Different District, Same Story with Dr. Jeanette Patterson

Different District Same Story with Dr. Jeanette Patterson

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Kevin Adams: Exit Interview, Faithful, we are so privileged tonight to have Dr. Jeanette Patterson with us and we are gonna hear her story. So sit back because it's a great one. so Asia, do what you do and take it away.

Dr. Asia Lyons: All right, so I've met Dr. Patterson and I want to say 2010. and I'll let her share her story, but we intersected when I was thinking about teaching middle school.

Shout out to middle school teachers,

Kevin Adams: middle school, the Lord's work. It's the only job that people say, Oh, you tell them the grade level. They're like, Oh, that was the worst time of my

Dr. Asia Lyons: life. Oh, there you go. You're lucky. You were the special ones. Yes seventh grade. I never, but so we've met back then.

And I ended [00:02:00] up teaching middle school, not at her middle school, but I did end up teaching middle school that following year. And so I haven't talked to Dr. Patterson since then. so following her, I believe on LinkedIn saying wait a minute, she's left. The K 12 space. Let's hear what happened with the story is so she's here to share with us.

Welcome. Thank you so much for

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: joining us. Thank you for having me. the field of education has always been in the forefront of my mind, and even when I was young, even when I was in the fourth grade I knew I was going to be a teacher. When you take those, Iowa basic skills tests and you get your numbers back and it drives you in your pathway on the direction you're going to go and it said I was going to be a history teacher.

I don't know if I was a history teacher. So just growing up, I knew I was going to be a teacher. I started out with in high school when, because in my high school in Kansas, because that's where I'm originally from, we did a wills and testament. And so my will and testament [00:03:00] was to be a school teacher.

Oh and sure enough, I went to Hutchinson community college. I've done all of the, I've done all the college levels. I've done community college. I've done, employer, state university for my bachelor's. My master's would be, university of Phoenix, and my doctorate is Nova Southeastern University.

So I've been to all levels of college and knowing that, I always know it's gonna be a teacher. I was always interested in education because I followed the footsteps of my uncle. He is John F. Henson. He's now deceased, but he has this. We have the same doctorate degree, same university. I just got mine 23 years later.

Wow. I come from a family of educators. My mother was a school librarian for 32 years. my father was the first African American on the school board in Wellington, Kansas and has. always been that only African American that served. [00:04:00] He also served at the state board level as well. He did some work with the Kansas state board.

And so we, I come from educators. My uncle, John was a high school teacher and he ended up going to community college. I thought I would follow his footsteps, but I always stayed in K 12. And so When I started in public education, I started as a substitute teacher. I always knew I wanted to be in one of the higher performing school districts. and so I chose that school district and I started out as a sub three. I only sub three days and I had a part time job. And what was ironic about this is that it was in the middle of the school years in January. when no job, there's really not any jobs available. But they needed an extra person.

And so I taught elective classes, so I taught drama. I've never taught drama. I was a social studies teacher and I taught how to do minds and all kinds of stuff and [00:05:00] study skills, just some of those simple elective classes. for middle school. So I was teaching sixth grade. I was hired on in, in the, for the fall as an eighth grade social studies teacher in the early nineties, 91, 92 school year.

And I, I had a ball my first year. I was, named the, teacher of the month through KCNC channel four. All right.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: And it was just, I believe that when you're teaching kids, you make kids feel comfortable in your classroom and you have fun. Yes. Can't be boring. Who wants to be in a boring classroom? So I was, in that classroom with those kids. I wanted, I always wanted the African American students because I was African American and I wanted to see kids that look like me. And I wanted them to see me that they can do this too, or even more. And the school district wouldn't give me all of them.

The school wouldn't, they were like, we got to pass all [00:06:00] these kids. You can't have all of them, but they gave me as many

Dr. Asia Lyons: as they could. And I said, I love that. I love that.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: I'll take that. And so I taught for five years. I taught social studies. Then I went into a dean's position, where I did a lot of discipline.

And a dean's job is really hard, but you can impact so many kids lives, where you can help them. You can guide, you can work with parents. because usually when some kids, not all the time, but Most kids that are troubled and they're having problems and obviously there's probably some problems going on at home.

And so you really have to build relationships with parents to know that you're treating the child fair and that you care about their child, even though. They made some bad choices. And so I've had some great experiences in the dean's office with working with families and kids and then going into the assistant principalships, working with, families at two middle schools.

So I've always done middle school. I did 24 [00:07:00] years there. Oh, wow. Nothing. I didn't go elementary or high school. I just went middle school and I moved into Another middle school. And what was different is that my first middle school, I, it was fun. I thought it was the only middle school that had parties, like people would go to happy hour until I went to another school and it was a higher performance school.

And it

Dr. Asia Lyons: was different.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Yes. Yeah. And the, here's what it was. I was at a school that had predominantly black and brown kids. It was More diverse. Yep. The other school I went to was predominantly white, and it was like, boom,

Kevin Adams: boom. Night and day. Night and day.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Absolutely. Learning was

Kevin Adams: different. You see the inequity confronted by it right off the bat.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Absolutely.

Kevin Adams: Walk in the door. Walk in the door.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: It was a whole different, environment, culture. Parents were knocking on [00:08:00] the door, advocating for their kids. whatever you can imagine. You can read in the books about how all these kids are being successful. And I saw it with my own eyes. And then I went back to the school where I started teaching and I was the And I had an opportunity to make some changes. the one thing that I did there is that I love the kids and I interacted with the kids and I was hands on, I wasn't somebody that always sit in my office with, just do paperwork. I was out there with kids. My team was out there with kids. Kids knew me. I knew them because here's the thing, if you're running an organization, then you need to be visible and kids need to know who's running the show. who's in charge? And that's what I told him. I said, I'm in charge. So if you got a question, you come to me and we can figure it out. And, I just, I love those kids. I would greet them each and every [00:09:00] morning as they came in the door. and I would see them on their way at the end of the day. As a matter of fact, During my tenure, as a principal, we created what we call the Husky watch. like the neighborhood watch, we created a little Husky cards and we went around the neighborhood and like our phone numbers, the school phone number, my phone number was on there. And if we, they saw our kids doing something naughty, or if they saw the kids doing something great, they could call the school and let us know.

And we, it worked. We had a lot of parents. call and say, come have coffee with us and watch the kids go to school. I can't have coffee. We got 1200 kids in the building, but, but we did see some things that were happening and we addressed them right away. And kids wouldn't apologize if they were kicking over trash cans or digging through mailboxes.

Cause we're talking middle school, right?

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yep. Yep. Yep.

Kevin Adams: All the mischievous things.

Dr. Asia Lyons: I know that's right.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: So I did a lot of that. I worked with the climate and culture. It took us a long time. We [00:10:00] took a school that had about 1, 585 referrals for 1, 300 kids. And so we got it down to about 400. That's awesome.

Yeah, it was hard, but we did the work and it was really the climate and culture. That is what's so important in public education. And then after being a principal, I took a year off. I worked with my church. I, I did a, facilitated a grant called Race Policing and Community Justice Advocates. So I taught high school kids how to teach their peers on how to be race and community advocates and justice advocates, like knowing your rights and recognizing, when something is wrong, what to do, how to talk to the police, having an understanding of your culture.

Yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons: So I, I want to back up a little bit. I'm just, I'm thinking about, the Husky Watch, which I think is brilliant. And for the folks who are listening out there, [00:11:00] how do you incorporate this kind of idea in schools all over, right? Again, she's talking about like the positives too, right? We're not

Kevin Adams: here.

That's what I love. That's what I love. Yeah. It's not just, what do we do? We catch them doing the right thing, right? Which they do more often than not. More often than not,

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: the husky watch was really interesting. It was closer to the end of my career in as a principal. we noticed that kids were doing some things out in the neighborhood, they're walking home and they're digging in people's mailboxes and stuff like that.

So you have to address that. And so I thought, what if we did a neighborhood watch where we go through the neighborhood and give everybody one of our cards and they put it in their window or in their door area so that our kids could see it. And prior to the school year starting, we walk the neighborhood, canvas the neighborhood, knocked on doors, and then we walk I've said who I introduced myself, my assistant principal one [00:12:00] family said, we've never seen the principal.

We've been here for 30 years. They've been there as long as the school has been there. I said, yeah, I'm the principal and explain to them that this is, the Husky watch and we'd like for you to put them in your, the card in your window. And some people like fine. Absolutely. And then they could call us if they saw our students doing something great, and they could call us and let us know if they were doing something naughty.

And we've got some great calls and we've got some naughty calls, and it worked. Sure.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Oh, sorry to cut you off. Get pushback from your community or not from the community from other teachers, seeing how this is probably new to them. Was it like, Oh, I don't want to go out and knock on doors, or I don't think that's going to work or but where people like all for as long as they didn't have to go out there.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: The teachers were very supportive of it. Awesome. Yeah. because of the fact that we were working with the community. And I didn't have [00:13:00] the teachers go out. It was our leadership team that went out because people need to know who's in charge. and who's school is it? And who's representing the school?

And I wanted to be that person out there. So I didn't ask the teachers to go. We were going to do another round in another part of the area. But we never got to do that. And that's when I want to have the teachers go, but they were very supportive. I explained to them in a staff meeting. And then I also explained to the kids what it was, because, I had to explain to them that they were being watched and I think it's important that Anytime that you're in a leadership role, or if you're in any role, you're being watched and you're representing an organization.

And that's what I wanted them to understand. People are watching you and they're when they are watching you, they expect to see the best of you and not the worst of you. And that's what I wanted to get to the kids. And so they knew they were being watched. That's awesome.

Dr. Asia Lyons: And how long were you

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: a principal?

I was a principal for eight years.[00:14:00] I started in the fall of 2007. interesting how I got my job. I was getting a facial

Dr. Asia Lyons: and I got a phone call. Nice. And this is all your teaching career. It sounds like you went to school out of the state, but your teaching career has been all through Colorado

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: the whole time?

My career is... My career is all in Colorado. I spent 17 years in the school that I started at six years and two other middle schools. Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, it is.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. So I think, and I know you talked about, we skipped ahead and talked a little bit about taking this year off and working with in the community at your church.

The question we always ask

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: our participant

Dr. Asia Lyons: participants, my back to all had his own I guess is between the time that you that what was the decision. Or what was the situation where you decided, it's after all this time, it's time for me to take a break [00:15:00] from being in like a traditional K 12 space.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: it's, you know what, at some point, you just, it, it takes a toll on you. with all the bureaucracy, all the rules. All the changes that, are that continue in public education with you've got to do this plan. You've got to do, you got to get your teachers going here.

Your kids are, out of control, et cetera. And so at that time it was time for me to leave. And I knew it, my gut said it as a Christian woman, the good Lord

Dr. Asia Lyons: told me it's time to go

Kevin Adams: Asia. Ding, ding. Second time. On the exit interview that the good Lord has been the messenger. I think we are gathering plenty of evidence to listen to the good Lord, that voice, when you hear it.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Dr. Donna, I can't remember her last name right now. But she also had this talk, [00:16:00] she talked to us about and hers, her conversation was definitely, we were wild by it, but she talked about how she was really seeking God to say, like, when it was time to go. And she had all her stuff packed one time and God was like, nope, not yet.

So she had to put everything back. But she really felt guided and she didn't leave teaching until she knew it was time. And when it was time, it was like the perfect. It was perfect. Absolutely.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Absolutely. And that's what happened to me. it was mid year. I left. and it was a sermon that TD Jake's preached.

I can't even remember the name of it, but he preached a sermon and I knew that message was for me. And, when things are right, it's when they when you just slide on out and slide into something else. And I did a couple of months at central office. And then I said, I'm leaving. I've got to go. the principle ship is a hard job.

And I don't think people realize. You have that role, because you're trying to meet the needs of your community. [00:17:00] You have to make sure your students are learn or learning and you have to be able to support your teachers. And so you have all these people coming at you plus you have your district office who's setting up every parameter and rule for you to move forward, and just meeting all of that it's heavy load.

And I don't believe. Everyone realizes that until you're in that role. And I was in there eight years. It was a long eight years and I was gray. I went in my first year and I came out gray and you don't always take care of yourself because you're trying to do what's right for everybody else instead of doing what's right for you.

And it took a toll on me. I had some, health issues after coming out of the principalship because of the stress. And just, it tears you up and I needed to take that time. but God is the one that did tell me it's time to resign and help me write my letter. Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons: We, I liked the way she said that.

Help me write my letter. I

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: got to fill this [00:18:00] back there behind

Dr. Asia Lyons: that we might get to that Kevin, we might get to that and help me write my letter. I think Kevin and I, we've had so many, and Kevin, I know I'm talking a lot today. You go, you,

Kevin Adams: hey, you

Dr. Asia Lyons: go. So we talked about our podcast and we're not going to say that what you're saying is that you experienced racialized events.

That's not what you said, but we do talk about a lot on this podcast about racial battle fatigue and the ways that black educators experience like emotional, behavioral, physiological, psychological strain, and like how we respond through, for some of us it is, an inability to sleep for some of us, it is, like this prolonged overworking for some of us, it's crying.

It's so many things. And as we're going through our podcast, folks always talk about, and like I said, you didn't mention it being racialized, but a lot of people talk about like the mental piece and like crying in the [00:19:00] car, being hospitalized for stress and panic attacks because on top of just. The role of education period of being a teacher or principal or

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: whatever period is other

Dr. Asia Lyons: layer right on top of that, that involves race and racism in the school

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: systems. when you're a, when you're an African American leader, and you go into a predominantly white teaching staff and have that. Absolutely. I had those experiences. But you're also covered by the blood, right? And so that's who I had to lean, learn how to lean and depend on. and then I had staff. So what I did as a principal, I hired a predominantly staff or leadership team of color.

Except for one white guy. I just had a white person on there. But for the most part, all my people, I surrounded my people that look like me and had this experience and could understand, what was going on with our kids and to help our families [00:20:00] and kids. I've had a number of experiences where I've been talked about and, I had really tough time with the teachers union and they were meeting underground and wanting to get rid of me. I had an assistant principal when I first started that was just all over the place and talking about she was going to have to train somebody and HR was like, I don't think so. And they got her out of just it's on and on. I, during that time we were doing a lot of the equity work in the district and, I led a little, but I had to have white counterparts.

Lead most of that work. Because white people listen to white people. Yes. and so even though I was the leader and we had people on an equity team, I had the white guy lead the work. He had the privilege walk. I participated in the privilege walk because people needed to see me that I was in the back too. things happen to me too. And[00:21:00] we saw the tears and the, complaints and, just all this it's, you're right. there's the struggles of white teachers not wanting to help black kids and talking about families. And I had a teacher that called a little African American eighth grade boy, a tribe.

He's walking around here with this tribe and he was an African American boy. And I taught, I had to call her in and talk to her about race. And so that's racial and she put it out on email and then that, and in the spring she retired because I wasn't going to have it, just a lot of stuff was going on.

Kids were being targeted and you'd have to address staff. And that was the hard part of my job, but it happened and I made it out. Yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. What an interesting way to say that I made it out. Yes.

Kevin Adams: Yes. Something that you had dreamed about for, I think we have to point this out and your story [00:22:00] you had dreamed about since a child, since being a child. But you made it out of it. I think that's what we have to understand. These are things that we had dreams about as young people and went into intentionally. Yep. and. In the end, it becomes like a nightmare, right? So dreams become

Dr. Asia Lyons: nightmares.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: and just think about that for kids, kids have dreams, they come in and they want to be lawyers, doctors, astronauts, what have you.

And then they're disappointed by a teacher who says they can't. That's right. And that happens to a lot. Of kids. mostly black and brown kids. you see it happen where they're just destroyed. Their spirits stepped on. And that's not right. And so that's been my goal is to make sure that every child has an opportunity learn and to feel like they belong.

Dr. Asia Lyons: amazing. It's so important. Oh

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: my God, it's huge.

Kevin Adams: Asia, should we take a little [00:23:00] break a pause for the cause right now? Yeah, let's do it. All right. We'll be

Dr. Asia Lyons: back in a minute. Yeah. Okay. Everybody's good. Let's get back into it. Okay. All right, folks. So we had some good conversation going on the break and we had to bring it back to you all.

So back to we got into this conversation about back to school address that President

Kevin Adams: Obama. We're talking about how hard it is to be a black principal. But this is an example.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Thank you. So I remember the time when President Obama was the president and the teachers. love the president, but our community didn't.

Not all of them. And so what we had to do is, we would show his address on the screen. Everybody was watching it at 11 o'clock in the morning or what have you. There were some families that didn't send their kids to school, or I had to have them in the library. [00:24:00] While he did his address because they didn't want their kids to be watching a socialist.

And

Kevin Adams: The President of the United States of America.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: The President of the United States of America. Now that didn't happen when Bush was the president. Nope. But it did happen with Obama being the president. And so I'm like, wow, this is really interesting. there's so many experiences. I remember Ku Klux Klan leader lived in the neighborhood.

And, I had a clan sticker on my, this is when I was teaching on my door, somebody put a clan sticker on my door because really I was the only black teacher at that time in that school. And then there was a dean that was black, and was on my door I went down and told my principal, and she did nothing about it.

Not Jeanette, I'm so sorry, or oh my gosh, I put it on the sticky note. I said, this is what I found on my [00:25:00] door. I don't even know she knew how to address it. That's right. She didn't know what to do, but nothing. that's so when you're talking about struggles as a black employee, black teacher, black principal, those are it being excluded from meetings, especially if you're not if you're an assistant principal or a professor.

administrator in another school, you're excluded from meetings. So their doors closed, the white administrators, and then you've got your door open and you're working and then decisions are made and you have no idea of what's going on. that's happened too. So there's, I could really go into some deep stuff around race.

At my first school when I was teaching, it was prevalent. it was happening in that neighborhood, leaflets were put on cars. I had some kids that were associated with, the Ku Klux Klan and some of them soldiers out there. And one little [00:26:00] boy, he was a part of it. He was part of the racist. group. But he always did all his work for me. and he says, you're protected. We're not gonna mess up your car, but we'll mess up the others. yeah, it was bad. It was really bad at that time. but then we just, the Justice Department stepped in. And, pretty much, took care of everything, but it was

Dr. Asia Lyons: really bad.

Kevin said something on the break that I think is worth talking about too. And Kevin talked about like this. We hear the same story every episode. can you talk about that some more?

Kevin Adams: Yeah. I just think it's funny. It's not funny. That, and it becomes, it's not surprising, but I think in particular when we have black women, especially black women who move through education into leadership positions, how similar the story is in terms [00:27:00] of when black women advocate for black kids. That's when, you have to deal with all of the other aspects of the community coming back down on you. And I don't think that's I know that's not the way it is for white educators for white and administer administrators and leaders. Let's say that, and white women leaders.

And, in fact, even when sometimes they're doing the same thing. You know what I mean? Even when they're like, you have White, leaders who are allies, who are trying to attempt to put the, you don't see the same sort of, blow back you

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: know, I have a student, she was, she was top of the class and, you have those awards ceremonies at the end of the year, and I made sure she got the least five of them.

Yes. Yeah. And, the teachers were like, which were white. We're like, why is she getting all the awards? Because all these white kids get all the awards every year. So she's going to get the words [00:28:00] this year. I

Dr. Asia Lyons: made the teammate. Yes. but,

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: why can't she get all the awards? she was making the grades.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah,

Kevin Adams: I think that's think that's important. And then you also mentioned here's another thing that I just love to hear you say more about, is the teachers union because I've seen this and right now I'll just say, for all transparency, I'm part of the D. C. T. A. Bargaining team working with the union and it's an attempt to have more diverse voices at the table during bargaining. but your experiences and you mentioned that you had to fight them. So can you

Dr. Asia Lyons: talk about

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: that? Absolutely. Here's the thing is that I was in a teacher's union when I was a teacher, and I am pro teachers union, especially when employees are being mistreated. Yes. But where I'm not pro teachers union is when you try to, play that role of protecting someone who is.

Incompetent in the classroom. and someone [00:29:00] who just isn't the right fit for the school. And you just keep continuing to pick and push, push, push on somebody who doesn't even belong with kids. And that's my issue with the teacher's union. I think that my experience as a T as a principal at the teacher's union was strictly around race.

I was a black principal. they did not like me that I was the one to have to tell them what to do. and that's where we fell apart. Am I for teachers union? Absolutely support them 100%. I'm pro teacher, but when you're putting somebody in the classroom, that is not a fit for the classroom or for kids, then that's why I have a problem with the teachers union.

And always wanted to get paid. So I know you're a, but you know what I'm saying? You want to nickel and dime the system when you're not putting in a hundred percent. That's right. That's right. You want the system to pay you a hundred percent. [00:30:00] But you ain't doing it, my, my issue with the teachers union is when you protect those teachers and say, they need more money so the kids can learn. wait a minute, you have a contract, you have an obligation to these kids. That's right. and that's what I struggled with the teachers union as well. It's we got to show some results when you give results, then you can get a little something extra, but when you're not giving results and blaming kids and families, we got

Dr. Asia Lyons: an issue.

That's right.

Kevin Adams: That's

Dr. Asia Lyons: right. That's

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: right. Yeah. that's my issue with the teachers union.

Dr. Asia Lyons: I have to say, like, when I was in, I would say, I don't even know what, how to describe the situation, but when I was teaching, and I went to the teachers union to support me because I was experiencing racial battle fatigue from my principal.

Yes. and I think I'm going to do, I'm going to do a Desmond Williams. I'm going to just name like when I was experienced racial battle fatigue from Shelley McCourt at Sky Vista Middle School in Cherry Creek School District. Wow. Love it. There it is. I talked to my, [00:31:00] I talked to the person who was in charge of union in my area and I talked to him so I now said, this is racial.

He she's being racist and I'm telling him and I could see his face. That as soon as I mentioned race, he was just done with the conversation. Like nothing that I was saying after that made, like it made no, nevermind. And I thank God for Jackie Parkins, who I'm sure Kevin is like amazing.

She's a great person who believed my story, but at the time the union didn't, was not able to help me to name race in that conversation. Yep. and yeah, I too, I am a hundred percent teachers union. I am from Detroit. I am. So my dad is a UAW

Kevin Adams: man, union blood,

Dr. Asia Lyons: border company, pinching the works, even now.

Shout out to Ron Tolliver out there, daddy. Hope you listening. But in that case, for me, as a black woman, I was not supported. So I can understand

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: what you're saying. But don't you think that The district that you were in had [00:32:00] gone through all of that equity work year after year. my goodness, that equity work started in the mid 90s and year after year, it was embedded into the culture.

And now you have a teachers union that can't even recognize it. Yes. And so what does that say about maybe the leadership or about individual people that don't want to face the fact that there's racism in public schools and it's happening. it really is.

Dr. Asia Lyons: It is. it's all over. It's the end.

It's in the threads, it's in the fabric, it's in the ink, it's in the everything. That's right. That's right.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: It's, and so it's unfortunate, but I'm glad you got

Dr. Asia Lyons: outta your deal. and I wrote that letter speaking of. So you decided to leave mid year, unless, you wrote your letter and you're like walking out, tell us that feeling, like this is it, I know I'm ready to go, and you're packing your boxes, tell us about that.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: So when I [00:33:00] decided to resign wrote the letter, I felt, first of all I felt okay, but a little fearful because when I moved to Colorado, the job was a job. I just had, that was my only career related job. And so I had it for 24 years and now I quit. And so I think about, Oh, my gosh.

What about health insurance? I was married. My husband got the health insurance. I'm used to, being on my own. I'm used to having my own money. and I had some funds saved and my district, pay the district paid me out my sick days. But it was just the fact that I had to really trust God and that's, I really had to have faith in him and trust him and that eased my mind.

And so I went into, just a prayerful life, reading my word, sticking to the word, being close to God. And then all of a sudden my church. Job came, and that was [00:34:00] when I worked with East High School hopes. I'm not supposed to say that, but a high school timber

Dr. Asia Lyons: name schools if you want.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: It's time. Okay. I worked with some kids out at East High School, and I had about 10 kids, and I work with them on race. I work with them on understanding culture. We did some police work. We had some guest speakers. We had all kinds of things and it was only a year and I we had a conference in spring and they taught their peers how to advocate for themselves when it came to race policing and community justice advocates.

They did privilege walks. They did a presentation on know your rights. I had a speaker come in and do some know your rights. I worked with Brother Jeff. Yes. And he did some stuff in the community. He walked them around the community. So it was a big deal. And, at that time we had a lot of police brutality, stopping kids and checking backpacks and all that stuff, which we still do. but they knew what to do and [00:35:00] what to say, and that's what they were teaching their peers to know what to do and what to say. worked in Denver quite a bit. with Denver Public Schools at this time. So it was just a little different. It wasn't where I've come from, but, it was still some of the same issues and I enjoyed it.

But just trust. I have faith in God. I had to trust him. And then here comes my new school district, which is the lowest performing school district in the state of Colorado. After I worked with the church, that was interesting.

Dr. Asia Lyons: I will say something and you're not in working in the traditional school district and we do want to hear about this next school district.

But I, we've had so many conversations like what's next? My resume only says teaching. What am I supposed to do now? How am I, who's going to want to hire a teacher who's only taught a teacher? Fifth grade or only did this and so much of [00:36:00] that narrative. I hear that from educators, right? And I don't I know that some folks may not have a spiritual life or whatever, but I think that having like believing in self At least believing in you is going to get you much farther than I can do this. What about the life? For sure. My para Lord knows people depend

Kevin Adams: on more.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: I think about para

Dr. Asia Lyons: was just going to sit there. Exactly. Until we can use it. And so I'm glad to hear you say you found space in your church, a place that you'd already been. going to as a place to, to do the work that you felt that was very fulfilling. can you tell us about the, you left, you didn't leave the church, but you are now going to another school district. So

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: it's like this and this is how it ended, this is how I ended my career as well, is that you have to know yourself and you have to know when it's time to leave.

And and I believe that. I knew when it was time to leave the church when I became [00:37:00] very frustrated with systems that I weren't in charge. I wasn't even in charge of. I just knew that I didn't belong there anymore. I go to church there still, but I'm not working in the office and I became very frustrated.

Flustered and frustrated and mad. And it wasn't I wasn't mad at any individuals. It's just where I was at that time. And so I knew that it was time for me to move on to another school district. It was time for me to go back to work. God had given me a break. And that's what I see what happened. When I left my first school district is that I had a chance to take a break. I had a chance to regroup, get my head on I noticed in my experience from going from the school district to the church is that I started to work with Hispanic people. I started to only have interest in Hispanic folks. So when my new school district comes around, which is Adams 14, it's predominantly Hispanic.[00:38:00]

Now could I speak Spanish? No, but I had an idea of who was in the district and what their needs were when I arrived there. and it was almost like I was called, you're summonsed, and I'm like, but you know what? I may not be qualified, but. I was qualified when I got there. The goal for me at Adams 14 as an HR director because that's where I started was to work with the climate and culture because the climate and culture had just been really bad and poor.

People were angry upset they feel like they've been betrayed. just all of that was poor. And so my goal in that department was to change the climate and culture. And I did that. I did it for about a year and a half. And then I moved up into being the, executive director of curriculum instruction and the same goal for that.

And the messenger was the superintendent and he said. [00:39:00] I want you to do what you did in HR. I want you to make this climate and culture conducive so that people could work because there have been some times where people won't listen to or heard or had a voice. People won't recognize for their talents.

They want to appreciate it all of those things the whole value system was not there. And so I did that. as a, executive director of curriculum instruction, I also had an opportunity to, adopt curriculum for, and our team did for, pre-K 12 language arts and pre-K pre-K 12 math. And so we did that work.

We had an opportunity to bring in avid. And that was under my leadership. we had opportunities. I set up in HR. I set up what we called, the Adam stars. So we were able to recognize employees from every department within that district so that [00:40:00] people could feel like they were valued and recognized.

So there are a number of things that we did in Adams as I was there in those roles. And then I went into the director of equity. Okay. And it was interesting that there was great success in, the curriculum instruction department. But the person that was coming into that role wanted to do that role. So they found me another role.

And it always happens that we always go to equity.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes. Oh, go ahead and talk about that.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Please. So we always go to equity and, but there's no, there was no thought, no one thought about what this would look like except for me. And I started calling people out in meetings and not in a negative way.

But, you would get white silence when we start raising the fact that black kids aren't learning or, how are you going to treat parents, these Spanish speaking parents, and you're not even [00:41:00] waiting on them, you barely invite them to the meetings. we need to recognize that but we get the white silence when it comes to equity.

And so what I did with that is that I introduced it through listening to her. So I listened to staff members throughout the district, and it's prevalent. racism was happening in the schools. White teachers would say it was happening. They would say that they were talking bad about parents and saying that they were lazy and didn't want, didn't love their kids.

And they were talking about the kids. They were talking about each other. that's the kind of stuff that I had. And then I also had an equity lecture. Series. And so we invited Dr. Rosemarie Allen to talk about race. And a lot of people were on, I had Baruti Kaffele come in and talk about, about race and schools and leadership.

I had Pedro Nogueira come in and talk about equity. And then I had, Colleen, I can't think of a name. She talked about, I had the Western Educational Equity [00:42:00] Assistance Center for Metro come in and do some I worked with Darlene, Sampson, Dr. Darlene Sampson, she's on our show. Yeah. Yep. She's like my, she was like my mentor. she was my guide. She guided me through all of this. But by the time I got to the second year, and this comes to the end of my career, they didn't want the work. and I don't know if. God didn't want me to get into that work, or they didn't want me to get into the work. So I never got to come up with my equity team to talk about a vision mission goals, but I wrote the vision mission goals.

I wrote it. I based it off the data, and I at least we had some kind of framework or a plan that we could work from. We could tweak. I was always open to make the changes, but the superintendent, the deputy superintendent, they weren't ready for it. And I knew they weren't ready for it. And September, I can tell you the day, September the 27th, [00:43:00] I spoke with my supervisor. they had asked me to go and work in a school with kids and I, the school was just out of control. It was turnaround. it was a school that was functioning poorly. The teachers, everything that you read in the book, it was there. It was in that school, the lack of resources, no one paid attention to it, a poor principal, making changes that had already been, set in stone and it was just a messed up place.

September 22nd, I, 27th, I talked to my supervisor and I said to her, I said, this is bigger than me. And you're to have more resources. And by the way, tomorrow I'm meeting with Para. I'm retiring. I knew in March of 2021 that I was not going to finish out the school year in Adams 14. And I knew I needed to be out of there by October.

And [00:44:00] so that morning on September 27th, when I did my Bible study, I was reading about Moses and he asked God, what am I supposed to do? We got this big water out here and he told him what to do. And he says, get to moving. I'll show you what you need to do. And sure enough, that was my word to tell my supervisor, I'm not coming back.

And so she asked me, so you're going to retire. I'm going to retire at the end of the year. probably not mid year. probably sooner than later. And by October 7th, I was done. And I got out of there. Which takes you to Lincoln Hills. Nate Howard, if you know him, Dr. Nate Howard, Nathaniel Howard, he was over, I was on his board for Lincoln Hills Cares, and he had asked me to come like a year before all of this happened.[00:45:00]

He was running Lincoln Hills Cares. He was doing the work for the East End Program. And so I reti I told him I was gonna leave on that. On the 27th, the 28th, I went to Para On the 29th, I went to HR. On the 30th, I submitted my letter to re retire and Nate passed away, suddenly passed away. And, Then the next week I said, I talked to HR, I said, Hey, I need to get out of here. And by the 7th, I was done on the 8th, I went to his funeral. And then the next month I was asked to step into his role.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Wow. So tell us, this is how it goes on our show, huh, Kevin? That's

Kevin Adams: right. That's right. True stories. Real talk. Yeah,

Dr. Asia Lyons: that's real talk. She doesn't know what to do. I don't, I'm all about [00:46:00] alignment. I know I left teaching before the panoramic. Oh, yeah.

Kevin Adams: I think

Dr. Asia Lyons: the, I don't, when I took my ID off of my keys and threw my ID into the garbage can on the last day of school.

Yes. With no job. thus far, I did. I could have never predicted. That we would have been a pandemic and all the things and having to think about going back to school and putting my kid back in schools and when she's been home since the pandemic started because I've worked from home so like alignment and like listening to spirit or that's just I feel like I can't go wrong in that. so now I guess this comes to our second to last question, which is so you're at Lincoln Hills cares, tell us about your work, what's going on over there. Tell me, tell us all our audience about it, how they tell

Kevin Adams: the people, the history of Lincoln Hills because I think a bunch of people, outside of Colorado and [00:47:00] inside of Colorado don't

Dr. Asia Lyons: even

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: know Lincoln Hills. I believe back into maybe the 1930s and 40s, during that time period in America, you knew that African American people weren't allowed to go and swim and have the fun within their communities for in those areas. And with Lincoln Hills. I believe Mr Winks paid for some property up in the mountains up in Gilpin County close to Boulder close right next to, Black Hawk. it is a mountain area where cabins were built. people could pay, I believe like a hundred dollars per their property and cabins. it was in the 30s. And, African Americans could go up and, camp outside, swim, enjoy the outdoors life that they couldn't do in the metro area. And so when the people got up there, you could, the train would ride up in that area.

So it's a train track right next to it. You would see people get off the train. [00:48:00] With their luggage and stuff, and then they would camp out on the property. There's a place called Lynx Lodge. And Lynx Lodge was the lodge where you go eat, dine, entertainment. And there were some cabins that were built and there were some people that could pay for their cabins.

And then the great depression came in and some people lost their cabins. but there is a cabin up there. I do know that Lena Horne stayed in and it's there. I've seen it. And so it's a place where African Americans could go and retreat, regroup, and then get back on the train and go back home and deal with all the racist stuff that they had to deal with.

You could fish, swim, hike, all of that, and have a good time up in Lincoln Hills. It's African American owned. I do know Robert F. Smith is, and Matthew Burkett, have invested into Lincoln Hills. there is the fly fisher group, that is up there where Matthew Burke Burkett owns that. And you can be a part of that organization where you can [00:49:00] fish at Lincoln Hills.

Currently what we have now is we have, Lincoln Hills Cares is the foundation. Okay. And the found, excuse me, Lincoln Hills Cares is the corporation and I work for the foundation. Okay. And so within the corporation, you have, outdoor education for, and it's four kids who are, marginalized and imp and living impoverished areas.

So mostly black and brown kids, and it doesn't mean that everybody black and brown is marginalized, but it does mean that there are kids that don't have opportunities that need those opportunities in the mountains and can experience that. outdoors that they've never experienced before. It's like going downtown and some of the kids have never been downtown.

So now you have an opportunity to go to the mountains. And so we have in Lincoln Hills Cares Corporation right now, you have an outdoor education program. That's a summer program. It's a day camp. It's only one day you [00:50:00] go up, they take kids up every day and they do all kinds of educational activities up there with kids.

Then we also have a program called Pathways is where and it's aligned with youth development. So Pathways is where you get young people jobs through the city and county of Denver and you go around and do environmental work within the community. So you may see those kids, painting off the graffiti off the walls or they may be picking up trash.

But not knowing why they're picking up trash and so that's an area that I know that I want to help leader of that work on is that you've got to educate kids on what's the importance of environmental science with picking up trash, which is the lead no trace work, and then you also have Easton. And I'll go into Easton because that's where I'm really working and that's where Nate was Nate Howard, and it's an environmental program, environmental science program.

And so our learning framework is trout in the classroom. And so [00:51:00] we create hatchery. In a classroom. No, that's great. Yes. So in the fall, we train the teachers and our goal is to have the teachers participate in the outdoor ed, teach the outdoor classroom prior to their students coming up. The kids get to come up, they get to stay on the property, they pick up all the critters go through all the take a hike. they make sure that they're doing some science work or water conservation work. out in the outdoors and then they go back down to their classrooms and we supply the sensors, the tanks, the eggs, and we set up that whole tank in their classroom. And so the teachers are provided with lessons. They're provided with professional development.

It can be interdisciplinary, so it doesn't necessarily have to be just science. The curriculum is aligned with the next generation science standards, so it's aligned with the state on what we're doing. It's about an eighth and ninth grade program, so middle school, high [00:52:00] school, it's not really elementary.

And, kids will have that tank in their classroom and they can learn from what's happening. You can do measurements for math with data. you can do some writing in language arts. You can do water rights and social studies. there's a different things that we can do with that program. It's a, it's in the infinite stage.

We just started this program in September. just started in September. So now we're in two schools. One in we're in a high school in Aurora. We were in a high school in Prairie View. We're getting excuse me in J. We're getting ready to go possibly out to Sheridan and back into Adams 14 in the middle schools. My goal and then also one school in Denver. We're going to be working with my goal is to have 10 schools by 2322.

And I'm so excited. That we can grow this program. It's a phenomenal program because it's aligning with stem and stem is [00:53:00] about solving problems. I just saw Calvin Mackey with Metro State College. He did a fantastic job, but he just laid it out there. It's about solving problems in your community, and we want kids to be in stem programming, and that's what our goal is to ultimately get them to stem careers.

And that's what we're doing. I hope that gives you some kind of explanation on what we're doing.

Kevin Adams: Definitely. I love

Dr. Asia Lyons: it.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: And then I need money. So if anybody wants to donate, what's your website? Yeah. How do they donate? Lincoln Hills cares. org. That's all you need to go on. And there's a donate sign up there.

And that's how you can donate as much as you want, because this is about STEM programming. It's about the future of our kids. And it's about getting black and brown kids. or poor kids, poor white kids into positions so that they can be, marine biologists in the ocean, or they can be a water treatment managers, or they can be wildlife photographers. there's all [00:54:00] kinds of jobs out there for kids. But if they don't have access and understand it, they won't know.

Dr. Asia Lyons: That's right.

Kevin Adams: That's right.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah, that's awesome.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Kevin, thank you for

Dr. Asia Lyons: making sure to mention like the history, let's talk about the history of Lincoln City Hills for sure. Yeah.

Kevin, do you want to take it away with our last question? Our last

Kevin Adams: question, I think our most important question Okay, Madison. What brings you joy right now?

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: what brings me joy right now is that I can take care of myself and I hate to be selfish about that. because if I'm not taking care of myself, I can't help others.

And so right now. there's a couple of things but for right now, it's being able to work from home and work remotely. Yes, and to focus on the work, so that it has meaning, and it makes sense. in it, [00:55:00] everyone benefits from it. And that's what really brings me joy. And just being able to do stuff like this talk about education.

I think that really brings me to I'm not out of education. I'm going to go back in. I don't know what it looks like, but I right now I'm in a place of rest. I do know This nonprofit. I was there for a reason. And some of it is there, working with the mission, vision goals, setting up the program.

Cause I'm talking Dr. Howard was at the outdoor education program and the next week he was gone and that was in September. And so really just starting this program, that would be my second piece of joy is making sure that his program gets and going and running so that, because this is what his love was.

That's really what brings me joy. And just being alive and, speaking to people and living [00:56:00] and doing my own thing right now. I'm happy about that. I'm not tied up with the bureaucracy of all that stuff that happens. I still have some thoughts around. Public education and some of the things that need to happen.

It may not be race diversity, but I believe it's belonging and inclusion. I think that you can get to race and diversity with belonging and inclusion. that's what brings me

Dr. Asia Lyons: joy. I love that.

Kevin Adams: I love that. And I love that. You said that you are being selfish. I love when black women have the chance because as a person who's been a lot of recipient of care from black women, y'all deserve to be, y'all deserve to

Dr. Asia Lyons: be selfish

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: and, right now, because, we all as educators, we've always Taking care of somebody, even if it's not at your house, it's in the classroom, to go to school and to, you got to give somebody a comb or, [00:57:00] this person needs that, or, you got toothbrush and toothpaste in the classroom, or, I've been in a situation where they were providing clothes for a family that had bed bugs. and they're washing clothes every day. I'm like, that's we,

Dr. Asia Lyons: at some point we can't do that.

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: Yep. We're here to teach kids. And yeah, I have to be selfish at this right now. I do. I, this is my time to rest, prepare, and there'll be something else out there for me. Yes. to help people because the goal of public education and the goal in life is we're here to help other people.

We're not here just to only help ourselves. And I think that's what's happening in our country right now is that we're so focused on. Ourselves that we forgot that we're here for a reason. Everybody has a gift. And if everybody was doing their gift, then, we would be in a better place, but everybody's not doing their gift.

[00:58:00] Everybody's doing whatever they want to do. And besides our country doesn't know who we are anyway. That's the whole problem with our country today is if we just knew who we were, and accepted who we were. Then we would be in a better place. That's a great, that's a great note to end on, Kevin.

Kevin Adams: Yes, I think it's perfect. I think it's perfect.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Dr. Patterson,

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: thank you so much for coming on our podcast. This was great. Thank you.

Dr. Asia Lyons: So great. Kevin, you have any words for us?

Kevin Adams: no, nope. Nope. Dr. Patterson, I just thank you. Thank you for the wisdom and your experiences and what you've gone through.

And we just can't wait to see what's next.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And say it one more time. Where can folks go to donate? It can

Dr. Jeanette Patterson: go to Lincoln Hills cares. org www dot Lincoln Hills cares. org go on the website. There's a big donate sign there. Thank

Dr. Asia Lyons: you.[00:59:00] folks. Ex interview folks out there. You heard it. Donate.

Do what you have to do. Spread the word. Dr. Patterson, thank you so much. and we will see you all on another episode. Bye. Okay. Bye