Teaching Our Children About the Black Lives Matter Movement

When teaching elementary students about the Black Lives Matter Movement, I describe what my life was like as an African American little girl. For example, when I was in elementary school, I did not get to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. give his original, “I have a Dream” speech. My teachers would play the speech for my class every year so that we could picture this amazing vision for America. Dr. King dreamed that one day black people would be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. [Read more…]

Yvette King-Berg, College Readiness

Yvette King-Berg, is the Executive Director of Youth Policy Institute’s Charter Schools. She was the former California Charter Schools Association Vice-President of School Development and Outreach-Southern California. Ms. King-Berg has over thirty years of experience working with teachers, students, parents, and organizations in a variety of positions including Director, Assistant Director, Curriculum Advisor, Bilingual, and Title 1 Coordinators, classroom teacher (K-12) in Pasadena and LAUSD. She has been married for twenty-three years, and is the proud mother of her son, EJ, who attends UC Berkeley.

What Can Educators with Families Do to Fight Institutional Black Racism and Civil Rights Injustices?

As an educator for over 30 years, I am committed to supporting the healthy development and academic successes of students and their families. As a white-women raised in Oakland in the 1960s, I am a social justice advocate and educator. I initially volunteered for nonprofit agencies who helped immigrant families access social services. As a parent education teacher, I created parenting classes that taught parents how to partner with schools. And then I worked at United Way and taught nonprofits how to partner with schools to leverage significant educational resources. As a doctoral student, I partnered with culturally diverse community partners to create community-empowered schools. Some of these schools became part of a VISTA project and later best practices were featured at a National Title I Conference and at a National Association of Bilingual Education Conference. We continue to write our program strategies in www.GenParenting.com blogs and through teacher and parent education publications.

Racially Sensitive Community Building

Community building is my passion. I am not effective without the guidance of my sisterhood of culturally diverse educators and colleagues that represent many different cultural and economic backgrounds. I am continually reminded that as a person of privilege, I may accidently misspeak or be racially insensitive due to my white entitlement blindness. Most folks trust my sincerity, forgive my misdeeds, and encourage me to continue the journey of social action change. [Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.