor ran about three or four different groups with our students; this was a K-5 school. Three or four different groups with our students.

               He was in actually the anger management group. He was angry about some things. And that was what brought on the fire being still calming for him. Don't ask me why. I mean, that's just what it was. And then he ended up being with the social worker.

               He had meetings and sessions with her. He had one individual and then two group sessions with her. He saw the social worker three times a week. He also had the parent liaison that checked in on him because he did not have the parental support. He was with grandparents. And in this home, it was a bunch of cousins, uncles and aunts, but not parents.

               The parent liaison would check in with him, make sure everything was okay at home, if it wasn't, things like that. She would check in with him at least two days a week.

               Then we had somebody checking in on him five days a week. Every day he got a touch. I also had a PBIS person, a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports who was a black male, who checked in on him daily. He had a check in and he had a check out with him daily. So he had one or more people checking in on him.

               And then he also had about three or four students in his classroom that were his buddy until he could prove to us that he could go to the restroom by himself without causing any problems. He had buddies. Even if he had to come to the office, he had a hallway buddy. And he got to choose those people. He got to choose those people.

               Now, if it was somebody that we knew he was going to cause, wreak havoc with, then of course, no. That wasn't going to happen. I made that decision, not the classroom teacher. He knew it was coming from me if there was shut down.

               There were some things that I had to take over as the principal and not give that to the teacher because his relationship with the teacher was what it was. I wanted it to stay that way because he was with her all day. He wasn't with me all day.

               So if somebody needed to shut something down, that was going to be me. And he saw me every morning at the front door, as long as I was in the building because I was there pretty much every day, unless I had a meeting, and he saw me every afternoon going out to the buses.

               I was very visible in the mornings and in the afternoon. So if he had an issue or if I saw something not right on his face, then I would take care of it at that point in time.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Were there periodic checks on progress or meetings that needed to happen in between to see if there's any sort of modifications to these plans that took place?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Yes. The counselor and the PBIS specialist. So the counselor was an African American woman; PBIS specialist, African American man, because sometimes we know we don't have a whole lot of African American teachers in our urban schools and that made a difference with him; and his teacher was an African American woman as well.

               But they got together and they would talk about where he was, check in with the... The parent liaison would check in with them, if anything was going on at home with the parents and things like that.

               For parent-teacher conferences, I made sure that I contacted the grandparents if they were not able to show up because I wanted the grandparent to know that I was involved and I know what's going on in the school.

               So I made sure that during parent conferences, if they weren't able to show up that I contacted them. But for the most part, they came to parent conferences and I would sit in on that conference so that we could at least have a check in.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Good. Good. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I encourage folks to get the book and read that scenario and also the accompanying scenarios as well. And it sounds like this is really helpful for folks that are not just working in urban schools, but I would just imagine that any type of school setting, these kind of things can happen. And so, just being able to have those supports in place and responding in a way that's most helpful for our kids these days.

               When it comes to trauma, being a trauma-informed leader or educator in general, especially now with the pandemic, what are some suggestions that you might have if challenges like these come up? How to handle these type of situations?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Well, the first thing that I did after these types of situations is we focused more on being a school... what we called a school family. We started to meditation at the beginning of the day, at least five minutes. I always did morning announcements so students knew that I was in the building, teachers too because sometimes when you're not in the building...

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

You know?

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

You know how that goes.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Right. So...

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

When the cat is away, the mice will play. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I get it.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

A whole lot. Play all day. Focusing on the social, emotional piece, I think it's really important, especially right now, even though I started that before the pandemic. Kids need that. They need to know that when they come to school they're safe. Not just physically, that's very important, but emotionally, psychologically. They need to know that this is a safe place.

               It's not easy to create a climate like that as a leader, unless you have teachers on board with that too. So being very intentional and expect in your expectations, but then also inspecting those expectations in classrooms, in hallways, in the cafeteria, in the gym, for the assembly, and keep reiterating that. Keep reiterating that this is a safe space. I am the safe keeper. I keep you safe, and I keep everybody safe.

               Even parents walking in this building, parents should feel the same way when they walk in, that somebody's not just going to accost them or treat them disrespectfully or anything like that. Customer service was very important to me and they are our customers. I looked at it as that.

               So being trauma-informed includes to me that whole social, emotional piece and making sure that you have that at the forefront of everything that you do in the academics, because every classroom should have that peace of safety in it as well. So kids know that the adults are being safe. So the expectation is that I'm going to be safe.

               That helped me as a leader because teachers knowing that they were supported, teachers knowing that I'm going to go to bat with them, before them. I may say something to you behind closed doors because you were wrong but out here in front of the parents, I'm taking care of you and I'm supporting you, but I can't support you if I don't know what's going on with you.

               So that communication piece, to me, that's being trauma-informed as well, because your teachers are going through stuff and they're the ones that got to take care of the kids. So if you don't take care of the teachers, how are your kids going to taken care of?

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Well-

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

So you, as a leader, it's a lot. It's a lot on a daily basis and you have to, as the leader, put yourself aside and have to understand other people all day and it's...

               I mean, that's why I say you have to be graced to lead. You really do have to be graced to lead because if you cannot do that on a daily basis, it's not like...

               I'm not saying run yourself into the ground. I'm not saying that. Do your self-care, take your time, whatever. I even promoted it with the teachers. Even if I send an email on the weekend, that doesn't mean you have to read it. That just means I need to get it out of my head, okay? That's the type A in me.

               I would let them know ahead of time. That's me. That doesn't have to be you. I'm just... need to get it out of my head, make sure you have the information that you need so that we all can be successful. All right.

               So to me, those are things that are part of being trauma-informed. I don't need to know everything that's going on in your life, but I do need you to inform me so that I can support you with taking care of our students that come here every day, and they're caring their things as well.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

That's a lot. First of all, I agree. I agree with everything you said. I'm just thinking about it as a former principal. I wasn't leading during pandemic, but I can only imagine.

               Could you mention, okay, we want to make sure our students are taken care of, want to make sure my staff is taken care of, and then you kind of sprinkled in, well make sure you take care of yourself as well. But I want to hone in on that a little bit more, because right now there's a lot happening with just pandemic teaching stuff. And you got book banning, critical race theory stuff, and you got all kind of parents.

               There's a lot to juggle and manage these days as a school leader. What type of tips? I mean, how are you main... How were you able to take care of yourself? You said, mental health and...

               But did you feel like you could have taken a day off for your mental health? Did you feel like that was an option or was there a lot of pressure on you to feel like I have to show up at every turn?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Yeah. It was a lot of pressure. It absolutely was a lot of pressure. I stepped into a situation where I was in a Pre-K2 school here in Texas, different state, different expectations, all that type of stuff. You know what's going on in Texas with critical race theory, all that.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

I might have heard, I might have heard of [inaudible 00:29:38].

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Yeah. They don't want you teaching nothing.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

And then they didn't want to do the masks, all types of stuff.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah,

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

It was... And then I was in a school, a founding principal of a pre-K, three year old to second grade school. I was supposed to have an assistant principal. She went out on maternity leave the first week of school.

               I was in the school with 600 something tiny humans by myself, handling it by myself in a new state and everything. No, I did not feel like I could take a day off. I didn't.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Yeah.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

I just didn't. I finally did get an assistant principal that used to be a principal in the district, which was pretty cool. But then stuff started happening in St. Louis and I ended up having to step out of that position.

               However, what I will tell you is this, during my three months there, the most complimentary thing that I heard before I left was from my kindergarten team. And one of the teachers said, "Dr. Johnson, we hate to see you leave." She made me cry.

               She was like, "We hate to see you leave, because you know what? We knew that when you were here, we were safe. We were taken care of. And we knew that somebody had our back."

               And so I knew that what I wanted to do there, I had already accomplished within a few months. So I knew that the rest of the school year, it probably would've been great for me. It probably wouldn't have been as bad as I thought it would've been because I had staff members that felt that way.

               I can't say enough about educators working in these conditions. That's why I said in my book, "Just give people the leeway and the understanding that you would want for yourself in this situation."

               You don't know what teachers are dealing with in the classroom with 25, 30 students during a pandemic. You don't know that. Nobody thought this would happen. Nobody knew what it would be like.

               I had one point in time where I had 10 classrooms shut down out of 25 in my school. And we were still running the school, short-staffed, all of that because of COVID. So it wasn't easy, but I think giving them the leeway to be human and them understanding that I was human...

               Because I didn't have a problem talking to them about certain things. My door was always open. They got weekly updates. Parents got weekly updates. I tried my best to be as communicative as possible and supportive as possible because I knew it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy for me, so I couldn't have imagined for them.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Right, right. And that makes sense, because if you're dealing with it on your level, you can only... Yeah. So, that makes sense and I'm glad you were able to make it through and shout out to all the principals, all the educators out there that are braving, that are dealing with their own personal stuff plus being professional, who just love kids. And that's what it is. I love kids, and so here we are. So shout out to all my educators out there.

               And Jerri, thank you so much for hanging in there and for the work that you've been doing. I appreciate you sharing these stories. I definitely consider you as providing a voice in Leading Equity. Could you take us home maybe with your final thoughts?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

I just want to say that all of us have been through something that we probably never thought we would go through in our lives, on this earth, especially in the United States.

               Our kids; however, they are resilient but they also need some things. And you can see it as they're crying out in all of these things that you see that they're doing now to their teachers or against their teachers. Our teachers also need things.

               So, our education system really needs to look at how we handle human beings. Are we being human? Are we just being good people? And what does good mean to you? So, being equitable in our education system has never existed. We need to be the ones to create that. The time is now. If we don't do it, I don't know who else is.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Go on and preach sister. I hear you. Go ahead, go ahead. I hear you. I hear you. If we got some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

I have a new website, it is called fromthedeskofthedr.com. And then LinkedIn is where I'm at the most.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, I'm not really on that much. Maybe I need to start, but I don't do much on those. Maybe you can give me some pointers.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Whatever works, whatever... That's the way I look at it. I try to do one platform at a time. It's just too much. It's just me. So I can't just be [inaudible 00:35:28].

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Right? It's a lot.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

It's [inaudible 00:35:32] Yeah. It's a lot of work but... Okay. So you said LinkedIn. Repeat your website one more time.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

My website is fromthedeskofthedr.com.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Fromthedeskofthe-

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Fromthedeskofthedr.com.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Good one. All right. Jerri, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Jerri Johnson:

Thank you. I so appreciate it.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

This episode was brought to you by the Leading Equity Center. For more podcast, interviews, and resources, head on over to leadingequitycenter.com.

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