In 2019, after eight years as an English teacher at Richmond High School, Rebekah Ponce-Larsen was excited to start a new job as a librarian at Lovonya DeJean Middle School. Being a librarian, she thought, would give her an opportunity to work with kids but in a different way. “I have more time to get to know individual students sometimes than teachers do,” she said. It’s through that personal relationship with students that Ponce-Larsen has transformed the library at DeJean,…
Shortly after the start of the school year, education consultant Mary Bacon encouraged about three dozen parents and guardians in the West Contra Costa Unified School District to engage teachers and schools to improve the educational outcomes for African American students across the district. “We don’t have the luxury anymore to drop our kids off and say we’ve found the right school district, or this is the right school and the right classroom, and then not check on them again…