Student Voice
Getting Into College Is Tough for First-Generation College Students, So I'm Making It a Little Easier
Without the support of my college counselor, I would not be where I am today. In my senior year of high school, I was a student who required a lot of support and guidance. The whole college...
Mental Health
3 Reasons Why Every LGBTQ Student Deserves a Mentor
My wife and I are educators working at the same school. On a daily basis we navigate microaggressions in the workplace; unwillingness to use our married name, discomfort when addressing us publicly,...
anti-racism
3 Tips to Survive College From Someone Who Made It
Editor’s Note: This is a condensed version of Samantha Smylie’s speech to the 2018 graduating class at John Hope High School in Chicago. Hope is one of the high schools that will be closing as part...
Politics
My Native American Students Don’t Need to Be Taught About Racism But They Do Need a Space to Talk About It
Just this year alone, Kanye West has said slavery was a “choice,” Roseanne Barr compared former Obama Advisor Valerie Jarrett to an ape, Starbucks closed down 8,000 stores to hold anti-bias training...
student achievement
I Didn't Want to Go to KIPP But Now I'm in College and I Totally Get It
It's 5:45 a.m. on a Monday in mid-August. The year is 2006 and my mom is rapping on my bedroom door. “Julien! Time to get up Ju, you have school in an hour,” my mom says as I rise out of the bed...
Diversity
We Need to Stop Pulling Black Girls Out of Schools for Dress Code Violations
Dress code enforcement is as American as apple pie. Most of us have had some experience with dress codes, either in school or the workplace. And like all other things American, dress codes often...