(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, I'm Steve Adubato.

Recently my colleague Jacqui Tricarico and I traveled with our team to do a series of interviews down at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention Annual convention.

We talked to educators, educational administrators, authors, poets, people engaged in a whole range of activities, impacting our kids, impacting our schools in the world of education.

Here now are those conversations.

Jacqui, myself and some really interesting people in AC.

- Hi, I am Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One" here at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City.

I am so pleased to be joined by Cierra Kaler-Jones, who's the executive director of Rethinking Schools.

So great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So we were talking about this before, you grew up in Galloway, New Jersey, which is right outside Atlantic City here, and Absegami High School graduate like me, we have that in common.

Describe your high school experience though, because I know that's kind of where things started for you in terms of wanting to become an activist and make change where you saw that it was really needed.

- Absolutely, so, believe it or not, growing up, I was very shy.

I was so shy that I hated raising my hand in class, but I loved to dance.

I've been dancing since I was five years old.

And at the time that I was a junior in high school, the school board ended up cutting the arts programs because of statewide budget cuts.

And that was the first time in my life that I felt overwhelmingly passionate about something, so passionate that I knew that I could no longer be silent.

And so we started organizing, students were coming together with teachers, community members, and we started writing to the local paper, we started a social media campaign, and we started showing up at school board meetings.

And we told our personal stories about what the arts programs meant to us, and we were actually successful in that campaign, and they reinstated all of the arts programs.

But from there, that was the impetus for me to get into activism, to get into organizing, but also I learned the importance of storytelling, is that we could actually build narrative power in coming together to be able to change policy, to change decisions made by these decision making bodies within our school district.

And that's what led me to arts education work, and ultimately to becoming a dance teacher.

- And so a lot of things that you're describing are things that you're doing at Rethinking Schools.

Describe what the organization is for us.

What are some of the things that you're doing right now?

- Yes, so Rethinking Schools is the nation's leading grassroots publisher for racial and social justice and education.

So we have a quarterly magazine as well as book publications.

And one of the things that's really unique about our work is that all that you see that we put out is, first, person-centered.

It's story-rich, it's narrative-driven of teachers, parents, students, organizers, activists, telling their own stories about sparks of possibility in the classroom, in the community, strategies for organizing.

And we have several campaigns including our "Teaching for Black Lives" campaign that's all around our book, and what does it actually mean to teach for Black lives, to organize for Black lives?

And in this current moment where we're seeing over 44 states and counting have either introduced or passed legislation that is trying to ban critical conversations about racism and oppression in schools, we are doubling down on that work.

One of our newest books is "Transgender Justice in Schools," in light of all of the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans legislation that's been circulating the country, to be able to provide resources for teachers to demand transgender justice in their schools, both for trans teachers and also for trans students, and also to give trans students a space to be able to share their stories so that we can learn directly from them.

- So you mentioned a little bit, but we're actually just a few days after the presidential election, and we're going to be having another Trump administration take office in January, 2025.

What does another Trump administration look like for the work that you are doing?

How is it impacting what you and your team are trying to accomplish, especially when he is talking about dismantling the Department of Education and content restrictions when it comes to a lot of things that you're speaking about?

- Yes, well, even in this in-between time of Trump administration, we have seen educators who have been terminated and educators that have been doxxed for teaching the truth about history, for talking about racism and sexism, for talking about genocide happening all around the world.

And so we are fearful, but not defeated, and recognizing that our work is going to continue, we're gonna double down in that work, but we also recognize that we are probably going to have to lean into more support for educators who oftentimes don't have the legal resources that they need to be able to fight this legislation.

I think that it also creates a chilling effect where even teachers who may not be in states that have passed this legislation are fearful of teaching about the truth.

And so we want to make it so that there are resources, that there is support, and there's also community, because many of these teachers have expressed feeling siloed, feeling alone in the work that they're doing.

And we have helped to create this national community of social justice educators, and we know that that's going to be even more prevalent, particularly because a lot of the legislation.

And I think about "Project 2025" and all that is outlined in that document and what it means for our work ahead, and part of it is also making sure that trans students feel safe in school to be themselves and to create a space that is inclusive for the schools that we are trying to build.

I think part of it too is that we're also seeing attacks on public education.

The Trump administration, of course, is going to bring more privatization of schools.

And so that's something that we are actively battling and trying to make sure that we are preserving and protecting the integrity of public schools, but also making public schools the best that they possibly can be.

- And tax on education, and that's not just a Trump or a GOP thing, that's across the board.

- Yes, yes!

- Where do you anticipate drawing support from in terms of what you're trying to do when it comes to mandates and some of these things that you wanna see implemented in schools, especially if we are going to see Congress run by the GOP?

- Yes, so all of our...

The main aspect of our support really is grassroots.

It's people in community, it's teachers, retired teachers, it's students, it's organizers, it's activists, because we believe in people power, and we know that we have the power to change things if we band together, and that we're really strategic in our demands and in enacting these policy changes.

And so that's something that gives me hope.

I think about the work of "Zen Education Project," which we co-ordinate with Teaching for Change.

And "Zen Education Project" has free, downloadable people's history lessons online for teachers, but it's also like Rethinking Schools and advocacy organization where we are really supporting folks.

We have our annual "Teach Truth" campaign and our rally where people go to historic sites all across the country to publicly pledge to teach the truth regardless of the law, and then allies who say, "I am going to support the teachers."

And so building this space and finding people in local areas that can show up at school board meetings to advocate for change in legislation, or to show up at school board meetings to advocate for the reinstatement of some of these well-decorated, highly-celebrated, and beloved teachers, that's what we're building and that's what we'll continue to build.

And we have a couple of really strong examples of showing up, signing petitions, moving petitions, and then being able to present them to different districts to be able to preserve, and protect, and save some of these social justice educators who are doing incredible work in their communities, but are just facing blatant attacks.

- So we're talking about inclusion a lot, but inclusion can mean different things for different people.

What does it mean to you when we're talking about having all kids represented in school through the materials that the teachers are teaching them?

- Yeah, so I think one aspect that we really try to lift up Rethinking Schools is creating space for dialogue and discussion in classrooms, right?

There's this Freireian concept of the banking model where the teacher has all of the information and you're just filling the student with that information.

And so we try to refute that in trying to promote inclusivity, because when you're in dialogue with students, when you ask them about their lived experiences, right, it's bringing that into the classroom.

Because as educators, we're not going to have an in-depth expertise about every student's background, and every student is different, right?

Even if they come from a particular group, they're not a monolith.

And so being able to have them exchange and share their own experiences, I think helps with inclusivity.

But I think inclusivity is a little bit more all encompassing, right?

I think about disability justice, and even have inclusive services for students, and access to school buildings that are inclusive and have the necessary materials and the necessary structure for them to be able to participate fully and to be able to engage the materials.

I also think too about my particular experience as both a student, as a teacher, one of the things that my students are always frustrated about is the lack of Black history and how it only lifts up singular figures, or it only talks about enslavement, right?

So thinking also about how do we bring stories of joy and creativity and innovation into the classroom for students to see nuanced representations of different cultures in schools.

And I think inclusivity is not just within the classroom space and within curriculum and pedagogy, but it's also within the policies, right?

Do you have school dress code policies that are racist and sexist?

Do you have policies that are punitive discipline, right?

Or instead, do you have restorative justice where you are creating circle spaces for students to get to know one another better and come to a common understanding of how and why you're showing up in a particular way?

So for me, inclusivity is very expansive, and it's all centered in having deep relationships with students and being in conversation with them, and really listening to what they have to say, and then enacting that rather than just listening, taking it in.

We have to actually move, and move to a place of action.

- Thank you for shedding some light on some of the big issues that you and your colleagues are tackling at Rethinking Schools.

It was great to hear from you, thanks for the time.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- So for Jacqui Tricarico, myself and our entire team down in Atlantic City at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention, we thank you so much for watching, We’ll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

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