2020-21 Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice
University of California, Riverside
HOSTED BY THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Sponsored by the California Endowment; the College of Education and the College of Social Sciences at San José State University
UPDATE FROM THE ITOC LEADERSHIP TEAM
With the current restrictions on traveling and physical interactions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 10th Annual ITOC Conference will not convene in-person this June. Instead of cancelling our event, the ITOC Leadership team has worked hard to develop #ITOC20 on a virtual platform in order to support the personal and professional well-being of ITOC fellows. In the next few months, ITOC fellows will have the opportunity to attend the following virtual events:
ITOC VIRTUAL GET DOWN
With DJ Novela (Nicole Martinez), DJ Mic B (Mike Brim), DJ LG (Luis Guerrero), and DJ Lady Char (Charlene Ramos)
Hosted by ITOC Alum: Genaro Ulloa, Jonathan Montero, & Lisa Kelly
To kick-off ITOC 2020 as a virtual space, ITOC fellows are invited to attend a family-friendly virtual dance party via Zoom.
Nicole "Novela" Martinez is a Chicana Indigena community artist, educator and activist representing her homeland of Abiqui Pueblo, Nuevo Mexico to her hometown of Sacramento, California. Growing up hip-hop and ranch, she strives to acknowledge our rich ethnic identities and cultures and works to build partnerships and encourage solidarity with diverse communities through music, poetry, photography and the sharing of our unique stories, traditions and spiritual beliefs. Currently Nicole is a fourth grade bilingual teacher at Cesar Chavez Intermediate School in South Sacramento, Meadowview. She also works with community arts organizations Sol Collective, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, Mahogany Urban Poetry, and other activist organizations. She provides beats, rhythms and soul to ITOC both on the turntables and off.
Michael Brim aka DJ Mic B is Hip Hop educator and DJ in the Greater Sacramento area. He is the Executive Director/Founder of The Cypher Hip Hop Workshops which is a program that seeks to empower, inspire, and educate youth through Hip Hop culture. The Cypher provides programming in three school districts in Sacramento, as well as well multiple community centers and public libraries. He returned to school in the Fall of 2018 to pursue a degree in Sociology, and is on track to transfer to Sacramento State University in January of 2021, where he will earn his Bachelor's and Master's degrees. His career goal is to teach Sociology at the community college level, where he will look to incorporate elements of Hip Hop culture into his curriculum.
Luis Guerrero, also known as DJ LG or Coach Luis, is a passionate DJ turntablist who also happens to be an electrical engineer and math teacher. Luis is an anti-racist educator actively working towards social and racial justice. Luis spins on the Fuego Nights Mix Show every Saturday night on Fuego 103.5FM in Sacramento CA, and he is also the host of the Mas Maíz Mix Show - Sacramento's only Latin music podcast. Luis recently applied to a master's program in education and has a career goal of obtaining a Ph.D. in education. You can follow Luis Guerrero on Instagram and Twitter at @DJLG916.
Char Ramos aka DJ Lady Char has been DJing for over 20 years. Her love for Hip Hop and R&B stands out in her groove filled sets! Char plays events all over the Norcal and is the resident DJ of the following organizations: SacRepublicFC, UCDavis, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, PACT, BadlandsSac and more. Char takes pride in contributing to the community and is the founder and instructor of the Love Beat DJ Workshops in Sacramento where she empowers youth through teaching DJ Culture.
Hosted by ITOC Alum: Genaro Ulloa, Jonathan Montero, & Lisa Kelly
To kick-off ITOC 2020 as a virtual space, ITOC fellows are invited to attend a family-friendly virtual dance party via Zoom.
Nicole "Novela" Martinez is a Chicana Indigena community artist, educator and activist representing her homeland of Abiqui Pueblo, Nuevo Mexico to her hometown of Sacramento, California. Growing up hip-hop and ranch, she strives to acknowledge our rich ethnic identities and cultures and works to build partnerships and encourage solidarity with diverse communities through music, poetry, photography and the sharing of our unique stories, traditions and spiritual beliefs. Currently Nicole is a fourth grade bilingual teacher at Cesar Chavez Intermediate School in South Sacramento, Meadowview. She also works with community arts organizations Sol Collective, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, Mahogany Urban Poetry, and other activist organizations. She provides beats, rhythms and soul to ITOC both on the turntables and off.
Michael Brim aka DJ Mic B is Hip Hop educator and DJ in the Greater Sacramento area. He is the Executive Director/Founder of The Cypher Hip Hop Workshops which is a program that seeks to empower, inspire, and educate youth through Hip Hop culture. The Cypher provides programming in three school districts in Sacramento, as well as well multiple community centers and public libraries. He returned to school in the Fall of 2018 to pursue a degree in Sociology, and is on track to transfer to Sacramento State University in January of 2021, where he will earn his Bachelor's and Master's degrees. His career goal is to teach Sociology at the community college level, where he will look to incorporate elements of Hip Hop culture into his curriculum.
Luis Guerrero, also known as DJ LG or Coach Luis, is a passionate DJ turntablist who also happens to be an electrical engineer and math teacher. Luis is an anti-racist educator actively working towards social and racial justice. Luis spins on the Fuego Nights Mix Show every Saturday night on Fuego 103.5FM in Sacramento CA, and he is also the host of the Mas Maíz Mix Show - Sacramento's only Latin music podcast. Luis recently applied to a master's program in education and has a career goal of obtaining a Ph.D. in education. You can follow Luis Guerrero on Instagram and Twitter at @DJLG916.
Char Ramos aka DJ Lady Char has been DJing for over 20 years. Her love for Hip Hop and R&B stands out in her groove filled sets! Char plays events all over the Norcal and is the resident DJ of the following organizations: SacRepublicFC, UCDavis, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, PACT, BadlandsSac and more. Char takes pride in contributing to the community and is the founder and instructor of the Love Beat DJ Workshops in Sacramento where she empowers youth through teaching DJ Culture.
Artists:
(Left to right) DJ Novela; DJ Mic B; DJ LG; DJ Lady Char
(Left to right) DJ Novela; DJ Mic B; DJ LG; DJ Lady Char
STRENGTHENING OUR RACIAL LITERACY
2020 ITOC SPRING VIRTUAL TALKS
2020 ITOC SPRING VIRTUAL TALKS
DECOLONIZING MENTAL HEALTH IN A PANDEMIC: STRATEGIES FOR HOPE AND RESISTANCE
Candice Valenzuela
As the world copes with fear, loss of resources and loss of life due to the global pandemic, we all feel the impact in our hearts, bodies and minds. While coping with survival anxieties, mental health can become the last priority, or even a lost hope. Experiences of overwhelm, panic, grief, denial and numbness are understandable as the situation unfolds.
This session will provide:
• Supportive frameworks and practical strategies for nourishing one’s mental and emotional health
• Mental and emotional health from individual, interpersonal, ecological and communal lenses
• Grounding tips to connect to your sources of power and hope
Candice Valenzuela is a mother, educator, lecturer, writer, coach and community wellness advocate. Candice has worked at the intersection of urban education and holistic health for 12 years, serving in a variety of roles from teen health educator, to Special Education teacher and instructional coach, before finding her calling in teacher support and wellness. She got her Master's degree in East-West Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies, and studied cultural healing practices with healers in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Oaxaca. Her passion is to transform school communities into authentic spaces of healing and liberation by strengthening their greatest asset: their community of teachers.
Candice Valenzuela
As the world copes with fear, loss of resources and loss of life due to the global pandemic, we all feel the impact in our hearts, bodies and minds. While coping with survival anxieties, mental health can become the last priority, or even a lost hope. Experiences of overwhelm, panic, grief, denial and numbness are understandable as the situation unfolds.
This session will provide:
• Supportive frameworks and practical strategies for nourishing one’s mental and emotional health
• Mental and emotional health from individual, interpersonal, ecological and communal lenses
• Grounding tips to connect to your sources of power and hope
Candice Valenzuela is a mother, educator, lecturer, writer, coach and community wellness advocate. Candice has worked at the intersection of urban education and holistic health for 12 years, serving in a variety of roles from teen health educator, to Special Education teacher and instructional coach, before finding her calling in teacher support and wellness. She got her Master's degree in East-West Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies, and studied cultural healing practices with healers in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Oaxaca. Her passion is to transform school communities into authentic spaces of healing and liberation by strengthening their greatest asset: their community of teachers.
STEPPING THROUGH THE PORTAL: WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR
Dr. Leigh Patel, University of Pittsburgh
In this interactive webinar, Leigh Patel shares how teachers of color are essential to the lessons to be learned pre-pandemic and how political education has never been more important. Drawing on contemporary examples of unschooling during the pandemic, as well historic struggle for study, Leigh will provide an overview of why we are the ones we've been waiting for and then interact with webinar participants around key issues and questions.
Leigh Patel is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and writer. Her work addresses the narratives that facilitate societal structures. With a background in sociology, she researches and teaches about education as a site of social reproduction and as a potential site for transformation. She works extensively with societally marginalized youth and teacher activists. Prior to working in the academy, Professor Patel was a journalist, a teacher, and a state-level policymaker. Across all of these experiences, her focus has been on the ways that education structures opportunities in society and the stories that are told about those opportunities. She currently is Professor and the Inaugural Associate Dean for Equity and Justice at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.
Dr. Leigh Patel, University of Pittsburgh
In this interactive webinar, Leigh Patel shares how teachers of color are essential to the lessons to be learned pre-pandemic and how political education has never been more important. Drawing on contemporary examples of unschooling during the pandemic, as well historic struggle for study, Leigh will provide an overview of why we are the ones we've been waiting for and then interact with webinar participants around key issues and questions.
Leigh Patel is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and writer. Her work addresses the narratives that facilitate societal structures. With a background in sociology, she researches and teaches about education as a site of social reproduction and as a potential site for transformation. She works extensively with societally marginalized youth and teacher activists. Prior to working in the academy, Professor Patel was a journalist, a teacher, and a state-level policymaker. Across all of these experiences, her focus has been on the ways that education structures opportunities in society and the stories that are told about those opportunities. She currently is Professor and the Inaugural Associate Dean for Equity and Justice at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.
"HOW RACIST ARE WE?" ASSESSING AND SHIFTING TOWARDS RACIAL JUSTICE IN SCHOOLS
Altagracia Montilla, Center for Supportive Schools
As teachers of color committed to racial justice our persistent demand for anti-racist and equitable schools is often met with skepticism from colleagues and administrators. Working in environments where even those who express a commitment to racial equity struggle to imagine a world outside the status quo, we often hear questions like, “What does anti-racism look like in a school?” In her talk, Altagracia will share insights from an inquiry to action project where she coached teachers over the course of a semester to identify where their schools stand on a spectrum between “racist school” to “anti-racist school," and to implement their own racial justice action plans. Altagracia designed the project with hopes to help alleviate some of the invisible tax teachers of Color experience by providing them with language and frameworks to concretely map their school’s progress towards racial justice. This workshop provides participants with a framework to reflect upon their own contexts along this same framework in their efforts to create racially just schools.
Altagracia Montilla is driven by a vision of transforming schools into equitable, empowering learning communities. Altagracia marries her perspectives as a queer, Afro-Latina, Bronx-hood native, daughter of an incarcerated parent, and first-generation college student, with her experiences as an educator and non-profit leader to design transformational experiences for youth and adults that promote equity, community, and care. Altagracia is the Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Center for Supportive Schools where she founded the Dismantling Racism Initiative. Altagracia founded A.M. Consulting to support schools, organizations, and corporations in confronting and challenging their own oppressive systems.
Altagracia Montilla, Center for Supportive Schools
As teachers of color committed to racial justice our persistent demand for anti-racist and equitable schools is often met with skepticism from colleagues and administrators. Working in environments where even those who express a commitment to racial equity struggle to imagine a world outside the status quo, we often hear questions like, “What does anti-racism look like in a school?” In her talk, Altagracia will share insights from an inquiry to action project where she coached teachers over the course of a semester to identify where their schools stand on a spectrum between “racist school” to “anti-racist school," and to implement their own racial justice action plans. Altagracia designed the project with hopes to help alleviate some of the invisible tax teachers of Color experience by providing them with language and frameworks to concretely map their school’s progress towards racial justice. This workshop provides participants with a framework to reflect upon their own contexts along this same framework in their efforts to create racially just schools.
Altagracia Montilla is driven by a vision of transforming schools into equitable, empowering learning communities. Altagracia marries her perspectives as a queer, Afro-Latina, Bronx-hood native, daughter of an incarcerated parent, and first-generation college student, with her experiences as an educator and non-profit leader to design transformational experiences for youth and adults that promote equity, community, and care. Altagracia is the Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Center for Supportive Schools where she founded the Dismantling Racism Initiative. Altagracia founded A.M. Consulting to support schools, organizations, and corporations in confronting and challenging their own oppressive systems.
2020 ITOC FALL VIRTUAL TALKS
"WE WANNA BE LINGUISTICALLY FREE TOO": IN PURSUIT OF BLACK LINGUISTIC JUSTICE
Dr. April Baker-Bell, Michigan State University
In this workshop, Baker-Bell will discuss the history of Black Language education, share counterstories from Black students about how they navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts, and she will introduce a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students.
Dr. April Baker-Bell is a transdisciplinary teacher-researcher-activist and associate professor of language, literacy, and English education in the Department of English and Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University. A national leader in conversations on Black Language education, her research interrogates the intersections of Black language and literacies, anti-Black racism, and antiracist pedagogies, and is concerned with antiracist writing, critical media literacies, Black feminist-womanist storytelling, and self-preservation for Black women in academia, with an emphasis on early career Black women. Baker-Bell’s new book, Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy, brings together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism (a term Baker-Bell coined) and white linguistic supremacy. The book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts, and it captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in community with Black youth.
Dr. April Baker-Bell, Michigan State University
In this workshop, Baker-Bell will discuss the history of Black Language education, share counterstories from Black students about how they navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts, and she will introduce a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students.
Dr. April Baker-Bell is a transdisciplinary teacher-researcher-activist and associate professor of language, literacy, and English education in the Department of English and Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University. A national leader in conversations on Black Language education, her research interrogates the intersections of Black language and literacies, anti-Black racism, and antiracist pedagogies, and is concerned with antiracist writing, critical media literacies, Black feminist-womanist storytelling, and self-preservation for Black women in academia, with an emphasis on early career Black women. Baker-Bell’s new book, Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy, brings together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism (a term Baker-Bell coined) and white linguistic supremacy. The book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts, and it captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in community with Black youth.
CENTERING INDIGENOUS LAND EDUCATION IN TEACHING
Anna Lees, Western Washington University
Renee D. Swan Waite, Lummi Nation
Cynthia M. Wilson, Lummi Nation
Dolores Calderon, Western Washington University
In schools, the dominant system of knowledge is the Euroamerican/Western. Even when we adopt culturally relevant approaches, they do little to disrupt the western framework of schools that is largely incompatible with Indigenous knowledges. Thus, bringing Indigenous perspectives into K-12 curriculum is oftentimes at odds both with existing curriculum and how non-natives interact with land and water around them. Land education is an educational approach that centers Indigenous people relations to land, and building on the work of Indigenous thinkers like Vine Deloria Jr. and Leanne Simpson, this reworking represents a political act.
In prior environmental and place based work, Indigenous communities are an afterthought in terms of the design of teacher PD programs. Programs are made by outsiders and executed by outsiders, thus leaving white perspectives largely unchallenged. In this workshop, we share a Land Education Teacher Professional Development (LETPD) framework that speaks to teachers about our responsibility to include tribal history, government, and culture into K-12 classrooms in collaboration with tribal nation communities. To be clear, LETPD does not represent new understandings for tribal nation communities. The framework is composed of 5 overarching principles: 1) it is built on authentic relationships with Indigenous peoples, 2) it is Indigenous community led, 3) it is localized and seasonal, 4) it connects to school curriculum, and 5) it supports Indigenous resurgence.
In this workshop, we share from the context of Washington State, where Senate Bill 5028 (2018) mandates the teaching of tribal sovereignty curriculum k-12 (STI) and integration of “Native American curriculum developed by the office of the superintendent of public instruction into existing Pacific Northwest history and government requirements.” We will facilitate an interactive conversation with participants to consider ways this framework can be applied in varied contexts
In prior environmental and place based work, Indigenous communities are an afterthought in terms of the design of teacher PD programs. Programs are made by outsiders and executed by outsiders, thus leaving white perspectives largely unchallenged. In this workshop, we share a Land Education Teacher Professional Development (LETPD) framework that speaks to teachers about our responsibility to include tribal history, government, and culture into K-12 classrooms in collaboration with tribal nation communities. To be clear, LETPD does not represent new understandings for tribal nation communities. The framework is composed of 5 overarching principles: 1) it is built on authentic relationships with Indigenous peoples, 2) it is Indigenous community led, 3) it is localized and seasonal, 4) it connects to school curriculum, and 5) it supports Indigenous resurgence.
In this workshop, we share from the context of Washington State, where Senate Bill 5028 (2018) mandates the teaching of tribal sovereignty curriculum k-12 (STI) and integration of “Native American curriculum developed by the office of the superintendent of public instruction into existing Pacific Northwest history and government requirements.” We will facilitate an interactive conversation with participants to consider ways this framework can be applied in varied contexts
Anna Lees Ed.D. (Little traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, descendant) began her career as an early childhood classroom teacher in rural northern Michigan. Now, an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in at Western Washington University, she partners with schools and communities to prepare teachers for the holistic needs of children, families, and communities. Anna is committed to developing and sustaining reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities to engage community partners as co-teacher educators, opening spaces for Indigenous values and ways of knowing and being in early childhood and higher education. She is currently engaged in research around a land education professional development model led my tribal nations and a relationship-based site embedded professional development model with tribal early learning programs.
Dolores Calderon is an associate professor of Youth, Society & Justice in Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University. As a researcher who embodies the complicated subjectivities of the U.S./Mexico border—Mexican (settler/arrivant), Indigenous (Pueblo), and U.S. citizen—she is interested in researching and participating in work that untangles and unpacks the complicated way multiple colonialisms impact decolonial thinking and practices, specifically in educational curriculum.
Now Si’am
U’ ey’ e sxw ol
Suit sen ohileqw kwenes ena tachel Si’am
My name is Cynthia Wilson; I carry the Indian name of Oomagelees from my maternal side of the family. My father’s name is Culaxten, James H. Wilson from Lummi and my mother’s name is Roberta Hunt Wilson, from the most northern Island of Vancouver. I am the 3rd oldest in my immediate family; I have four sisters and three brothers. I have worked in the Education field for 30 years and I truly enjoy working with children from the smallest to the oldest. Many of the years I worked at the Lummi Nation School. I am so fortunate to have learned our Lummi Language from my mentors and I am proud to be able to share it with our children and my family. I love to share stories that have great lessons to live by and also to see the expression on the faces of the children when they are listening and learning. I received my Masters Degree from Grand Canyon University, I love to learn and it is important we continue to stay highly qualified when working with our children. I did my internship with the Lummi Early Learning Center to attain a well needed CDA, to be a better helper and for enhanced learning. Our early learners are so ready to learn and eager, it is my pleasure to serve our people the best we can.
I will continue my journey in education and continue to learn, my philosophy is in short to help our children, strengthen the educational experience and to increase understanding of who they are and stand proud. Working with the teachers and staff of this area is one way to keep everyone going in the same direction; no canoes over turning in the waters as we move forward together for our main resource – our children.
U’ ey’ e sxw ol
Suit sen ohileqw kwenes ena tachel Si’am
My name is Cynthia Wilson; I carry the Indian name of Oomagelees from my maternal side of the family. My father’s name is Culaxten, James H. Wilson from Lummi and my mother’s name is Roberta Hunt Wilson, from the most northern Island of Vancouver. I am the 3rd oldest in my immediate family; I have four sisters and three brothers. I have worked in the Education field for 30 years and I truly enjoy working with children from the smallest to the oldest. Many of the years I worked at the Lummi Nation School. I am so fortunate to have learned our Lummi Language from my mentors and I am proud to be able to share it with our children and my family. I love to share stories that have great lessons to live by and also to see the expression on the faces of the children when they are listening and learning. I received my Masters Degree from Grand Canyon University, I love to learn and it is important we continue to stay highly qualified when working with our children. I did my internship with the Lummi Early Learning Center to attain a well needed CDA, to be a better helper and for enhanced learning. Our early learners are so ready to learn and eager, it is my pleasure to serve our people the best we can.
I will continue my journey in education and continue to learn, my philosophy is in short to help our children, strengthen the educational experience and to increase understanding of who they are and stand proud. Working with the teachers and staff of this area is one way to keep everyone going in the same direction; no canoes over turning in the waters as we move forward together for our main resource – our children.
Renee Swan-Waite M.Ed. is a member of the Lummi Nation and currently manages a higher education grant program. She helps people set goals, identify their strengths and cultivate their interests. She helps students navigate Western education. She promotes positive Native identity, fosters connections between the generations, and most importantly, she demonstrates optimism in encouraging all to dream big. The family and tribal history teachings that Renee received many years ago from her grandmother at the kitchen table continue to guide her work. Renee believes that the land is sacred and provides generous gifts for all. The teaching and the guidance of the old people are embedded in Land Education Professional Development. She is helping children develop a love for the Earth.
TEACHER ORGANIZING FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
Emi Ito, Berkeley Unified School District, California
Roberta Hernandez, Roseville Area Schools, Minnesota
Johnny Gonzalez, Coachella Unified School District, California
Jonathan Montero, Bronx Academy for Software Engineering, New York Collective of Radical Educators
Moderated by Dr. Edwin Mayorga, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
This workshop will move the discussion of teacher activism beyond a response to oppression towards a space for imagination and centering of our communities. Facilitated by a teacher activist/scholar, we will hear the experiences of four teacher-activists of Color from different positionalities and geographies. Through their narratives, we will hear a collective story about what activism and transformation looks like when we, as BIPOC teachers, center our epistemologies, needs, joys and power.
Emi Ito is a Japanese American Multiracial mother and elementary school teacher. She has been passionate about teaching Japanese American history to elementary age children for her 16 years of teaching in Bay Area public schools. She currently serves as the Committee Chair for Tsuru for Solidarity’s Families & Kids Committee and is a Steering Committee member of Japanese Americans for Justice. She is a Dharma Teacher at her Buddhist Church, has taught many years in a Japanese American summer program in the Bay Area, and has directed and run after school programs focused on the experiences of Multiracial and Transracially adopted youth. Last year she wrote a document titled, the Bill of Responsibilities for Multiracial People of Color With Light Skin & White Passing Privilege, which was inspired by the work of Dr. Maria PP Root. She is honored to work with a dynamic and dedicated group of individuals via Tsuru for Solidarity and Japanese Americans for Justice, to make our collective work to fight injustice intergenerational and inclusive of our children.
Roberta A. Hernandez is a 3rd generation Chicana, her father from south Texas and mother from Illinois. As the first of her family to graduate from university she also realizes all that was lost along the way. Her passion is to stop that pattern and renew authentic identities and ways of being in her colleagues and students from communities of color. She is an Academic Interventionist at Central Park Elementary School in Roseville Minnesota, a few blocks from Philando Castille’s murder and a few miles from George Floyd's murder. Roberta also serves as lead mentor for the district BIPOC educator mentorship program and district affinity group. She first attended ITOC in 2017 and is part of a growing group of Minneapolis/St. Paul based ITOC alumni working together to support and increase the 4% of BIPOC educators that are in the whole state of Minnesota.
Johnny González is a high school English teacher at Desert Mirage High School in the Coachella Valley Unified School District. He currently teaches Chicana/o Literature, Multicultural Literature, AP Language & Composition, and is the Puente Project coordinator. He is one of three teachers who led the Ethnic Studies movement in Coachella schools. Johnny is currently a doctoral student (ABD) at University of Redlands, in Educational Leadership for Social Justice. His dissertation is focused on the perpetual impact of institutional racism in segregated schools serving Chicana/o students and Chicana/o educators engaged in reimagining educational outcomes for Chicana/o students.
Jonathan Montero is the founding English teacher at the Bronx Academy for Software Engineering. Jonathan became a Hollyhock Teaching Fellow in 2016 and then a Hollyhock Leading Fellow in 2018, both fellowships at Stanford University. He has been attending ITOC since 2018. Now in his eighth year of teaching, he leads the English Department in their efforts to utilize more equity-based practices and to use Mastery based grading as a tool in that endeavor. In his free time, Jonathan enjoys participating in and spectating competitive video game tournaments, hiking, attending live music shows, and hanging out with his cat Sophie.
Edwin Mayorga, Ph.D. (he/him/his) is a parent-educator-activist-scholar, and Associate Professor of Educational Studies and Latin American/Latino Studies at Swarthmore College (PA). Formerly a NYC elementary school teacher and member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE), Edwin is the director of the #BarrioEdProject, a youth participatory action research (PAR) collaborative; the Community, School, and Colleges Partnership (CSCP) study; and #EthnicStudiesPHL curricular database. Edwin writes about racial neoliberal urbanism, scholar-activism, PAR entremundos, decolonization and teaching for racial and economic justice. He is a lead co-editor of the online journal #CritEdPol, co-editor of the book What’s Race Got to Do with It? How Current School Reform Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality (2015, 2020), and is working on his first book which examines the intersection of racial capitalist urbanism and sobrevivencia in a NYC Latinx barrio and barrio education between 2002-2013.
NEW DISCIPLINARY STRANDS IN CRITICAL APPROACHES TO:
SCIENCE, Led by Dr. Salina Gray, Inglewood Unified School District
Salina Gray, PhD, has spent 23 years teaching in traditional public and charter schools. In 2014, she received her doctorate from Stanford University in Curriculum and Instruction in Science Education. Her research focused on the intersection of racial and science identities with an emphasis on critical race theory. She along with her colleague Dr. Alexis Patterson have developed an educational framework called W(h)olistic Science Pedagogy. She and Dr. Patterson’s article on their framework received the 2019 Best Article Award in Theory into Practice educational journal. Her current work has allowed her to be selected to participate as a Teacher Education Scholar through the Transformative Justice in Education Center (TJE) at UC Davis. Dr. Gray currently teaches 7th and 8th grade science at Frank D. Parent Middle School in the Inglewood Unified School District. Dr. Gray is an adjunct faculty member at Mt. St. Mary’s University, Doheny campus, in Los Angeles.
DeAnna Lee-Rivers has been an educator for over 11 years. DeAnna began teaching because she wanted to encourage more students of color and preferably women into degrees and careers in science and knew that she needed to meet them where they are beginning to shape their identities and beginning to decide how they want to show up in the world. In addition to teaching, DeAnna is the Director of Curriculum and Programming for Change the Tune an educational non-profit organization that has reimagined a multidisciplinary approach to afterschool programming. Change the Tune blends art, cooking, technology, music, entrepreneurship, and social emotional learning to help students leverage their interests and discover how they can use them to change the world. Lastly, she is a Co-Founder of STEMSoul, an organization that uses transformative science education to help students create their scientific identity and be agents of change in their communities and beyond.
MATHEMATICS, Led by Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez grew up in a Chicana activist family in the Bay Area, where she learned the value of organizing from her father (an electrician) and her mother who advocates for students in the community college system, farm workers, and undocumented folx. Gutiérrez runs the Political Conocimiento Development Tools Lab at the University of Illinois, where she supports teachers to deconstruct the politics in teaching/mathematics and use creative insubordination to rehumanize mathematics. Throughout her career, she has helped build the Program (now Department) of Latina/Latino Studies and has served on the national writing team for the AMTE Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics. Her work seeks to move beyond issues of access and achievement to more deeply consider identity, power, and our relationships with each other, including lands, animals, plants, and bodies of water.
ITOC Fellows Selection Criterion
Participants were selected based on the following criteria:
ITOC Fellows
ITOC Teacher Educator Fellows (will participate in separate working group sessions)
ITOC Fellows
- Identify as a teacher of Color (pre-service teachers are eligible), or person of Color in a related capacity within K-12 schools (i.e. school administrator, counselor, after-school educator)
- Work (or will work) in a K-12 public school serving majority students of Color
- Demonstrate an advanced level of racial literacy
- Have an asset framing of communities of Color
- Committed to critical and theoretically driven approaches to transforming schools
ITOC Teacher Educator Fellows (will participate in separate working group sessions)
- Identify as a teacher educator of Color
- Work in a district or university setting training K-12 classroom educators
- Demonstrate an advanced level of racial literacy
- Have an asset framing of communities of Color
- Committed to critical and theoretically driven approaches to transforming teacher education and supporting pipelines of critical teachers of Color into the field