James O’Meara: Three Types of Stories

So this is what we know so far based on the stories, and I think there’s always three stories. These are sacred stories and they’re the ones that we can find on websites and they’re happy to be shared. And this is the shared stories, which is the things that are not on the website, but people are comfortable talking about. And then there’s a sacred story. So really what I’ll talk about this is what I know in terms of the shared and the sacred stories. Sacred Stories. The lowest income combined income that I’ve heard from one of our group is $11,000 a year and that’s combined household income. A household could be multigenerational, so they could be grandparents, aunts and great aunts. The current family and in some cases, our candidates have their own families, so the parents are already grandparents to someone still ten or attending college. The median household across the writer was 42,000. Now, that’s significant because the starting salaries here, the both the school districts, two districts, Laredo, I stay in, you know, die stay somewhere in the mid fifties, 50 to 55. And then with bonuses teaching at certain schools or certain subject areas, you may even be up to 60, the starting salary. So that’s the first step in my ability. Almost doubling if you return home. There’s a high likelihood you’ve doubled your combined household income. Now to an emerging partnership with National Board. We’re starting to look at. And Michelle Accardi, I’ve got to attribute Michelle to this. Ask the question why should the learning, the professional learning stop at graduation? Why should my ability stop with a bachelor’s? And so we started to explore the idea of. Master teachers and we start to look at this again from the The Sacred Stories, and Michelle was able to share that. There was no national board certified teacher in the Ryder. And only a few in South Texas. Along the border. Knowing what we know about the impact, the positive impact of nationally board certified teachers. We knew this is something we had to address. Also, from a linguistic and a cultural point of view, we also know that in the state of Texas. There’s only six nationally board certified world language Spanish teachers in all of Texas. And when you think that? Approximately 10% of the teaching workforce. Is produced in work in Texas. At the same time, 54% of Texas. Identify as Hispanic. There’s a huge gap there. Until is partnering now to develop courses. And extending the pathway beyond graduation. To provide this supportive network for recent graduates, but also this aspirational goal to become nationally board certified. Now through policy. And local implementation. But right now, I stay, for example, provide a stipend for a nationally board certified teacher for math. They study with math and English at the moment. That’s an additional stipend of $32,000. So now someone is looking. $92,000 in a household that could be $50000, maybe even $11,000. And more importantly, providing a pathway for their younger brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces to follow a similar. So I really see this. Educated, perfect preparation learning community where the community takes the shared responsibility. For addressing inter-generational poverty through teaching these pathways to teaching. As a way to really shape. The future of South Texas, and by doing so shaped the future of Texas and Hispanic serving communities across the country. Now, the other key partner in this is a center for equity, and we’re very lucky there’s a. A wonderful leader, Nancy Lewin. She used to hold the position of CEO of the Association of Latino Administrators and Supervisors and a vision there and a program there was a building leadership capacity among Hispanics working predominately Hispanic schools. And she’s had amazing success there. She’s now a senior director at a center for Equity. And so she’s helped us understand that. There’s so many resources. Often when people think of act, they think of the test. And equate that to screening and almost exclusion. Nancy’s got this wonderful vision that. If you provided access and you genuinely access the support provided in the early years, you elevated levels of readiness that trip wire about being unready. Career clarity. And also. You elevated levels of self-regulation. You continue to use the resources that will give you feedback on how you are progressing towards success with the whole vision that let’s address collision readiness by empowering future teachers or future learners with the capacity to identify where their strengths are and then build on the areas that they need to address. To increase the likelihood of access, success and mobility.

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