Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People - Political Action Committee Candidate Questionnaire: Emily S. Chávez, Durham Board of Education, District 1

1. What are your top three priorities for the Board of Education in the coming year and why? 

1. Racial equity: This includes addressing the disparate academic outcomes for students of color; hiring of teachers of color, particularly Latinx teachers and Black male teachers; ensuring avenues of communication for parents of color, particularly low-income and working class parents; monitoring and increasing BIPOC students’ opportunities for academic and other forms of enrichment.

2. LGBTQ+ student support: This includes developing policy that sets a standard for our responsibility to gender nonconforming students, LGBTQ+ students, and LGBTQ families. 

3. Improving teacher working conditions and wellness: We must build upon and develop plans to ensure adequate staffing, sufficient planning time, additional financial compensation where appropriate and possible, and opportunities for support, mentoring, and professional development.

I believe these three issues are both timely and foundational to the success of our district in meeting its mission to embrace, educate, and empower every student to innovate, serve, and lead. We must address disparities that negatively affect Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+ students, groups which are overlapping and not mutually exclusive, and to support the educators who are on the frontlines of educating, supporting, and mentoring our students.

2. What is your plan for attracting and retaining teachers of color, especially Black male teachers? 

I would like to see DPS continue to partner with local community colleges and universities to support the development of talented teachers of color, particularly Black male teachers, in obtaining their teaching degree and licensure. Existing programs include NCCU’s LIFT mentoring program and UNC-Chapel Hill’s DREAM program, for which I currently serve as the Project Director.

We must also ensure that teachers of color are supported in their schools. PACE, the Partnership for Authentic Communities of Educators, a DPS-UNC collaboration, is one program that can continue to support teachers and especially teachers of color, in their beginning teaching years. PACE offers opportunities for preservice and beginning teachers to meet monthly to discuss problems of practice, as well as conduct supportive peer observations. Over the coming year, PACE will evolve to include more focus on social identity, including race, allowing for more critical conversations and reflections about the experiences of being a teacher of color in DPS.

Beyond this, we must continue to conduct racial equity trainings that address microaggressions and implicit bias that teachers of color, and Black male teachers in particular, face.

3. Have you ever attended racial equity training? If yes, which one(s) and what was something that you realized about yourself? How have you taken that knowledge and applied it to your work? If not, why haven’t you attended a racial equity training? 

The first training I attended that addressed racial equity was a multi-day workshop at Swarthmore College in 2002. Since then, I have attended many trainings, workshops, and conferences that addressed racial equity, including the Racial Equity Institute I (2019), working to extend anti-racist education (we are) conferences (2016 and 2019), the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (2019), and the People of Color Conference (2019).  

I have also led racial equity trainings, both as the Associate Director of the Center for Multicultural Affairs at Duke University from 2018-2019, and as the Director of Equity and Justice at Duke School from 2019-2021.

I have learned a great deal about myself from the racial equity activities I’ve attended. As a non-Black, multiracial person of color I have been able to learn about the ways in which I have been affected and personally harmed by racism, as well as the ways in which I have benefited from the system of racial hierarchy that exists in the U.S. today and which is foundational to the creation of this nation. I have also had opportunities to examine internalized racism. As a result of my reflections, I have been able to sharpen my commitment to advocating for anti-racist practices and emphasizing the need for solidarity between racial and ethnic groups. I am committed as much to positive academic and wellbeing outcomes for Black students, Asian students, and other groups I am not a part of as I am to those of whom I am a part.

4. Name two specific ways you will apply a racial equity lens to district policies and/or practices. 

First, I believe that we must center the most marginalized and vulnerable within our decision-making. When we do this, all students benefit. This means consistently disaggregating the data, looking at the effects of decisions and policies on Black students and other students of color.

Secondly, identity is intersectional, and we must keep this in mind at all times. Students, parents, teachers, and all staff at all times hold multiple identities. We should further disaggregate data to examine not only effects of policy and practice on Black students and other students of color, but also within these groups, the outcomes based on gender, class, disability status, and other factors.

5. What is your position on monitoring and addressing the mental health of students? 

We should seek to establish school environments that promote psychological safety for students to the greatest extent possible. During the pandemic especially, mental health concerns among students have only increased. All members of the school community are responsible for connecting students to the appropriate resources if they express extreme mental distress, signs of trauma, and/or other mental health-related issues, while reducing stigma in doing so. Students who are experiencing mental distress often cannot learn effectively, and thus, we should support students in getting access to the services they need. We must also keep in mind that teachers cannot be all things to all people, and they also need support in providing such resources to students. It is imperative, in this regard, that we have increased and accessible counselors and social workers, nurses in every school, and social-emotional learning training. 

6. What are the two greatest challenges facing Black students in Durham Public Schools?

1. I believe that the greatest challenge facing Black students as a whole is the mental health effects of racism. In recent years there has been more research on racial trauma and racial stress and their effects, which include both mental effects, such as anxiety and diminished confidence, and physical effects, such as sleep difficulties. Racism manifests in many different ways, including microaggressions, implicit bias, inequitable access, as well as through more overt avenues. The Office of Equity Affairs has made strong efforts at addressing racism by creating racial equity training opportunities and most recently, developing the Equity Policy released in 2021. This is an important step in addressing this issue.

2. Racial disparities in discipline is also a significant challenge facing Black students in DPS. Historically, racial stereotypes that Black students are more disorderly, non-compliant, and/or likely to misbehave has led to the overuse of punishment to control or manage Black youth. Nationally, Black boys are four times more likely than white boys to be suspended or expelled from school (Bell, James R., 2016). In North Carolina, Black students made up 25% of the student body and yet 54.1% of all suspensions in 2018-2019 (DPS Office of Equity Affairs, 2021). DPS has made strides toward addressing inequities in disciplinary practices, particularly in the creation of Restorative Practice Centers and discontinuing ISS. This is something we need to continue to monitor and address.

7. The impact of covid on our school system and children is undeniable: inequities along racial and economic lines are very pronounced. Speak to some of those impacts and how would you address them as a member of the Board of Education.

The COVID pandemic has highlighted the significant role schools play in intervening in economic disparities, which fall along racial lines. Without the physical school as a resource for DPS students during the first year and a half of the pandemic, many students suffered from isolation and anxiety. Even with the best virtual learning lessons and classrooms, it proved difficult to provide extra academic support to all the students who needed it. Additionally, the lack of extracurricular activities prohibited many students from developing non-academic interests and skills. These are issues that have affected students of all identities and backgrounds. However, those families who were better resourced during the pandemic were better equipped to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic on their children. In Durham, 28.94% of the Hispanic population and 19.22% of the Black population live in poverty, as compared to 7.7% of the white population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). We can deduce from this data alone that students of color were more vulnerable to the negative effects, both academic and otherwise, during the pandemic. Black, Native, and Latinx people and families have also been disproportionately affected by the effects of COVID in terms of deaths and hospitalizations. Overall, in the context of the pandemic, economic disparities have been exacerbated, creating greater housing and food insecurity among low-income communities, which are disproportionately Black, Latinx, and Native.

I think that it is important that we are attentive to these facts as we make decisions and that we create policies with our most vulnerable students in mind. DPS has done a good job practicing our value of equity in making technology accessible to all students, for example, by providing laptops to all students and hotspots to those students who did not have internet, and this is something we should continue to do. 

We especially must continue to support our students’ mental health needs. Anecdotally, it seems that there are more students at all grade levels who have presented with moderate to severe mental health concerns over the last two years than was previously the case. Our students need more care, academic enrichment, and opportunities for positive social development than ever. In this vein, and as noted in question 5, I would advocate for more counselors and social workers in schools, including bilingual professionals, and more mental health resources for students.

8. To Incumbents: Name a specific policy or change you proposed/initiated on behalf of Black students as a member of the Durham County Board of Education. This policy should represent addressing an area where you saw a need based on your understanding of our education system. 

To non-incumbents: Name a specific policy or change you championed on behalf of Black students as a community member. 

A major concern of racial inequity in education is lack of culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy. I have created professional development programming and materials that increased culturally relevant curricula for Black students. While serving as the Outreach Program Coordinator for the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University, I co-founded and from 2014-2018 co-directed the African Diaspora Studies Program (ADFP) with Dr. Kia Caldwell. ADFP was a professional development program for middle and high school English language arts, social studies and world language teachers that involved a summer institute and curriculum development project. This program, a collaboration between university partners, DPS, and NCDPI, aimed to increase teachers’ knowledge of African, Afro-Latin American, and African American studies. While the goal of this professional development program was not only to increase understanding of Black histories, communities, and politics among Black students, it offered a way to increase culturally relevant curriculum for Black students, who too often do not see themselves represented in the curriculum. Out of our work developing ADPF, Dr. Caldwell and I co-edited a book called Engaging the African Diaspora in K-12 Education, which offers both scholarly articles and topical curriculum guides that educators can use to increase teaching of Black histories and the African diaspora.

9. About you: 

a. What would you like the DCABP PAC to know about you that is not identified in your above responses? 

My desire to be an educator began when I served as a servant leader with CDS Freedom Schools in the summer of 2000. I served as a Freedom Schools servant leader all three summers of college, immersed in the process of creating culturally relevant activities for Black and Latinx students and piquing their curiosity in reading and learning more about their own histories and identities. Racial equity and racial justice are at the core of why I became an educator and continue to desire to make long-lasting change for youth and the teachers that serve them.

b. How have you collaborated with or contributed to the mission of the DCABP over the past five years? 

Throughout my career I have held positions, both paid and volunteer, that allowed me to directly address social inequities, increase culturally responsive practices, and promote social justice in schools and in the field of education, affecting the lives of many students, families, and educators. In addition to holding DEI positions, from 2016-2018, I served as a member of and co-chaired the Durham Public Schools Budget Process Advisory Committee, which sought to align budgetary decisions with district priorities, including racial equity. I have sought to address the effects of racism and white supremacy on Black students and teachers in direct ways, such as integrating Black authors and texts into my own classroom and through the support and creation of affinity spaces, and more indirect ways, such as by increasing African diaspora-centered curriculum and conducting racial equity trainings for educators.

c. What does the DCABP mean to you? 

The DCABP is a long-standing organization that provides historical memory of Durham’s Black community, and serves as a representative body with local political power to elevate the concerns, voices, needs and visions of Black Durhamites.

d. If elected, how will you collaborate with the DCABP? Give specific examples.

I would like to attend DCABP events, including those focused on education as well as other community issues, to get to know the organization’s membership as well as to continue learning about issues that affect Black communities, particularly students.

I would like to work with the DCABP to create ways to listen to thoughts, concerns, and ideas of DCABP members, whether through in person or virtual events, or surveys. My desire would also be to collaborate with the DCABP as an organization that can help to disseminate information about the school district, how we are performing, and the initiatives we are taking on in order to yield better results for our youth.