RCSD hopes new mentorship program will help retain BIPOC teachers
Twenty-five years later, Anita Jones still remembers the moment she knew she was meant to be an educator.
She was working for a temp agency and got placed as a paraprofessional at Rochester's Clara Barton School 2. The principal at the time, longtime RCSD administrator Larry Ellison, saw her working with the children and then pulled her aside.
"He said: 'Please keep doing what you're doing. These kids need you,'" she recalled. "And in my heart I said, 'I think I can do this.' And I started the path to becoming a teacher."
That path took a quarter century while she worked as a paraprofessional and then teacher's aide. This year she has her own fifth-grade classroom at Dr. Walter Cooper Academy School 10 on Congress Avenue — and already she has signed up to serve as a mentor through a new partnership between RCSD and Monroe Community College.
The BIPOC Teacher Mentorship Program pairs early-career teachers of color with students in MCC's education program for a year-long relationship (BIPOC is an acronym for Black, indigenous and people of color). The hope is that both parties will come away fortified and more likely to persist in a field where they're badly needed.
The program will begin in January with eight MCC students and eight mentor teachers in the city, including one at University Prep Charter School for Young Men. It was funded by a two-year, $121,000 grant from the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation and will include monthly meetings alternating between MCC and the mentors' schools.
Unlike most mentorship programs, this one intentionally features relative novice teachers rather than their more seasoned counterparts.
"There’s still that freshness to these teachers who were in that college space not long ago," said LaToya Mañón, an assistant professor of education at MCC and a former RCSD teacher. "Sometimes when you’re young in a profession you don’t realize the experience you have. Their knowledge is valuable."
RCSD working to recruit more BIPOC teachers for city schools
RCSD fervently hopes the participating teachers and prospective teachers will persist in the field. The district currently has 26% non-white teachers, the most in its history and far more than surrounding suburban districts, but it's still a far cry from the 86% non-white student body.
Research shows that students of all races benefit from having non-white teachers. For students of color in particular, Black and Latino teachers are more likely to be seen as mentors and advocates.
"When students connect with their teachers and have someone who validates their experiences and understands how it is to be a student of color — a person of color — outside in the world, that has a huge effect," Mañón said.
"When students connect with their teachers and have someone who validates their experiences and understands how it is to be a student of color — a person of color — outside in the world, that has a huge effect."
LaToya Mañón, an assistant professor of education at MCC and a former RCSD teacher
Jones went a step further in describing her relationship with her fifth-graders.
"I don’t come just as a teacher; I come as a mother as well," she said. "I give my kids what they need. They know that when Ms. Jones is there, they have my undivided attention."
Jones, a mother of five and grandmother of 14, grew up in Rochester and attended Madison and Marshall high schools. At Madison in particular she had a number of committed Black teachers who she said were formative for her.
"Seeing the same skin color in a classroom, that’s relational. It give a sense of peace and trust," she said. "They’re going to gravitate toward whoever believes in them. … If you show someone you believe in them and care about them, they’ll give you their entire life."
MCC program mentors to be offered support as well
The mentors in the MCC program will themselves be grouped in a few RCSD schools — Jones is one of three at School 10 — so that they also can bond together and support each other through the inevitable struggles of a novice teacher in urban education.
"Being a first-year teacher in Rochester is heavy," said Michele Alberti White, School 10's community school site coordinator. "You see things you didn’t think you’d ever see. … Having that extra layer of support is so important.”
Jones said she was surprised to be asked to serve as a mentor so soon into her career, but she has done mentoring through her church. She learned her own approach — loving kindness, she called it — from her grandmother, and she is eager to spread it to her students as well as the prospective teachers she'll mentor.
"Anytime you help someone else become who they're meant to be," she said, "that’s a masterpiece right there."
Contact staff writer Justin Murphy at jmurphy7@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: New mentorship program aims to help RCSD recruit, keep BIPOC teachers
