>>I really love the phrase, 'Listening with generosity.'

>>I wrote it down.

>>And one of the things that listening takes is us having a space that is intentionally created to center the whole student.

So we can't anticipate what students are gonna say and just tell them what they should say.

We have to create a space and allow them the agency and the opportunity and encourage their power in order to speak.

>>Production funding for 'Racism, Challenging Perceptions' is provided by Community Foundation for a greater Richmond, partnering with individuals, families and businesses to connect local giving to our region's needs and opportunities.

More @CFRichmond.org.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) >>I have the privilege of discussing strategies at schools and universities are developing to address systemic racism and to provide equitable and inclusive outcomes.

I'm excited to welcome Dr. Shadae Harris and Dr. Tomika Ferguson to the conversation.

Thank you both so much for joining me here.

>>Thank you.

>>Thank you.

>>Dr.

Shadae Thomas Harris currently serves as Richmond Public Schools', chief engagement officer.

Her role focuses on building authentic relationships with families and community partners.

Dr. Harris has been her career working towards educational equity for all students, especially communities of color, and those who have been underserved.

Dr. Harris completed her doctorate of education leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she's had opportunity to collaborate with the Richmond Public Schools', Virginia's Department of Juvenile Justice and the Virginia Governor's Children's Cabinet to implement policy and program improvements for RPS students whose education has been interrupted due to a court change.

And Dr. Tomika Latrese Ferguson is the assistant Dean for student affairs and inclusive excellence.

And an assistant professor in the department of educational leadership in the school of education at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr. Ferguson's research, centers on the intersection of race, gender, sports and educational equity.

A majority of her work examines the experiences of black girls and women in secondary and post-secondary education spaces.

Additionally, she explores the influence of inclusion, equity and anti-racist practice within the professional development of K-12, higher education and non-profit leaders.

Wow.

First you two are amazing.

And so I've been so, so, so excited to just sit down with you all, hear more about first, how you've been doing, because I know folks in education systems have been doing quite a lot, but just to have the conversation around equity and education.

And I think what I'll jump into just to dive into the conversation is that, when you look at whether pre-K through 12 or even colleges and universities, there's this really interesting intersection that's happening around systemic racism that we're facing throughout the pandemics.

What has your role felt like?

What has it looked like and how have you had to show up in your work as we are pushing through some of these pandemics?

>>You know, because systemic racism is so embedded throughout our society, I think one of the things that has been uncanny has just been so much attention that's drawn to the school system, both in K-12 and also in our higher education spaces.

It has felt heavy a lot more than it has in the past.

There have been more burdens that I think I've experienced and sometimes more of the safety of my colleagues, their comfort, knowing that we can't get to there as we have in the past to maybe have hallway conversations or to show up and have lunch and have more community building.

And I think that sometimes including myself, my colleagues and I, we felt more isolated throughout all of these racial and health crisis.

But some of it has been feeling the burdens that our school system feels being in a school of education with pre-service teachers it's hard.

Because you see they're facing so many challenges with, am I safe to go to the school to finish my hours?

And my license requirements.

It's been heavy, but at the same time, I do feel as though I'm a part of a community where despite the challenges we've been able to rally together and support one another.

>>For me specifically, the pandemic has really had a bright light on just existing inequities that were already there.

And as the chief engagement officer, sometimes family engagement can almost be a afterthought, but the way the pandemic really made us think about how are we communicating with our families.

What is it that our students are going through when they're not in school.

Like the pandemic had an interesting way of shining a brighter light on these already existing racial inequalities, academic gaps.

But it was the first time where I saw a family engagement, like at the forefront of the conversation in a different way.

I think what it did highlight is the important role that families play and the power that families have.

And I've seen that just kind of throughout this pandemic with us, really leaning on what are the supports of our students and families need.

>>You both are so accurate.

And myself working in the family engagement space, it really illuminated everything.

You're at this place of what we do is already important and paramount, but then you're kind of competing with priorities.

And so you're trying to figure out this... You have this voice here and this priority, whether it's you're handling technology for students.

Universities are they coming back into the space?

Are we working from home or not all of these things that are coming to play.

And so you're really trying to figure out what those priorities are.

What have supports look like that you all have really tried to put in play, and I'll start with you Shadae.

And just thinking about schools have been all things to everyone.

(Cole chuckles) And so I know you feel that as chief engagement officer, but what are some of the social supports that you all had to really quickly kind of fine tune to make sure that you all were meeting students and families where they are.

>>I think the first really was around, again some of the issues that were prevalent prior to the pandemic, but when you think about food insecurity, when you think about housing insecurity, these are all things that were just very much amplified by the pandemic.

So we already in RPS had a program where we had in-house housing navigators.

We weren't being just reactive to students and families who were experiencing homelessness, but proactive and was able to get a lot of funding to not only support families with looking for housing, but helping them financially put down their first month's rent, last month rent.

And we found like a lot of our families, that's kind of the support that they need.

And you talk about social supports.

But I think at the foundation, if families are homeless, if they have food insecurity, those were the kind of like very glaring things that allowed us... Or that we saw were getting in the way of our students being able to thrive.

So if we understand the kind of like foundation from which these problems are stemming from.

It allows us to provide those social supports in a different way, cause now we're addressing the root cause.

And not just us kind of a bandaid, but how can we do both, provide that mental health, but also acknowledge that our families are operating within a system in which housing isn't always fair.

In which you have a very high eviction rate.

>>I saw you shaking your head a bit Tomika.

It's all of the things.

>>It's all of it.

Because when we are talking about higher education, we're not just talking about students.

Over half of our students are working full time while they're trying to get either an undergraduate or graduate degree.

And so they were parents of some of the children that you're talking about.

When we talk about providing social support for our students, we also have to think about all of who the student may be.

Are we flexing our curriculum to be more considerate?

It's not just put everything online to be more student focused, but really to move towards being student centered.

What is it like to be in a pandemic and have responsibilities and to still meet your educational goals and provide for your family.

And so social support for us has been making sure that one, our faculty have access to the technology to be able to flex the curriculum.

The knowledge, the training around teaching excellence.

And also thinking about our staff members, I oversee our student affairs team in the school of education.

That's our advising, our licensure programs, our recruitment, they were struggling to try to recruit a new class while also trying to retain the students who were there, how are they persisting?

And so when you think about all the multiple communities that are involved, we have to think about how are we showing for everyone individually?

Because if one faculty member is not fully supported socially and professionally, that bleeds into the classroom, that impacts how they show up for those students who also may be relying on them for form of social support.

So mental health is when you said it, it just sparks something because it has been the thing that has become the dominant conversation of every day now and moving forward.

>>Absolutely.

It's interesting.

One of our chats earlier, we focused on like just mental health and wellness.

It really is woven into all of the different aspects and discussion points that we're having.

People are more mindful to take care of themselves, whether they're doing it or not.

And a lot of it has to do are really intense issues that we're facing.

As I was listening to you Shadae, I think about, if I'm hungry, I'm not thinking about a math problem.

It's just no way as a parent, if I'm thinking about my housing situation or if I don't have a job, it's hard for me to show up to the family engagement event.

And so it's really having this holistic understanding of our students and our families.

One thing that really struck me Tomika, as we were talking and I was just saying, man, schools are everything now they're the lunchroom, they're the IT support, they're the childcare and for a lot of folks they're a safe space.

And you said something that I don't want to say, I want you to share it.

Share your perspective on that cause I think it kind of drives in the engagement a bit deeper of even understanding what safe spaces may be or what they should be.

>>When we start thinking about safe space, it's almost we're going to put our students in a space where all of their needs will be met.

There are no worries.

And I think one thing that even Shadae you brought up was that not all of that is provided all of the time.

There has to be extra work done.

And our conversation I talked about, there's this desire for safety, but sometimes safety is really difficult to guarantee.

But if we think about it and reframe it in a form of a brave space, a space where we can have people be encouraged to bring their problems.

And even though we can't meet all of the needs, we are making an effort as a community to provide the needs that we are aware of and that we have control over and a brave space says, Hey, I know that you are struggling and you're insecure, but you can come here and we can encourage you to be better.

And sometimes safety is so fragile that encouraging bravery, encouraging people to just show up who they are.

It just flips what we think about safety in a different way.

Because it makes us really think that it's not just safety that's guaranteed, but it's safety that we're striving for, but we can encourage you to take a little bit of risk.

And to be brave and courageous, we can partner together inside and outside of our K-12 systems and also with university partners to meet more needs than we probably could do solo.

>>It's interesting, when I think about words like brave and bold, which I impart on my now nine year old daughter, often it took me a while to come into brave and bold as a young child, I didn't feel I was very shy.

And so I'm curious, I want to stay on this, not even idea, but the necessity of being brave and bold, how do we that for our young people?

And I'm really thinking about is we're talking about black folks and systemic racism.

How do you encourage that?

With students that have so many challenges in front of them, how do you invite a brave space, for them to kind of speak their mind and to feel comfortable.

So just kind of want to just talk about that a bit to see what you all have done, in your respective areas around just encouraging them to be brave and bold.

>>I think it really starts with listening with generosity.

Often, that's a foundational part that we just skip over we just listening to our young people.

And when you listen with generosity, you're kind of taking everything away and just really kind of like hearing that person not to respond, not to answer, but just to bear witness to their experience.

And I think being able to do that with our students, with our teachers, with our families, that is a way in which people are going to feel or begin to feel that they're in this container where they can be brave, where they can be bold.

We have to understand that, especially in our educational system was not designed for people of color and knowing that we have decades of mistreatment, of a many of our...

Especially not even many, especially for our families of color, in terms of how we've served them.

You have to start, what do they say?

The first step in healing is truth.

You have to start by just like listening to their truth.

And I think that's so important when you think about students, because what they went through, our Richmond students were out of school when we opened they were out of school 544 days.

So just that start had to be listening to those experiences.

We don't know what happened, what they went through and what families they are the experts on their experience.

And I think being able to work towards getting to that brave space really starts with listening with generosity.

>>And so I think from a university perspective, we are trying our best to let students know that you are one... some of them are coming into their own.

They don't realize that they're adults, that they have voice and they have power and Shadae you are right.

Educational systems were not designed for people of color and within higher education, even women to participate.

And as such, there's a lot of revisionist work that's happening in all of our P-16 spaces.

We are trying to create space because spaces were never thought about.

And so in the power of creating space that we have, and I'm speaking from a space of authority, because we're all sitting around highly educated.

We can create spaces within our realms of influence.

When we create those spaces, we cannot construct without doing with the student.

We have to construct with students.

And sometimes as educators, we have to construct what the students tell us to do.

And that's a shift in how we're taught to function as adults.

Is to allow the student's voice to lead.

But sometimes they know what they need more than we do.

We know the basics.

But one thing that I have learned from the TikTok and the social media (all chuckling) and just all of these things is that they're creating cultures daily.

We're sometimes operating from cultures that we've lived in and there's a disconnect and intergenerational spaces have more power than those who are being dictated towards older generations, because unless we're open and to know what it is that we need to grow in and expand, it becomes really difficult.

So listening with generosity, it's an ultimate way to start.

But I would also add to that and also walking with grace.

Realizing that we have to give them the space and they might not do it the way we did.

But in those spaces, they know what it feels like to experience systemic racism.

It looks different.

For them, systemic racism is now on television or on their phones, or on their iPads.

It didn't happen for us that way.

A lot of times we learn by videos from older generations, but they're watching it in real time.

They're experiencing black death in real time.

They're experiencing these things when they're happening in live, they didn't have a separation.

And so that grace of maybe it's not pretty, or it's not as organized and it's not as respectful as we would want it to be because they're experiencing emotions and frustration and anger at the same time.

So when we create space, we have to allow them space to process.

And again, mental health, social support, and also social emotional learning that I know RPS is doing a lot of.

It's coming together to center the students without condemning them because they aren't doing in the way that we think that they should.

And that includes a curriculum that reflects them.

>>Yes, indeed.

Wow.

I mean, you know, talking about centering young people, the two G grace and generosity.

Bringing that into the fold.

I think we on a personal level as black women, we naturally will lead with those.

Because it's a lived experience for us.

So we quickly see ourselves in the students that we're interacting with, but I think about peers and allies, they want to work with students.

What's that conversation like when you're looking at...

I'll use educational terms, professional learning, potential supports for staff, for adults who are supporting these young people, what are some innovative things or just strategies that folks can do that may not feel as comfortable being in that space?

What are some things that we can do, or maybe that you all have done to make sure they're all educators, who may not have the lived experience, really feel comfortable meeting students in that brave and bold space that they all really should be in.

As we're looking to again, provide safe spaces for our young people.

>>I think one of the most powerful things that we've done starting before the pandemic, but also continuing during the pandemic was home visit.

Home visits as a high impact strategy, but really done thoughtfully so that you are training educators on what is the process of building meaningful, authentic, and trusting relationships with families.

I would say that has been, and will continue to be one of our most impactful strategies that we've been doing throughout the pandemic.

>>One of the things that we've done in higher ed is use our education and education of our community to really make a effort to meet different individuals where they are.

You use the word it's like ally.

I also think of the word co-conspirator people who actually want to do the work and are willing to subvert some of their authority and give it to someone else.

And so the first thing that has to happen is the raising of critical consciousness.

And that means that you have to understand what is actually going on around me.

One thing that I'm proud of that the VCU school of education has done through our offices strategic engagement is provide national opportunities for different educators to come on board with us and learn more about what is anti racism, what does it look like?

What does it feel like?

How can you use it in a practical way?

When we start thinking about changing perceptions and challenging perceptions, we have to figure out what those perceptions are.

And yes, unconscious bias and conscious bias does exist.

But sometimes there are so many systems that we exist in daily that we have to disrupt it through taking the veil off.

And so through adequate training, professional development, we've been able to do that as a school of education.

And my colleagues have done that through our staff members, our university leaders, those in the community and across the country have participated in some of that.

And additionally, we also have to think about ways that we can implement it.

And so having cohorts and professional learning communities, where people are constantly talking about these issues.

It's another practical strategy.

We can't think that one conversation is going to transform our education systems as Shadae alluded to earlier, it has taken decades, there's decades of mistrust, hundreds of years of issues that have compounded and been informed and informed perceptions and belief.

>>I think another thing that comes up, when you look ahead, we are being asked to do a lot right now, but I think it's a great opportunity to stop and to speak to you all as folks who are educators and work in educational systems, what do you all need?

Like in collaboration and in partnership, I mean the requests come in daily to you.

But what are the things that you all need if someone is a community member or a parent who's watching or listening, a legislator who's watching or listening, what needs do you think you all have when you think about the systems that you work with?

>>We don't think enough about policy.

And how things at a legislative level govern the actual on the ground practices.

Everything from bills that allow us to have more social workers in school or decrease that ratio, how schools are funded.

Those are things that we can change.

And I would press on our elected officials to think about how does education remain at the forefront.

How do you provide universal pre-K. Like these are foundational things.

When you think about housing.

When you think about eviction policy, when you think about food and security, all of these things.

And I would charge both families to think about the people who govern us, whether it's our school board, our legislators, pay attention as you're voting, as you're making those key decisions and would ask that, we really think about how can we put policies that keep our children at the forefront.

Everything from funding formulas to increased mental health support, eliminating very punitive discipline practices.

That push our black and brown boys and girls out.

But those are the things that I would ask everyone to kind of lean into whether it's from an advocacy standpoint, from our legislators.

But like let's hold our community accountable.

For making sure that our students and families are first.

>>It's so amazing.

I love how, and go ahead.

>>I just wanted to add, because just to emphasize what's Shadae just stated, when it comes to policy, we have to think about who is being impacted by it.

And I just want to bring up this systemic racism, these issues when we're creating policies, are we creating barriers even with good intentions of this policy.

And I want to bring that up because what she mentioned everything is so interrelated.

Housing is a system.

Education is a system, food and trying to find that is another system.

There's a multitude of systems that one well-intentioned policy could disrupt Something else for someone else.

And so I just wanted to just highlight that because if we can pay attention to who will be impacted.

And maybe asking those individuals who will be impacted, how will this impact you?

It's a great way to help us and our legislators and those who have the power to make some of the changes that need to be done to liberate our students, to liberate our teachers, to liberate our school systems, to do a great job.

Have we talked with them before we emphasize a policy, before we implement it?

And if we haven't then sometimes that's actually the problem because our intentions can be misguided because they're misinformed.

>>Yeah.

>>Thank you all.

Thank you both just first for the work that you do and that you lead.

We look forward to deepening our work around equity and education.

>>Thank you.

>>Thank you.

(soft upbeat music) >>Production funding for 'Racism Challenging Perceptions is provided by Community Foundation for a greater Richmond, partnering with individuals, families, and businesses to connect local giving to our region's needs and opportunities more @CFRichmond.org.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music)