The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), in partnership with Chevrolet, recently announced that the 2018 Discover The Unexpected (DTU) Journalism Fellowship will now accept applications from communications and journalism students attending any one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) across the country.
In 2016, the DTU Journalism Fellowship launched at Howard University. The following year, the program expanded to include Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Now communications and journalism students at more than 100 HBCUs can apply.
“This year’s program also provides an opportunity for the aspiring, young journalists to look beyond the newsroom for story ideas,” said Michelle Alexander, the diversity marketing manager for Chevrolet. “They will have an opportunity to travel across several states in the all-new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox to discover inspiring stories along the way.”
Hip-hop legend MC Lyte will also return as the program’s ambassador.
For the third year in a row, The Washington Informer and The Atlanta Voice will participate in the program; the New York Amsterdam News in New York City and The New Journal & Guide in Norfolk, Va. will also host DTU journalism fellows.
“DTU fellows will be assigned to write stories that spotlight positive and powerful people and events,” according to a media advisory about the program. “The fellows will be responsible for all aspects of storytelling: writing, videography, photography, research, on-camera reporting and social media posting.”
This year, “the fellows will be placed in two, three-person teams,” the media advisory explained. “Over the course of the internship, each team’s road trip will take them to two different cities where they will spend four-week intervals working alongside experienced staffers at NNPA member newspapers.”
Alexa Imani Spencer, a journalism student at Howard University participated in the program last summer, working at The Washington Informer.
“Working for a historically Black publication helped me to understand the full worth of our institutions, as Black people,” Spencer said. “[The fellowship] helped me to understand that there has always been a voice throughout history that has advocated for us and there will always be somewhere, where we can advocate for ourselves, so long as we continue the legacies of these publications.”
Spencer continued: “The Black Press is an institution that the next generation of young, Black journalists has to preserve.”
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. the president and CEO of the NNPA, said that the third year of the DTU Journalism Fellowship represents significant progress in the NNPA’s ability to tap into the rising genius of African American millennials, exposing them to the power of the pen.
“Journalism has experienced renewed interest in the Black community,” Dr. Chavis said. “There has always been a need to not only report the news of Black America to the world at large, but also to be an advocate for the empowerment of African and African American communities across the United States and around the world.”
Dr. Chavis said that the partnership between the NNPA and Chevrolet is setting a standard for the rest of corporate America.
“This is not about philanthropy, this is more about engaging the African American community through the contributions of Chevrolet to the NNPA,” Dr. Chavis said. “It really strengthens one of the fundamental institutions in the Black community, which is the Black Press.”
Spencer said that the 2018 DTU fellows will not only experience personal growth, but that they will also gain a family by completing the program. Spencer also said that the Black Press represents another avenue, where HBCU students can help the Black community thrive.
Dr. Chavis agreed.
“There are tremendous opportunities [in the Black Press] for HBCU journalism and communications students to not only to make their mark in the profession, but to also provide an invaluable service in the Black community,” Dr. Chavis said.
The deadline to submit applications is April 30. Learn more about the NNPA’s Discover The Unexpected Journalism Fellowship at www.nnpa.org/dtu.
On Saturday, May 12, 2018, the Pasadena Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. is sponsoring its 30th Annual Fashionetta Salute to Mothers and Scholarship Luncheon & Fashion Show at the Glendale Hilton from 10 AM – 3 PM. This annual fundraising event will award 10 Scholarships and 5 Book Awards to college bound students from the Pasadena/ Altadena/ San Gabriel Valley area.
The Pasadena Chapter of AKA recently hosted a State of Black Pasadena Community Meeting that highlighted the importance of education in lifelong success. While the importance of an education only continues to be more important, the ability to attain this education is becoming harder. According to the College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing 2017” report, the cost of public school tuition has increased by 213% ($3190 in 1987-1988 to $9970 in 2017-2018). Per the same source, the cost of tuition at a private nonprofit was $15,160 in the 1987-1988 school year, but is now $34,740 in the 2017-2018 school year for an increase of 129%.
At the same time tuition has been increasing, the cost of room and board continues to increase along with the cost of books where a student could easily spend $400 on a single text book. The increase in the cost of textbooks has lead savvy students to take advantage of the opportunity to rent their books and/or leverage a $2500 IRS textbook tax credit.
In order to help college bound students handle these rising costs, the Pasadena Chapter of AKA has awarded scholarships to college bound students since it was chartered in 1960. They are proud to highlight that through the years they have awarded over $250,000 in Scholarships and Book Awards. Students have used these monies to help offset costs so they can attain a much needed education that puts them on the road to lifelong success.
Scholarships will be awarded in the areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math), Social Justice/ Economic Development, Special Needs, Most Improved GPA and Young African American Male. Each of the awardees is impressive and come from schools in the San Gabriel Valley. If you want your heart to be fi lled with joy as you hear the amazing stories of our young adults, come out to the 30th Annual Fashionetta Scholarship and Salute to Mothers Luncheon.
You can become a Scholarship Patron and directly increase the amount of the awards that will be given to the 2018 recipients by donating $250 or more. We will give you special recognition at the event, in our Souvenir Journal and on our website. You can make your donation at ‘thepaif. org’. Please call 626.475.7710 with any questions on becoming a Scholarship Patron.
If you cannot join us at Fashionetta, but want to make a difference that is less than becoming a Scholarship Patron, you can go to ‘thepaif.org’ to make a tax deductible donation. Designate it for Scholarship and the monies will make a direct difference in the amount awarded to this year’s scholarship winners.
During Fashionetta, we will also honor the Mother of the Year, have unique vendors available for shopping, enjoy a beautiful luncheon and a Fashion Show. If you want to attend Fashionetta and support our youth, you can go to ‘thepaif.org’ to purchase a ticket. Your support is needed and appreciated. Let’s make a difference together.
Voters are heading to the polls locally twice in the month of May. First up is the elections on May 5 for several city council and school board seats in Dallas and surrounding cities. Then on May 22 voters will select the final winners in runoff races from the March 6 primaries including governor and congressional seats. NDG will spotlight those races in our upcoming edition.
Dallas ISD School Board Trustee, District 9
The race to represent District 9 on the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees features incumbent Bernadette Nutall facing three challengers in Ona Marie Hendricks, Justin Henry and Edward Turner.
Nutall, a graduate of Sam Houston State University, is the co-founder and executive director Circle of Support an organization offering academic and enrichment summer learning program. She touts her achievements to secure funding for four campuses and sponsored initiatives such as college tours and the Lincoln Culinary Arts program.
Hendricks is a grant writing consultant and entrepreneur. She has served as the Vice President of TCW Executive Board, and as the Ambassador for Good Samaritans of Garland Food Pantry. She is an active advocate on issues ranging from youth awareness, parental engagement, domestic violence tasks force, anti-racism, and volunteered with Dallas ISD. Hendricks has previously run for offices with the county and school board.
Henry is a former math teacher in Los Angeles, who later went to law school before returning to Dallas eight years ago. Key issues outlined in his campaign include early childhood education, racial equity, improving how the district’s teachers are recruited, mentored and rewarded. Henry believes community engagement is vital to closing the gap between the classroom and the student’s home.
Turner is a native of South Dallas and graduate of Texas Southern University with a degree in Finance. After seeing the closure of four community schools, Turner decided to leave a career in finance and became a community organizer with a focus on developing and encouraging parental involvement. His focus is early childhood development, community engagement, better preparing students for college or the workforce, and closing the pipeline to prison.
Carrollton City Council
The easiest choice for voters in Carrollton comes in the Place 5 race, as incumbent Glen Blanscet is running unopposed. Blanscet is currently serving as mayor pro tem, and has been on the city council since 2015. He is a former general counsel for Atmos Energy, and subsequently served as a Baptist minister.
In Place 1 there is a three-way contest for the council position; including incumbent James Lawrence, along with challengers Therese Beckley and Steve Babick. Lawrence, a native of California, has experience in the Army Reserve and works in sales management. Currently he serves on the Audit/Finance Subcommittee and is a liaison for two advisory committees. He was first elected to the council in 2015.
Beckley has lived in Carrollton for 47 years according to her filing for candidacy. Information on Beckley is hard to find as she has no campaign website, and has declined to respond to recent media requests for information.
Babick arrived in Carrollton in 1992. As a Chief Financial Officer, Babick describes himself as “a finance guy” and sees himself as someone qualified to “dig into the numbers” on behalf of the city. Babick served on the Carrollton City Council from 2014-17 before falling short in a runoff race for Mayor.
Place 3 also features three candidates; with Zul Mohamed, Richard Fleming and Pat Cochran vying for the seat.
Mohamed is the CEO of a web design and digital marketing agency and holds a BA in economics from the University of North Texas. Being successful in efforts to thwart a proposed hotel construction project, he was inspired to further his public service and sees himself as a “fresh face” to represent the shifting demographics of the city.
Fleming comes to the race with experience on the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD school board, where he was the first African-American board member and had to fight a legal action in order to be seated. He is the CEO of a tax advisory and consulting firm, and says he wants to make Carrollton more “business friendly” and eliminate inconsistencies between the council and planning and zoning.
Cochran is a real estate agent and business owner with additional experience as an art director in Old Downtown’s Plaza Arts Center and community volunteer. She describes herself as a “community builder.” As a bi-racial military child, she says the ability to “rise above the noise,” work past differences and value diversity is one of the keys to her success.
In Place 7, incumbent Deputy Mayor Pro Tem John Sutter is facing challenger Austin Stroh.
Sutter, a 36-year resident of Carrollton who came to Texas from Georgia for college, is a licensed risk management assessor and insurance agent. He was first elected to the city council in 2015, and currently sits on the Audit/Finance subcommittee and is a liaison to three community committees. He is also president of a national youth sports league and a board member of US Soccer.
Stroh is an activist candidate whose political aspirations stem from arrests during the Democracy Spring protests. He sees cost of living, racial inequality and a closed system of city board participation as his top three issues. He works as a customer and application support professional with a BS in Computer Science ad devotes numerous hours to volunteer efforts.
Irving City Council
The Place 6 election for the Irving City Council has two candidates – Shayan Elahi and Albert Zapanta – facing off for an open seat.
Elahi is an attorney and a legal expert who has been featured on numerous TV news outlets. His top priorities are protecting diverse communities, funding police to fight crime, and “smart growth policies” to bring more jobs and retail to Irving.
Zapanta is a business, Vietnam veteran and has served as the president or president of numerous business and cultural organizations, and board member of the Irving Symphony Orchestra Association. His top priorities are infrastructure, water and flood control and transportation and land use.
Irving School Board
The Irving ISD school board race in District 4 is a three way race with Sanko S. Prioleau, Nuzhat Hye and Kendrick Paul Perry.
Prioleau has more than a decade of service with the District Improvement Committee and has served as a student tutor, according to a Youtube video recorded for a previous school board race. Information is difficult to find on his current school board run.
Perry is a fixed income specialist for a major brokerage firm, with more than 20 years of experience in financial customer service. He sees this financial experience as being key to serving the district effectively as a trustee. He is a parent of two children, one of which is in college after attending all her years at Irving ISD.
Hye has 35 years of experience in education; having been a teacher, principal and founding several educational institutions. She moved to Irving in 1989 and has witnessed the city’s growth over the ensuing years. College readiness and parental engagement are her key priorities for the district.
Early voting in the joint election for cities and schools has begun and is underway until May 1. Election Day is May 5.
(Editor’s Note: See more coverage of Hye’s campaign from NDG staff writer Rachel Hawkin’s visit with the candidate on April 21.)
The community is outraged. The options are limited. The time to do something is upon us.
The Houston Independent School District (HISD) has come to the point where it is being forced to relinquish control of ten Black and Brown schools in the Greater Houston area, in compliance with a 2015 law they have to deal with because of their failure to improve academic performance at these campuses.
The controversial and much-talked-about law, SB 1882, has forced HISD to make some very tough decisions about what they have to do about these ten schools; and many Houston taxpayers and families are not happy about the proposed actions the district is set to take.
To be compliant with SB1882, HISD has until Monday, April 30th, to have a signed contract submitted to the office of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), in order to avoid having their schools permanently taken over by the statewide educational governing body.
To help you better understand SB 1882, it basically allows HISD to enter into a contract with a qualified entity, such as a charter school, to operate a district campus and share teachers, facilities, or other education resources on that campus. More importantly, however, under the new state law, the TEA can legally takeover any school within HISD, if that school has received an “improvement required” rating for poor academic performance for five consecutive years.
The ten HISD schools on the chopping block, that fit that criteria this year include: Blackshear, Dogan, Highland Heights, Mading and Wesley elementary schools; Henry Middle School; Woodson PK-8; and Kashmere, Wheatley and Worthing high schools. All of these schools are made up of predominately Black and Brown students.
Because HISD did not want to run the risk of having TEA takeover the schools, they met on this past Tuesday to propose their next steps in order to comply with the state law.
According to HISD Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones, the vote on Tuesday was simply to give interim HISD Superintendent Dr. Grenita Lathan the authority to negotiate a contract with their chosen qualified partner, which happens to be one of HISD’s existing charter school operators – Energized For STEM Academy.
There are many questions swirling, as to whether Energized For STEM Academy is the right entity to takeover these 10 underperforming Black and Brown schools.
Energized For STEM Academy, which has been run by Lois Bullock since 2008, currently operates middle and high schools within HISD with approximately 1,000 students combined.
Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT), held a press conference this past Monday to express his wide-ranging concerns about the proposed entity and the lack of details and information surrounding the selection.
However, Skillern-Jones says the district has no other choice but to choose a partner they are familiar with on a local level, and one that meets the criteria.
“SB 1882 is the law governing these schools, and while we don’t agree with it, it is the law,” said Skillern-Jones. “We have to find the best options to help our students. The other options are closure, or do nothing, and allow TEA do come in and do what they will with our campuses. Right now, we need to focus on getting a partnership in place, getting these schools off the list and getting them back. In addition, we have to ensure that no others join them and that’s where our focus needs to be.”
To be eligible for the benefits of SB 1882, HISD has to partner with two types of entities in order to operate the charter. HISD had to either, on approval by the TEA Commissioner, (a) choose an institution of higher education, a non-profit, or a government entity that has been granted a charter under Subchapter C, Chapter 12; or (b) choose a State-Authorized Open-Enrollment Charter School in good standing.
Skillern-Jones said that while Energized for STEM Academy was the recommended option, she believes avoiding school closures and keeping control at the local-level, is the best way to deal with the challenges the district finds itself faced with, because that is what her constituents want.
According to Skillern-Jones, the HISD Board reached out to various entities in the area, as well as across the country, such as the City of Houston, Texas Southern University, Houston Community College, University of Houston, Johns Hopkins, and others, but could not find any takers for a variety of reasons.
For the most part, Skillern-Jones states that the entities they initially targeted had concerns about potential legal issues and challenges they would face having to oversee these schools, as well as the potential liability they would undertake by becoming a qualified partner with HISD.
According to Skillern-Jones, when the request for applications went out to solicit partners, only two entities responded back to HISD – Energized for STEM Academy, which is local and already operating in the district; and Generation Schools Network, which is based out of New York.
This is an unprecedented situation, which has the current HISD Board of Trustees flying blind, and having to solely rely on HISD’s legal counsel to provide direction and guidance.
As far as the details of what HISD can and can’t do, along with other critical details, Skillern-Jones states that the board won’t know anything until they have a negotiated contract to review. Skillern-Jones did say, however, that all of the schools would keep their names, identities and school identification numbers. As it relates to governance and academic control, HISD would have no regulation over the administration of the academic plan, as well as no say over who gets hired or fired, according to the rules of the partnership under the state law.
TEA did not finish writing the final rules for SB 1882 until recently, and per their own website, the final rules were not set to be published until February 26th or sooner. The final rules articulated, among other items, the definition of what “to partner to contract to operate” actually meant. The, new TEA rules (regulations) became effective on April 4th.
In essence, there is no way HISD could have known what the full criteria would be until then.
There are other questions lingering out there, such as whether the impacted schools will be allowed to keep their sports, fine arts, and other UIL-related programs and activities. Will these expectations be in the final negotiated contract? Has the HISD Board given Dr. Lathan instructions as to what the district wants to see in the final contract? Will current HISD employees be paid by HISD or by the selected entity? How will the employees’ pensions and retirement be handled? There are so many unanswered questions that the community won’t know until the negotiated contract has been finalized and prepared to send to TEA.
Getting to this point didn’t happen overnight, but unfortunately, the day of political reckoning has now come. By entering into a partnership, HISD would be able to hold off having the state takeover these schools or close them down for at least two years.
Many in the community are asking HISD to sue the TEA over their failure to comply to state testing laws, as well as for discrimination based on race through the accountability system.
HISD is on a time crunch and the clock is ticking. If they don’t submit a negotiated contract with their chosen partner before the April 30th deadline, they’ll have to either quickly find another partner within days, or simply adhere to the state sanctions, which could include school closures.
In the meantime, the Forward Times will continue to follow this issue and keep the community abreast of the latest happenings.
By the time Tasha was 14, she had been in and out of nine detention centers. She started running away from her abusive home in South Los Angeles two years before and it was clear she didn’t want to go back.
Inside a detention center one day, Tasha was matched with a writer who bonded with her and taught her how to write a “Moesha” television script. Tasha loved it so much that she decided she wanted to pursue a career in the film and television industry.
With the help of mentors years later, including the writer who first taught her how to write a script, Tasha received a scholarship from Warner Brothers. With that money, she went on to attend the University of Southern California’s Film School Program and later completed a year of law school in Chicago .
From her early years as a troubled kid, Tasha has gone from being a runaway teenager to a college graduate, an author of three books, a licensed real-estate agent, a paid script writer, a traveling standup comedian and a documentary filmmaker.
Create Now CEO, Jill Gurr
And it’s all thanks to Create Now, the nonprofit that helped Tasha find positive outlets through writing and the arts during a dark time in her life.
And since 1994, Create Now has transformed the lives of other at-risk youth like Tasha through arts education.
“We offer eight programs to at-risk youth throughout Los Angeles and Orange County,” said Jill Gurr, the nonprofit’s founder and chief executive director.
The organization offers programs in music, fashion design and digital media, and the visual, performing, culinary and literary arts.
Its most unique program, called Cultural Journeys, organizes outings for youth to concerts, plays, museums, sporting events and much more. Often, those cultural expeditions are the first time a child has attended a live performance or event, Gurr said, which is really exciting for them.
The art programs are offered to thousands of children all over the city who face life challenges, be it poverty, abuse or homelessness. And Create Now reaches children in need in several ways.
The first matches one of its 110 volunteers to a child in need.
“We have networks with 165 youth agencies like shelters, schools, rehab and detention centers, where we set up different types of arts programs and life skills programs,” Gurr said.
The second is inside the classroom. Nonprofit volunteers go into schools with a high percentage of low-income families, where they offer anything from one-hour workshops to more long-term ones that last from 12 to 16 weeks. These Title 1 schools, as they are called, often don’t have the financial resources to offer students arts education, Gurr said.
The third is inside communities. “We organize arts festivals and community events in disadvantaged neighborhoods,” Gurr said.
In August, the organization will host an arts festival at Venice Hope Park in downtown L.A. that will feature “an open mic and prizes, arts and crafts and face painting.”
And in the historically underserved South L.A., Create Now is working on instituting a writing program in the fall at John Muir Middle School.
It is also in that neighborhood where Gurr envisions the future of the organization. She said that she and everyone at Create Now dreams of opening an art center in South L.A., where they hope to continue transforming the lives of more at-risk children like Tasha once was.
The Oakland Unified School District has rehired widely respected administrator Tim White as Deputy Chief of Facilities to oversee construction and renovation projects on numerous major facilities projects that are underway.
“I am excited to come back to the place where I spent 14 years, supporting young people with outstanding educational facilities,” said White.
White worked for OUSD from 2001 to 2015 as Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and later as Deputy Chief of Facilities before being forced out his position in 2015 during the administration of former Supt. Antwan Wilson.
After leaving Oakland, White served as Executive Director of Facilities for Berkeley schools, working closely with the superintendent, Construction Bond Oversight Committee, and school board to determine long-term planning for the expenditure of facility construction bonds approved by voters.
He was also responsible for the expenditure of the district’s school maintenance tax ($5 million annually) used to keep schools safe and well-maintained. White previously worked in the Compton Unified School District.
“Tim brings extensive experience, an accomplished track record and a deep commitment to Oakland and communities. We are excited about Tim’s leadership and the new team that will be assembled in our Business and Operations division,” said OUSD Supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell.
“My previous time in OUSD will help me transition into this new role, enabling me to hit the ground running. There are many exciting projects well underway, including the rebuilding of Glenview Elementary and the new school building at Madison Park Academy, plus many in the early stages such as the new Central Kitchen,” said White. “I look forward to completing all of them as soon as possible, while ensuring that we are effective stewards of taxpayer dollars for the voters of Oakland.”
As the cost of college grows, research shows that so does the number of hungry and homeless students at colleges and universities across the country.
Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless is offering 10, $2,000 scholarships for the 2018-2019 school year to Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) students who are currently homeless or have experienced homelessness in the past two years. Funds can be used for education or living expenses.
With demand for technical and skilled trade positions at an all-time high, and with MCTC’s nearly 100 percent job placement rates for students graduating from their career and technical education (CTE) programs, Open Your Heart is confident that the benefits of this scholarship are twofold.
In addition to filling high-demand jobs, students are offered a real and permanent escape from a homeless life.
Since 1986, Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless, a Minnesota non-profit, has supported hunger, homeless, and domestic violence programs throughout the state.
Entirely funded by the private sector, mostly individuals, Open Your Heart has also worked to ensure that homeless students have the same access to educational opportunities as all Minnesotans.
For more information please visit www.oyh.org. Scholarship applicants should apply online at www.minneapolis.edu/collegescholarships by the June 1 deadline.
—Information provided by Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless
Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in the world and in “Help Me Understand My Child: A Mother’s Truth About Autism,” author Florence Bracy introduces readers to the world of special needs.
Inside her new memoir, Bracy chronicles her inspirational journey of how she advocated for 12 years for her son who has autism. She shares the secrets of how she overcame many challenges and obstacles and what it took to support her son successfully.
One of the challenges she mentions was the act of gaining access to the proper services in school districts and regional centers that help assist children with special needs.
“Most parents are overwhelmed upon learning how to secure services and live with a child with autism,” Bracy said. “There are a lot of feelings and acceptance issues that come up. This book provides strategies on how to cope through this process.”
Florence Bracy
The book is a story of hope that will definitely interest families who have children with autism or adults with autism, and others who have an interest in the population. Bracy hopes that family members who have someone with autism are filled with a sense of empowerment after reading her book.
In addition to being an author, Bracy is a paralegal in a domestic violence clinic. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
To learn more about the author and to join her support group, visit her website, florencebracy.com. Meetings are held in the Los Angeles area.
Bracy will have a book signing at South Central Los Angeles Regional Center from 6 to 8:30 p.m. May 4. To attend, rsvp at florencebracy.com.
“Help Me Understand My Child: A Mother’s Truth About Autism” is available for $18.95 or $9.99 (e-book) on Amazon.
In honor of April being National Autism Awareness Month, Sheletta Brundidge shares the first of a two-part story chronicling her discovery that three of her four children were on the autism spectrum.
My son Brandon was two years old when our autism journey began. He was playing with a couple of toys in the restroom while I was nearby bathing his then-one-year old sister Cameron (I was pregnant with their soon-to-be-born baby brother Daniel at the time). She was splashing around in the tub having fun and I guess he decided he’d look for a neighboring body of water to splash around in, too.
Brandon made a bee-line for the toilet and took a nose dive. Being a germaphobe I yelled out, “Noooooooooooo!” before sprinting over to pull his head out of the bowl. His face was wet, his hair was damp and he was as happy as he could be.
I immediately took Cameron out of the tub and put Brandon in, scrubbing him as hard as I could trying to get those toilet germs off his face. I remember looking at him in the eye and pleading “Son, don’t play in the toilet, okay?”
He looked beyond me with a blank stare, as if I wasn’t standing there. I knew instantly something was wrong. The light that had been in my son’s eyes was dimmed ever so slightly.
He couldn’t figure out what I was saying to him, and worse yet, he didn’t know how to respond. He began babbling and looking around as if imaginary butterflies were capturing his attention. He couldn’t give me direct eye contact.
“Oh no,” I thought, “Something is wrong with my baby!” Then I wondered, “How long has this been going on?” I blamed myself for not noticing sooner. How could I not see that my son was slipping into darkness?
I was working full-time, raising a growing family, being a mom, a wife, a daughter, an employee. I was busy keeping my house clean and too preoccupied with chores to have a handle on my child’s mental development.
I hadn’t taken a moment to notice —until my son dunked his head in a toilet — that he wasn’t behaving like a normal two-year-old.
He was lining his food up and not eating it. He was still drinking from a bottle.
He wouldn’t make eye contact. He was babbling instead of talking. He didn’t respond to his name when I called for him. I missed all the warning signs. I ignored all the clues.
My. Son. Had. Autism.
I cried. I stopped eating. I got down to 96 pounds. I was curled up in the fetal position under the table, unable to do anything except feel sorry for myself. My momma had to come and take care of my kids. I couldn’t even fold laundry or brush my teeth, because, of course, I made it all about me. I’m a narcissistafter all.
Somehow I thought I had failed as a parent and caused my son to have autism. So, instead of getting busy finding help for my child, I cowered in fear of what life had to offer a Black boy with special needs.
Since he couldn’t speak, would the police shoot him if he didn’t respond to their commands?
Would he ever be able to get a job and support himself? What about college? Without words, could he find a wife?
All the dreams I had for little Brandon were taking a nose dive out of the freakin’ window.
I had decided, that at age two, my son’s life was over and there was no hope for him.
But God reached down and snatched me out from under the kitchen table and said: “I chose you!” My spirit awakened and I realized this was a blessing: Of all the women in the world, God picked me to be Brandon’s mother. What an honor that He selected me to be the shepherd of this little life.
I had to get it together for my baby, so he could live out his God-given destiny and reach his full potential. It was all on me to get it done.
First I went to the folk closest to me for assistance. But since I didn’t have friends who had kids with special needs, nobody could tell me what to do. I tried to call on my family but that quickly backfired.
My momma brushed off my suspicions about Brandon having autism as just me being dramatic. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that damn boy. You just looking for attention; he gon’ talk when he gets ready. Your cousin Meme didn’t talk until she was 3.”
My grandmother outright blamed me for everything, “If you had just got an epidural during your pregnancy,” she quipped, “the boy would be fine now. But you wanted to do that natural childbirth [expletive]. He probably ain’t get no oxygen to his brain. That’s why he ain’t talking. It’s your fault, Sheletta.”
Since family and friends wouldn’t come to my rescue, I turned to the professionals.
Everything that I read about having an autism diagnosis said early detection and intervention is the key to success. So I made an appointment at a children’s hospital to get Brandon evaluated and tested for autism.
After three hours of checking out my son, the doctor stepped out of the room and declared, “Yep, you were right, your child has autism. Have a good life.”
Now what? What do I do with my special needs child? Does he need a prescription to keep him from flapping his hands? Or some speech sessions a couple times a week to help him learn how to talk? They didn’t give me one damn referral — not even a tip on what kind of therapy he needed or how I could go about getting services for Brandon.
I didn’t know what to do or where to turn, but I kept hearing God say, “I chose you!”
I knew this was gon’ be a “Roll up your sleeves — against all odds — me and my baby against the world” situation. So I went to my husband Shawn and asked if I could quit my job.
Without the worry of working every day, I dedicated my life to learning more about autism spectrum disorders and looking for ways to heal my child.
I didn’t want to get help for him. Forget help! I wanted Brandon healed from this autism diagnosis, so he could grow up to be the man God designed him to be without deficit or deficiency. I prayed for God to send the answer and He did.
But in the meantime, both Cameron and my newborn son Daniel were diagnosed with autism as well.
Next week, Sheletta encounters an angel who guided her through the proper therapy and medication to heal her son Brandon from the effects of his autism diagnosis. She will provide a blueprint for other parents to find services for their special needs children and scholarships that are available to pay for it all.
Public school systems throughout the nation will now be required to be a lot more transparent when it comes to school funding.
According to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015, all public schools nationwide, will be required to give fully-detailed reports on how and where they spend institutional funding.
The ESSA reporting requirement for school funding begins in December 2019, and supporters of the rule, including the NAACP, believe it will help to encourage greater educational equity, particularly among schools serving large numbers of Black and Hispanic students in low-income neighborhoods.
“We need more equitable and adequate funding for all schools serving students of color,” said Victor Goode, the education director for the NAACP. “Why? Because education funding has been inadequate and unequal for students of color for hundreds of years. Second, privatization forces are working to eliminate our public schools and, with it, transparency, public accountability and access to all.”
Goode said that ESSA requires a breakdown of how student need is met with a focus on equity over equal distribution for funding.
Goode continued: “That explains the reason behind the school-by-school, per pupil spending report. This kind of public transparency is a good thing and can help provide more meaningful parental and community engagement, which is also essential to accountability and achieving educational equity.”
According to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization, based in Washington, D.C., that conducts research on solving societal problems locally, nationwide and globally, to date minority students are still far more less likely than White students to have adequate school resources.
In addition, the Brookings Institution reported that schools with predominantly Black and Hispanic children, on average, are nearly twice as large as White schools—reaching an estimated 3,000 students or more in most cities, with lower-quality curriculum offerings and less qualified teachers (in terms of levels of education, certification, and training in the fields they teach), all of which George H. Lambert, Jr., president and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League, believes can be rectified through adequate funding.
“Through the availability of [ESSA] data, Black and [Hispanic] educators can begin to prove that Black and [Hispanic] students suffer from funding disparities and the lack of teachers in the classroom who look like them or represent their perspective,” Lambert said. “We need better, more transparent data on school funding. The availability of such data and our ability to access it forces greater urgency on what is, arguably the most important issue of our time.”
Lambert said that any discussion on educational equity should acknowledge the enormous achievement gaps that still plague Black and Hispanic students.
“If these gaps aren’t closed, our community doesn’t have much of a future,” Lambert said.” Even though high school graduation rates are better now than 30 years ago, we still face a situation where more than a quarter of Black students, for example, are dropping out. Most Black students in the largest U.S. cities are attending schools with high concentrations of poverty. Over half of our young, Black men are either dropping out or finishing K-12 late, hence 1 in 3 end up trapped in some fashion in the criminal justice system.”
Despite high approval from many civil rights organizations, school district administrators, like Robert Lowry, the deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents still believe that the new law might shine light on imbalanced revenue and create the perception that some students are being shortchanged, even when this may not be the case.
“We question whether the state officials would even have the expertise and the capacity to evaluate spending levels between schools,” Lowry told Education Week.
Though Lowry’s concerns may be valid, Lambert believes that full transparency is a plus.
“This is a good way to learn about flaws in the system and how those flaws are aggravated by a lack of Black and [Hispanic] expertise and perspective in the curriculum, the classroom and the leadership office,” Lambert said. “We can also find out if school districts with a larger number of Black and [Hispanic] educators are experiencing high levels of funding disparities and uneven attention from policymakers.”
by 
By Lauren Poteat