The Cost of Reform and the Power of Community with Representative Jennifer Bacon

The Exit Interview A Podcast for Black Educators Rep. Jen Bacon

Jennifer Bacon: [00:00:00] There was a whole period of time when you went back to New Orleans and you did not see black S all young white people. In the last couple of years, they've gotten a lot better, but it's not the same as it was before. And so some of us have had these conversations in teacher recruitment on that level.

Yeah. And it's typically black recruiters, even if we're 25 or 30. Yeah. Some of us still have these memories, and the same for Miami, but also these were the systems that everyone touted to be failures. And it bothered me that systems primarily made up of black educators were touted as failures and needed to be reformed

Dr. Asia Lyons: in a world where the recruitment of black educators dominate headlines.

One question remains, where are other conversations with folks who are leaving education? Introducing the exit interview, a podcast dedicated to archiving the untold stories of black folks who have departed from traditional education spaces. I'm Dr. Asia [00:01:00] Lyons and I'm embarking on a mission alongside my esteemed guests.

Together we shed light on the challenges, triumphs, and experiences of black educators aiming to inform and empower communities, invest in understanding the crucial issue of retention education. Welcome to the Exit interview, a podcast for black educators. All right, folks. Welcome back to the Exit interview podcast for black educators with me, your host, Dr.

Asian Lyons. It's a gorgeous Sunday here in Colorado. And, um, super excited for our next guest. Welcome to the show, representative Jennifer Bacon. How are you today? I am well, excited to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah. Before we get started, I'm gonna read your bio, a lot of big words in here, folks. This is going to trip me up for my read aloud.

So Representative Jennifer Bacon is assistant majority uh, leader and represents House District seven, which includes the [00:02:00] Denver International Airport and Denver's far Northeast neighborhood Assistant Majority Leader Bacon serves as the House Judiciary Committee and the House Education Committee.

Lifelong advocate for youth educational access and criminal justice reform. Assistant majority leader Bacon's policy span Y and prioritize making our state more equitable for all. During the 2023 legislative session, the system majority Leader Bacon champion the law to extend extreme risk protection orders E RPOs in Colorado to reduce gun violence.

Other legislative highlights include extensive legislation to reduce air pollution. For equal work, improving workplace conditions, judicial reform, combating youth recidivism, and extended education programs to help all students succeed. Assistant majority Leader Bacon is the chair of the Black Democratic Legislative Caucus for Colorado.[00:03:00]

Got it. Guess a lot of work. And she's on the show today because she is a former educator and I'll say that she also is in education right now because we wanna make sure that we understand that folks may leave a classroom or a school building, but they, a lot of us never leave education again, welcome on to the show.

Thank you for having me. Yeah. I took a look at your bio, another bio that you have on, I think believe it's LinkedIn, met you at the Center for African American Health and saw that you were a member of TFA and said, oh, I have to have you on the show. I have to know your journey Uhoh, because. I mean, you are a long way from a classroom or from that space.

And I know that people, a lot of folks in education wanna do different things once they kind of leave the space and they still wanna help community. They can hear from your story. I hope a way to do that or to think about the [00:04:00] education space a little bit differently. So I'll start with my first question, which is, what was your journey into education?

How did you become a TF Aer?

Jennifer Bacon: I start chuckling because I guess as every day goes by, that's another day away from when I was young. And so talking about 20 years ago now, I think in high school I started to just realize there's something to be said about educational systems. There's something to be said about who's in front of kids, if that makes sense.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And so in high school I was. Like a reading tutor for the elementary and middle school that fed into my high school. And I also went to a high school that was predominantly black in middle school. I was the only black kid in a lot of my classes. I was pretty smart, but I [00:05:00] just had to face things like, um, you know, when we read anything by Mark Twain, I'd have to hear the N word all week or you know

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): mm-hmm.

Jennifer Bacon: Just being called the N word. And so part of my journey was to go to different high school that was black and had an academic program. And so I think in high school I just learned in the bus ride from where I lived to where I went to school. And when I think about the high school, I was quote unquote supposed to go to like my neighborhood school and the school that I went to.

My high school didn't have books in the library. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: And everyone talked about how great we were at sports, but we had sheriffs in our high school. You just didn't have that in the burbs. And so I think all of that started just being on my mind and thinking about, you know, my black experience.

It came from my parents, you [00:06:00] know, we had to teach ourselves our history. We had to fight to read roots. And I grew up in Florida, you know, irony with book bands. Right now it's only been 30 years. Yeah. But we had to fight to read Roots instead of twain, you know what I mean? And so I go to college and it's like my parents were the children in the civil rights movement, right?

So it's like, maybe you should be in business, maybe you should be a doctor. And I was like, eh, I don't think, you know, you can tell early on if you don't be a doctor or not, how you feel about your science classes. Right. But it's like you have to be a black professional. And I'm gonna put quotes on that.

Right. Meantime, half of my family is becoming teachers. Right? Yeah. My aunt was the principal at one of my rival high school. It was hilarious and fun. But I majored in business and political science. And by the time I got to New Orleans, 'cause that's where I went to school, I saw the same thing [00:07:00] from my high school experience.

Right. Like a white campus in a black city. And so I found my way back to schools and reading is fundamental. I ran a tutoring program for two years. Oh

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): nice.

Jennifer Bacon: And I was like, well, okay, I got this degree, but I'm still concerned about the education system. Who's in front of kids? Why are these things just so uneven?

You know? And political science helped me kind of understand like the political economy of racism. You know what I mean? The systemic side of racism. I don't think that's what anybody thought. Business schools teach people, but if you're a black kid trying to figure out the world, you gotta learn their language of power, which is capitalism.

You know what I mean?

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes. No. And so, a hundred percent,

Jennifer Bacon: yeah. By the time I was a senior, I'm like, I think I wanna go into community. You know? I could have been a bank teller, you know what I mean? Or something. And so I found Teach for America, [00:08:00] and I applied, and my lesson, this is what I talked about in my interview, and my lesson plan I remember was about teaching kids about the magic of the pyramids.

Because I just remember having to teach myself that, and everyone just touted the Greeks and Romans, and I'm like, let me tell you about how brilliant black people were.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Jennifer Bacon: so I applied and I ended up being placed in New Orleans. A school that I had tutored at once or twice, so I thought it was really interesting.

So I taught fifth grade in New Orleans, but if you remember, that was 2004. By 2005 we departmentalized and I taught fifth, sixth, and seventh grade math and science. But I was only in school for three days when Katrina hit. So that was the beginning of my journey.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Okay. So this is really interesting because I was gonna ask, or I was thinking about, were you [00:09:00] in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina?

So yeah, please share a part of that story, if you don't mind.

Jennifer Bacon: I think being in politics 20 years later, which is also insane, also crazy how long ago it was, I think I wasn't even in it. I was in it, but I wasn't in in in it, you know, like I wasn't trapped in the city. My story was, it was a Saturday. First of all, my uncle called and yelled at me and I cursed him out.

I'm like, 'cause you know, I'm 22, I'm grown. You grown. You know, don't tell me what I need to do or go. And what had happened was it hit Miami first. Right. So, you know, I'm from South Florida and my dad was like, I think you need to leave. Okay. And we were like, no, nobody leaves in New Orleans. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Like it's a hurricane every five minutes. And I was also gonna pick up the sister of one of my friends from high school because [00:10:00] she was gonna start touring. And I got a message from her, like, they have canceled all flights over the Gulf of Mexico. Right. And then we were in school for just three days.

So I had come back from my summer job like that Monday, and I did a camp. Like a service learning camp for high school kids. Mm-hmm. So I had just come back from my job on Monday. School started Wednesday, we had school three days. So I still have my laundry. And then because it was New Orleans and God bless, I didn't get paid.

We got paid $26,500 a year. And for some reason I thought paying rent at $600 a month was a good idea. And so I had no money. This is all, you know, this is sounds like a 20-year-old. Right. Then I gotta go get my medical insurance. Right. So I had to go down to central office and we had just started a science experiment.

This is just why this is all funny. Like we were doing [00:11:00] density, so we put eggs in cup of oil, water, soda or whatever. Mm-hmm. So this is my classroom. I got trays of egg on the wall. My classroom was already bad. Like every time it rains, we got we water in the wall.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm. And

Jennifer Bacon: in fact, my floor. Was half ripped up my first year and had mushrooms growing from it.

Mm-hmm. Because we were poor. And then the whole side note is when I became a union member, it was because we could not breathe because of the spores. And then you know who they sent to fix my floor, Orleans parish prisoners. And that's a whole nother story. Oh wow. Don anybody and bright orange jumpsuits.dot school to prison pipeline and why I became a lawyer later.

Right. And then, so all of that's happening on Saturday. My dad calls and he is like, you have to go. I'm like, I'm not going. I don't have any money. I don't got gas money. I mean it. Right. My mom worked at a bank in Mississippi. She's like, I will find you $30. Go to this bank, a bank of her friend, [00:12:00] put money in your car.

So by the time I leave it's Sunday. Right. And that's when it got serious in New Orleans.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm.

Jennifer Bacon: And they did the counter flow, right. Like everybody leaves the city. So I just, I was like, no, this is not that serious. Whatever. I took my one suitcase of my laundry. My mother and grandmother at the time lived in Jackson, Mississippi.

My mom lived between Jackson and here in Colorado. And so I go up to Jackson and then the next thing you know, Monday, it's game over for New Orleans. Mm. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I have one suitcase, so like if I didn't bring, 'cause I lo, my house was done and I was Oh. And I was moving that weekend to a new house, the whole thing.

And so the new house that we were moving into, me and my roommates was done. It took on 12 feet of water. Oh, wow. Then the house that I left, it took about [00:13:00] on five feet. But my landlord, God bless her, love her to death, didn't leave. She was like, I just, I'm not doing nothing on outside. I just put on a pot of red beans.

This is just another h. We lived in this house. She lived on the third floor, so she didn't leave. But basically that house took on about five feet of water. Then all the water crept up the side, the pipe leaked. So I lost all. The point is, if I didn't take that suitcase, I would have nothing.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): So, yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: So I went to Jackson where my grandmother is, and we're listening in the car, Mississippi.

Nobody had power up the highway, right? Like all of Mississippi was spotty. And so I'm sitting in my car listening to the radio. My dad's trying to call, you know, charging my phone. At the same time. My dad's like, Jen, it's bad. It's just bad. So I couldn't see it. So the other thing was, in retrospect, like I said, things were gone.

I didn't actually know that for three weeks because [00:14:00] we couldn't see anything. But then I was like, well, I can't just sit here, let me go see. My dad was like, no, Jen. There's pictures of people on roofs and helicopters. Yeah. You know what I mean? They are trying to, he's like, there's nothing to go back to.

And I'm like, dad, I'm gonna be there by Friday. He's like, no, you're not. You know what I mean? Yeah. He's like this, you need to prepare. He's like, where are your students? And so I by like, maybe Thursday that week, remember I get there Sunday, late Sunday. I'm like, let me just go volunteer. So I started volunteering at the Red Cross, which was at a stadium in Jackson.

And I saw my neighborhood come in. I saw two of my students. They had a plastic bag full of clothes. So I did that for a month. And then one of my supervisors was like, how come you didn't fill out any paperwork to get assistance? And I was like, what? She's like, yes, you don't have a job. Like you don't have a home.

[00:15:00] You know? Yeah. You too need

Dr. Asia Lyons: help. You too need the Red Cross. Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: But that was, I mean, we just did what we did at the Red Cross. First it was come to the shelter. Then after a couple weeks it was like, okay, there is not a New Orleans to go back to. Which we were just like in the moment, I was bringing clothes from my grandmother's house, you know what I mean?

Power was out for that whole month. And only in Hines County, which is where black people live in Madison. Of course the power was on. So I remember. And then the county just north of us. I remember going to a movie theater once and literally paying $20 to go in the movie and bought five giant cups of ice.

'cause that's how badly we needed ice. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The whole experience. And it was little things like that, but then it was like, where are we gonna go? What are people gonna do? And by October, so that was, it was, [00:16:00] yeah. August, September. By October, I'm like, okay. Maybe I should go figure out how to live.

And my dad drove up and I went back to Miami. But first we tried to sneak into New Orleans and we kind of did, but the government and having guns pointed at you and what's your zip code? Oh, wow. Yes. And so I still had my college id. 'cause uptown where Tulane is white side of town, didn't get water. Okay.

Where I lived, got a lot of water. Yeah. Where Xavier was, got 20 feet of water. And so I tried to use my college id. I'm like, I could still pass for college, but they were not allowed us back into my zip code. They would allow you uptown. Right. And just even the glimpse just coming down the bridge from Mississippi into Louisiana.

It was just game over. So we drove. Back to Miami. Ironically, I'm in Miami [00:17:00] for two days and we get hit by another hurricane that put us outta school for two weeks, hurricane Wilma. And I'm like, what the hell? And even in between that, I was trying to figure out how to get back to Louisiana. Teach For America was like, you can go to Texas or you can go to another region.

'cause all of, mm-hmm. Pretty much the second New Orleans was in Houston and by that time Texas was over black people. They were like, don't come here. It got bad.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm. Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: I don't know if you remember the news was like, we don't have, 'cause they had 10 cities, you know what I mean? Oh, I remember. I had seen it before.

Yeah, I had seen it before when I was a kid. 'cause Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in the nineties and so it was like tent cities. It's like you can work for fema. So first I wanted to go to Houston and all my way Texas was like, the state is closed and teach for America's like it's a hostile time. Don't go, maybe you should just go to Miami because we have a region there instead of [00:18:00] Mississippi.

So that's why we went back to Florida.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Can I pause you for a second and then by the time

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Sorry. So this is, no, you're fine. This is so, this is like, whoa. It's a lot. Yeah. This is very fascinating. First thing I wanna back up and say, there's definitely a theme of rebellion with you. Uh, it was, and it was just

Jennifer Bacon: like,

Dr. Asia Lyons: yeah.

Whoa. It was, yeah, I'm not leaving the town now I'm gonna sneak into the town. And then this Hartford service of volunteering and the Red Cross and trying to figure all these things out in such a young age to, and as you were talking, I was thinking, I wonder what's happening with TFA? Were they paying you?

What was the situation? Yeah. Was that like, what was that part of it like as well?

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah. I mean, TFA was trying to figure it out. They're like, look, if you wanna leave, cool. But, you know, I will say like, this was always my tension with Teach for America. 'cause my core, maybe it was 75 or 80 of us, and only like five black people.[00:19:00]

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And most of the people who came down, they were like, go about your business. You're from white affluency. This is too much for you. Yeah. And like for me, they wanted to offer something. FEMA was coming online, so they're like, you can work for fema. You could go teach in another district if you wanna follow your students.

Most of them are in Texas. So that was the first thing. Then Texas was like, the state is closed. So they're like, well, you can work for fema. Then it was like, figure out another region, but if you wanna leave, we'll hold you harmless. But having done all the volunteering, I was like, I gotta see where this goes.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like I wanted to go to Texas. They had just gotten hit by another hurricane. They got hit by Hurricane Rita. At the time, it was three hurricanes in a row. It was Katrina, and then they got hit by a hurricane, and then they were like, Texas is closed. I go to Florida, we get hit by a hurricane.

Wilma Florida was shut down for two weeks.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. But the other

Jennifer Bacon: part of it was really interesting. [00:20:00] And this was also subtext, and this would show up for me later. Orleans Parish public Schools period was just operating terribly for kids, okay? And we were poor. We went on strike our first day of school, and my pay went from 26,000 to $200 or $26,500 a year.

But what had also happened, remember I told you this Saturday, I'm downtown doing my health insurance. Mm-hmm. The Friday before Katrina hit, we get this notice that Orleans Parish public Schools is bankrupt and we're gonna have an external. Auditor take over the district and the superintendent was in the wind.

Nobody knew where the superintendent was 'cause he left. Oh wow. Because of how bad financially it was. Right. So hold onto that. So like [00:21:00] two weeks into the Hurricane Orleans parish is like, look, don't come back teachers. Okay, we don't know what's going on here. We will pay you a thousand dollars depending on how many years you taught via Western Union.

Go to any Western Union in America. And I got like a thousand dollars

Dr. Asia Lyons: because you haven't been teaching that long.

Jennifer Bacon: That was that. And so by the time we get to Miami, it's October. I didn't get back into New Orleans proper until December. And it was just the worst thing I'd ever seen to get my stuff. And that's when I knew, oh, the house is gone.

Right? Oh, like all your stuff is gone. But so between. Orleans Parish previously being, and this is, this will show up later in my life because I don't know if you remember the whole charter movement, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. It started around that time to rebuild New Orleans schools. [00:22:00] Okay. And people were confusing if it was because of Katrina.

We were not the best academic. It was in that in school to prison pipeline. The charters came online and then they didn't wanna start picking up. So this was a recovery school district, it was called, and it started in January. There were spots of kids, but all of these external operators came into New Orleans, and that was the charter school beginning.

So in the meantime, I'm watching this from Florida, 'cause it's my second year of teaching. By the time before I left for Miami, I decided to apply for law school. So I'm applying to law school in the dark in Mississippi. 'cause I'm like. I have heard in the shelter, it's like, oh, you'll get all your things back.

Just bring your license. And I'm like, I'm 22. And went to business school licenses don't prove property ownership. Right? Yeah. Then it was, we're gonna put you on a plane [00:23:00] to go to Colorado or Utah, and half of the stuff I heard was like, this can't be legal. You know what I,

Dr. Asia Lyons: it was just, yes, yes, yes. I

Jennifer Bacon: was just, so, I'm applying to law school at the time.

I was like, are we going to even be able to teach? And I didn't, you know, so I'm just like, dear, in the dark Dear law school. I don't know. It was about all things. Yeah. So, so it was because I was doing all the things was of Hurricane Katrina

Dr. Asia Lyons: that you went to law school, like what you saw? Yeah. During that time.

Okay.

Jennifer Bacon: And was like, there is no LSAT prep. You know what I mean? Yes. Because I, my scores weren't the best, and I'm like, I don't know what's what, but I know some of this ain't right. And nobody's advising people here. 'cause And that became a theme too. 'cause when I was in law school, every break I went back to New Orleans to get people their property back.

Right. I'm like, none of this can be legal, like

Dr. Asia Lyons: none of this can. Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: And then just watching the recovery, it was so many fields. I mean, [00:24:00] Kanye West was like, George Bush hates black people. That's right. That's if everybody agreed. That was when we loved Kanye. Right. And so, because I, and then also, I'm in Mississippi.

So Mississippi had a Republican governor. I'm watching, my aunt lived on the coast. Her town got fixed way faster than New Orleans did. So all the political things, we were called immigrants and refugees and we're like, we wanna go home. Tucker Carlson was talking smack about black people. It was just all the things, but just government collapsed.

Two years later, every elected official in New Orleans is indicted for a crime. It was just governor a mess. And so I was just in the middle of all of it. I'm like, dear law school, this is all 20 years later. But all of these things that happened in New Orleans became like a stake in the ground about the worst things possible.

And whose [00:25:00] responsibility is it to sift through it? Like the rebuilding of K 12 in New Orleans, right? The rebuilding of the city. Should I be a teacher? Should I be a lawyer? All of that came out of that six months period for me.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Wow. And

Jennifer Bacon: so that was a very long story. But all of that swirl is to this day probably why I am here as an elected official in Colorado.

You know, I went to law school, came out, wanted to work in school to prison pipeline, went back into a school as a teacher and an administrator. Before was a whole thing. So the question was why did you join TFA? Well, that's the answer of everything else. Well, and I

Dr. Asia Lyons: think the question was like, really, what was your journey in education and what did that look like?

Right. I mean, that was beautiful. And I think while you were talking, I was thinking, I remember I had a student when I was teaching middle school [00:26:00] who had come to Colorado from New Orleans and who experienced Hurricane Katrina and she was talking about her story and her family. And this was so long ago now.

But you telling that story reminded me of that student. Yeah, and how much I realized I didn't know or understand because I do remember charter schools popping up, but I did. I thought, just like you just said, that it was because of Hurricane Katrina. I. Not because be even before the hurricanes. Those are two

Jennifer Bacon: things.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah,

Dr. Asia Lyons: yeah, yeah. And so I remember that experience and thinking how interesting it was that from what I understood, that you all did not have a school district in the traditional sense of the way we think about it.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm.

Dr. Asia Lyons: And now hearing this, like you said, 20 some odd years later on the backend of someone who experiences it, is really eyeopening.

Mm-hmm. I do want you to continue to tell your story, and there's so many pieces of this. I was thinking [00:27:00] about you telling people you're thinking this cannot be legal, what they're doing to folks talking about their properties, not allowing people to see where they used to live, any of this, right? Mm-hmm.

And so you're saying it's because of Hurricane Katrina and the injustice you saw and you witnessed mm-hmm. That made you, and you were a part of that made you mm-hmm. Decide it was that you needed to be a lawyer. And I feel like too, it sounds like it was always there, right? This. Deep need for justice.

And I think maybe, and you could correct me if I'm wrong, that Hurricane Katrina was a catalyst because you said, you mentioned being a union rep, and like I said before, you were very much like in the supporting the Red Cross and trying to figure all these pieces out. So it, it sounds like it was always there, but this was the push to get you mm-hmm.

I guess down the road to the next part of your life. Is that true? What I'm saying is, does that make,

Jennifer Bacon: I think how I've later articulated [00:28:00] it was that I feel like perhaps I was like, maybe I need to be an instrument in my community.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And I took a lot of risks that only someone who had privileges like I had could take, like I had a house to go to.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: Mm-hmm. During Katrina, I had a college degree. I'm like, worst case, if I get fired, I could go sleep on my dad's couch. I had that. Sure. Yeah. So I could take risks and I thought that meant something. I'm like, for where my parents came from to get here, they didn't just want me to go through the motions and, 'cause my mom was like, why are you a teacher?

But you know, whatever. Right. My dad too. But same thing right there. Like, they don't want me to go through motion. You're, you're brilliant. I know you're

Dr. Asia Lyons: wasted. Yes, yes.

Jennifer Bacon: And not do something with it. You know what I mean? And at least they saw, I think that's what I felt like you have to do something [00:29:00] with this degree where other people can't.

My mom grew up in Jackson, man, and she ran a black-owned bank. She went to Fisk in an HBC, and we had to go see where Medgar Evers was shot. We did the black bougie stuff and the, I was an NAACP in the Urban Link. I was like, mm-hmm. In Jack and Jill and like, you volunteer every two days, you know? And she was like, you need to see all of this.

And my dad was like also going through it too. They were the first Jen, like my stepdad was also from Jackson, and he was about six, seven years older than my mom. And he was that first affirmative action class. And the thing about affirmative action was not black people can have something for two minutes before it's turned into a negative.

You know what I mean? It's just black lives, all lives matter. Affirmative action, diversity, hire, you know what I mean? In the first generation, they were all [00:30:00] overqualified, but no one would give them a job for being black. So they were that first wave of black professional who got into the corporate space, but it was not nice.

Every single one of my parents and steps had some sort of civil rights or harassment complaint, and so we were all going through that at the same time, I was the first generation on my mom's side to go to school with white kids ever. You know what I mean? Like ever. Yes, yes. Yeah. And so we were just like, you have to do something, and then there's no talking about it.

There's no sitting across from your grandmother who went through Jim Crow, where they're like, look how they treated New Orleans compared to how, look how they treated Pascagoula, the white zippy coastal town. There was no talking about nothing That wasn't like, who is going to either stand up for us or fix this?

Because this is just another version of all we've been dealing with our whole lives. There's no white community that'd [00:31:00] be underwater that you just put on plane. And then the mayor's race after that was like the hurricane cleared it out. So let it be a green space. You know, Barbara Bush, I don't know if you remember it was, and George Bush talking about maybe this was the reckoning New Orleans needed.

And that was just how they were talking about black people. And then the whole way K 12 was rebuilt, would never, ever happen in a white city. And in fact, we brought that up here in Denver. 15 years later, I'm in school board. I'm like, you put in all the charter school in the black and brown neighborhoods.

Mm-hmm. And then you're telling them the only way to go to college is that they're silent in hallways. This is just the only relationship white people have with black people is to control them and tell them that's the way to be successful. And the irony is, if you were black and Teach for America, that meant you were college educated and at the time they were just getting into hbc.

'cause it's like you keep sending these white privileged kids. [00:32:00] To the hardest of circumstances. But then when they started recruiting black and brown people, it's like there was no school I went to that I had to be silent to go to college. Yeah. And now you're telling me I gotta teach that.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I hear you. No. Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: I don't even know what the question is. All of this was like, what is happening? And New Orleans started that man. They started not picking up kids to get better data. They started over disciplining kids school to prison pipeline started out of how charters were just going way left in New Orleans handcuffing kids.

So they behaved so they get better data. It was just not, and then chart. Then I'm in DC later and now is the charter movement. And so by the time I got to Denver, I'm like, I've seen this. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. Yeah. We have to do this differently here if we're gonna do it. But that was, and so I digress.

Dr. Asia Lyons: I don't even know. I'm so sorry. No, this is fantastic. I think. We've never on this show had [00:33:00] this type of perspective before, so I appreciate it. I know, I really do. And I'm just thinking about the students and kind of, you know, I've known New Orleans, they have been, in my mind when it comes to education, the prison system for folks working for pennies a day, downtown cleaning and things like that.

So when you think about, like you said before, people cleaning a spores outta your classroom who work in the prison system, right? Mm-hmm. And the students seeing them there, or you even mm-hmm. Whoever was seeing them there. Mm-hmm. So it's just like this very tight knot. It

Jennifer Bacon: was a whole prison industrial complex.

Like, yes, this stuff is real. It's just so crazy how one year of my life in New Orleans exposed me to all of that. But I had the ability. To even take stock of what I was seeing. I was trying to [00:34:00] survive, but I wasn't trying to, there are people who, when I got back to my classroom, for example, in December, I saw people were living there.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm. Because

Jennifer Bacon: the water, right, like the water, my classroom was on the third floor, the water had come up two floors and people were like, so there was real life and death and people were trying to get through the day. But every time I sat and thought about it, and even now, 20 years later, it was all the things, all of the things, all of the complexes, and I'm like, this was the best we could do was to rely on people being ignorant.

Poverty. Yes,

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): yes.

Jennifer Bacon: As approaches to get through here. And I was like, this is just unacceptable. This is, you know, and I sound, there are days where I realized how potentially pretentious I sound. But had I not seen it for myself, it was all the things. [00:35:00] So I don't

Dr. Asia Lyons: know. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story and just thinking about the bio that I, I read about you, it's all making sense, right?

This part of your life happening at the age it happened. It's just, I don't have many words for it. You talked about your experience with TFA, it was you, five black folks and then mostly white folks when you were in the school's teaching in, obviously new, maybe not obviously, but I feel like New Orleans.

Mm-hmm. Mostly black educators. But when you were in these other spaces, what did the demographic of educators look like and what were the conversations that you all were having around supporting youth?

Jennifer Bacon: So I ended up teaching in New Orleans and Miami and I also was union. And so what was great about that?

Was that we were assigned mentors, like people talk smack about unions. My union saved my life twice. Okay, sure. [00:36:00] Because they were the ones who helped us through the profession. Especially when you're super green as an educator, which Teach For America. Did you know look the early phases of teach, 'cause I ended up working for TFA later, right?

But

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): mm-hmm

Jennifer Bacon: But this was what we had to, I believed what we had to be honest about. Like the early phases of TFA was like, look, if it's not you, it's gonna be a long-term sub. So you're like a step a little bit up there. You know, you can go get your license while you're teaching 'cause you got the credits.

And I was in the last phase of that when the charter thing happened. Teach for America took a little bit of a different turn, right? And so in New Orleans, I had a black principal in Miami, I had a black principal. The only non-black educators would teach for America. Right. Interesting. And the same in Miami.

Yeah. And they were like, look, you teach for America. Okay. You can see my f right? I can see your face. Yes. But you were a [00:37:00] black educator in Miami? I had a little bit different, 'cause you know, I had my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, everybody was teaching in Florida. Right. And so I had a network of how to be a good educator in Florida for my own family and through my mentors.

Right. But in New Orleans, it was like anything that you can give from your experience, give to these kids. Mm-hmm. So they're like, you have a laptop, it was 2004. Let's get truck lines. I want you to show kids the world and it's gonna have to be you. It was a different experience being a black novice teacher.

Sure, sure. And then a black novice teacher in Teach for America, because everybody in the system elsewhere was like, the only grace I got for being Teach for America was because I was black. Sure. And my grandmother lived was from New Orleans. She was up from uptown. And I knew the language. I mean, teach For America was so bad.

Our onboarding for New Orleans was to go on the lake [00:38:00] included like a, going on a big boat with the junior league and being like, welcome to New Orleans. And the four of us, there were four of us that I initially met. I was like, why are we on the lake? You need to do a tour of this city. Yeah. For real. We speak a different language here.

And you know, third Ward, fifth Ward, uptown, downtown are big deals for kids right now. Y'all don't even know what we eat. You don't know what you know. Yeah. I'm not even a native. Okay. My grandmother thought it was hilarious. I ended up teaching in New Orleans and it was just like, and you know what? We lost two or three teachers in the first week.

'cause New Orleans is real man. Like this is, sure you ain't never seen poverty, but it wasn't like derelict, it was just its own thing. Kids in New Orleans only know New Orleans. Sure, sure. You know, they didn't know about Texas or Baton Rouge either, but it didn't mean they had potential. And yeah, we did music.

You know, kids would skip school to go tap or play or play [00:39:00] brass in the quarter during the day, you know? Mm-hmm. But we had to do different things and you had to be able to connect, like being from New Orleans or knowing something about it matter. To teach. You know what I mean?

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah, yeah. And so I do,

Jennifer Bacon: it was just wrong.

Like the approach was wrong and it wasn't because people didn't love it. In fact, two of the people who onboarded me are still in New Orleans teaching after 25 years. Oh wow. So it wasn't everybody, but for that critical mass it was like, let me just come see how this is. And you couldn't do that to kids.

So in Miami it was kind of the same thing. 'cause the schools we were in were like schools that had the shortages in kids who looked like me. And even in Miami, what I love here is there's like this black brown divide and Miami Black people speak Spanish. And so I'm still getting used to how the black and Latino communities kind of clash here.

Different. But I'm like everybody in the school looked like me. Then you just spoke nine different languages. I mean, I was probably illegally teaching in Spanish in Miami.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: But it [00:40:00] was like, you have to place matters in K 12. And

Dr. Asia Lyons: Can I say, can I pause you for one second, Uhhuh? Yeah. Yeah.

Because Yeah. Place does matter. Mm-hmm. I had Vanity Jenkins on the show a while back, and she was in TFA. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. She was from, I can't remember, I wanna say like the Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, that area. Uhhuh the car, Carolinas maybe Uhhuh. And she was like, well, I'm from the south and she was placed in the Mississippi Delta.

And she's like, it'll be fine because I'm from the south and it's the same. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so she said that was a mistake. Mm-hmm. Right. Like for her to assume that mm-hmm. Black people in one place are the same as black in another. And like you're saying, I mean saving grace, like you said, you were a black person, but it's not the same.

Mm-hmm. And for us to assume. Mm-hmm. Or I'll speak, you know, to people in recruitment spaces, TFA or otherwise, or recruiters from any other place, [00:41:00] HR and school districts to mistake, you are a black person. Certainly you'll do well in this other place. That's false. Right. And that's a very narrow thinking about the ways that black folks or folks of color period, but black folks show up.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Their lived experience, like you said, the language. Mm-hmm. I'm from Detroit. There's a difference between the east side and west side. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. It's like two different cities a lot of

Jennifer Bacon: times. Right. Just outta of my Aunt Rose, she told me that. She was like, this ain't Chicago.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. Sorry. That was a No, it's, it's not the same. And so people have to understand it's when they're going into a space that you can feel like, oh, it's a black city or it's a whatever city. Mm-hmm. But mm-hmm. The community, the feel, the culture mm-hmm. Is its own thing. So I just wanted to pause you and say that piece.

Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: But you know, since, [00:42:00] and this is why Teach for America Got the beef it got, especially in New Orleans because. When I was in the core, every teacher around me was black. Okay. Except the TFA. And so in a lot of ways there was a type of comfort and support that was just priceless. And I haven't felt it since, especially here.

Mm-hmm. And when TFA started in the charter movement, the existing teachers weren't wrong. There was a systematic black veteran. Teachers were let go in New Orleans. And now if you go to schools in New Orleans and it's the whole charter movement 'cause there's something to be said. And I'm half and half on charters.

Okay. And now I can tell you why. But the model, the business model. Relies on young talent to get as much out of them until they burn and the out and the folks who stay move up the ranks.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Right? Sure, sure, sure.

Jennifer Bacon: But there was a whole period of time when you [00:43:00] went back to New Orleans and you did not see black DJs.

All young white people. In the last couple of years, they've gotten a lot better, but it's not the same as it was before. And so some of us have had these conversations in teacher recruitment on that level. Yeah. And it's typically black recruiters, even if we're 25 or 30. Yeah. Some of us still have these memories.

And the same for Miami, but also these were the systems that everyone touted to be failures. And it bothered me that systems primarily made up of black educators were touted as failures and needed to be reformed. I have not gotten over that.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. Yeah. And

Jennifer Bacon: so even if it was for two years, 'cause even when I was in law school, I went and worked in a school to make ends meet.

And there were still black educators. There wasn't as many, 'cause I was in Jamestown, Virginia, but I haven't seen it since.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Yeah.[00:44:00]

Dr. Asia Lyons: We're living in a world where our children and their lived experiences are being erased, and I think that it's really important that as parents, as folks who are taking care of children, think deeply about where we send our children to school. If you have a child who is entering kindergarten through eighth grade next year, you need to check out St.

Elizabeth Episcopal School on the old Johnson and Wells campus in Denver. It's an intentionally inclusive school. They have social justice as a class starting in fourth grade, mandatory. I. Um, my daughter's been going there since fourth grade. She's a sixth grader now and loves it. She loves her friend groups, her afterschool programs.

She loves that her teachers and the faculty at St. E's are diverse and it's a great place to belong. So if you are in the Denver metro area, you're thinking about moving your child to a different [00:45:00] school and you want something that really amplifies justice, that amplifies seeing the whole child in a diverse school.

You need to check out ese, tell 'em Dr. Asia sent you.

So sometimes when I'm out speaking, talking about racial battle fatigue and racism related stress, when it comes to education, you know, out in community, I talk about this generational trauma that we experience and people forget. I say this all the time, we talk about brown versus board and people forget the harm that was done when black folks were fired during brown, right?

Yeah. And so same thing what you're talking about now, people want to clean slate and pretend like we can just go ahead and just start from new and, and don't take into account all those veteran educators you just talked about, who were [00:46:00] fired and how that impacted not just those educators, but also generations of future educators that could have been mm-hmm.

Had. Mm-hmm. Their parents, grandparents, community members. Mm-hmm. Church members, community members, church members not been fired during that time. Mm-hmm. So I just wanted to pause and say that mm-hmm. As much as we wanna pretend like schools and districts level a clean slate. Mm-hmm. As much as we wanna pretend like the path doesn't matter, historical trauma definitely impacts our school systems.

I think on that same note, I'm gonna ask the question, you know, you said it was 20 years ago, but you are very much closely tied into education and you've been in multiple cities, multiple states. Mm-hmm. Different regions in the country. So then I would ask you from your perspective, seeing that you had support from your union, but then it was like this TFA tension, but then you went back, like you said, to work for them later.

What do you think [00:47:00] that schools and districts and unions and even communities maybe can do to retain black educators? And I'm emphasizing retention for the same reason that you mentioned, talked about charters like burning people up, right? Mm-hmm. We wanna retain folks instead of just burning through people.

Like what will be some strategies, if you have any, that you would want human resources, TFAs, whoever to hear. What you think support our, the retention of black folks.

Jennifer Bacon: I took on this question for a long time. So my journey in Denver was this. I went to law school and I graduated in two. I'm shedding a tear.

I didn't even know I was crying. Look, sorry it be deep out here. Listen. I'm just like, why? What are these tears? So I graduated from law school, practiced law for like a year and chased a job out here. I wanted to work for Obama's Department of [00:48:00] Education's office for civil rights. And the office was like, you can go to Cleveland, Kansas City, or Denver.

And my mom had kind of pseudo retired to Boulder when I was in college. So she was out here at the time. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to Denver. 'cause they look close on a map Now I'm like, it's an hour drive, but whatever. Right? So, yeah, yeah, whatever. The first thing I did that job fell through. It was a, the recession and the hiring freeze.

And I started organizing school to prison pipeline to end the school to prison pipeline in Denver. And then I also started working in a school. So I started working in DSST, I worked in the charter school. Mm-hmm. And I taught a few classes. I ended up becoming a dean at Taught Math and it was a dean in the Green Valley Ranch High School.

And that's when I got reintroduced to teach. 'cause I had like left it after Katrina. It was my field watching the charter movement. You know, I was in dc, Michelle Ree, and it was a whole thing. And I [00:49:00] was just listening to how the reform space was just bashing teachers unions. I was, and Teach For America was a part of that.

And they can say they weren't, but they were. I mean, what happened in New Orleans was veteran teachers who were all black were too expensive. I. Period. Mm-hmm. Yes. And they went and got novice 22 year olds in the worst education system in America. And then the best way for them to do anything was to control kids' movements in class.

When I was in law school, I went back to New Orleans every five minutes, and I saw the schools as they were reemerging. It was so disheartening. Don't get me wrong, we were not doing well. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had low literacy rates, but I just didn't think the way they were going about it, it was just like another version of re assimilating kids, you know?

Like beating their culture out of 'em. It was hard to be black [00:50:00] and watch kids. I watched this one teacher snap, repeat, snap, repeat, and a kid said, let me ask you a question. You know, ask, right. Instead of ask. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. She said, ask, and I'm like, what are you doing to, I mean, I was just observing. Yeah.

And I had to take off my hoops. I was like, who? And I wasn't even like, yeah, who are you speaking to? You know? I was just lost my mind. And so I come back to New Orleans and ironically I find my way into a charter school. And the school I was at had figured out some of their culture stuff, but then seeing the other schools and network, and by the time I looked up, I was looking around that network and they were Teach for America people in it.

And I said, well, where are any black people? Mm-hmm. And I looked at TFA, there was one Black Corps member at a 200. I was like, this is unacceptable. Yeah. And then dot, dot, dot. Somehow I ended up on, on staff and my job was to, you ended up what America was like? [00:51:00] Uhhuh. I mean, it was probably because it was a job and I'm like, let me see where this goes.

'cause I was kind of. Building back up to like a full-time gig. Because like I said, this is all within a year. Right? Like my job had fallen through in law.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Sure.

Jennifer Bacon: And so, yeah. Yeah. We were like the least diverse region of all of Teach For America. And I'm like, I'm also doing school to prison pipeline organizing.

I know this, I'm, this town is Latino. You know what I mean? Like why don't you have any Spanish speaking? And so I like the better part of five years talking about recruiting teachers of color. Now granted, teach For America was an alt licensing program, but at some point we stopped caring. There were some of us working between DPS and Teach for America.

Aspire was picking up, relay had just become a thing, and that's a whole nother mm-hmm. Conversation. Right? And so some of us were like, let's just figure it out for Denver. I'm at Teach for America. You're a DPS, whatever.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And we [00:52:00] started keeping track. So we diversified our core. We also focused on homegrown talent.

Remember how I felt like place matters? Yeah. Denver was going through this renaissance there. Everybody was moving here from everywhere else and it wasn't quite like a New Orleans place matters, but it still was helpful. So we also had enough teachers come and go and we started doing our own exit interviews.

That's why I was like, I love this podcast because one of the feedback points was DPS, you can't keep a black teacher and you not even asking them why they leaving. They didn't do exit interviews until this like little group of five or six of us said, you need to start doing that.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Bacon: And some of the themes were this like, remember I said, you're telling me the only way black kids can be successful is if they're silent. There is the black tax. Every bad kid of color you send to the one black teacher. Plus Denver was just different from the South, like. There were black teachers here, but by the time I got here, maybe the same thing was happening.

You could [00:53:00] not find critical mass of black teachers unless you were probably at manual. But they had just diluted manual. They shut down Montebello. Right. They didn't shut down. Yeah. Mm-hmm. The only school they closed and all of Denver was Montebello where black teachers were. Okay. Everything else was turned around and so Yes.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: Part of what we were discovering was that the charters were struggle busts. 'cause it wasn't just the charters, it was the charter culture. Teach like a champion. Right. Yeah. Then it was, I can't be myself here. They want me here 'cause I'm black, but they won't let me be black. That's hard. Then was like, I have no one that I can lean on because there was no veteran black presence.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. To

Jennifer Bacon: grow in the profession. And that has been our problem for 15 years. Yeah. Makes it has not changed.

Dr. Asia Lyons: And you know the state of Colorado? Yes, it does. And instead of Colorado right now. Mm-hmm. Had less than a thousand black teachers in it.

Jennifer Bacon: Right. It has not changed. Then there was a question of, you question our [00:54:00] professionalism.

This even happened to me. I wish I was like the second oldest person and I taught out here Green Valley Ranch. I was the second oldest person in the building with the law degree. We did the peer feedback Uhhuh. Right. Which they don't do anymore because I'm like, this could be considered very racist. You know, you only get Yeah.

Groupthink in this. Right? Yeah. But it was like, well, because Jennifer is aware of the criminal justice system. She has tapes to discipline kids. And I was like, first of all, I'm a whole attorney. Second of all, you recruited me out of school to prison pipeline work. Okay. I was not, you know, so you were aware.

And then discipline for my colleagues meant sent home. Sure. And I was like, so no, I'm not doing that. The kids that need to be in school. Are the ones you just want out the way. That's exactly right. And nobody's teaching you on how to connect and stuff and, and then I realized the black people in buildings are [00:55:00] always deans,

Dr. Asia Lyons: listen to deal with these kids of color.

Listen.

Jennifer Bacon: I was like, wow. And we all doing it for the same reason, but it's true. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes, yes. And I'm like, oh yes. That's so true. I get it. You're absolutely right. And that's what was happening. Like Denver Public Schools is still a system that is primarily kids of color. Mm-hmm. And their educators are not.

And that's it. And like we can't act like we don't know what's true from that. The one thing that gives me some sort of, I don't know the words, like solace in 2025 is these things should not be questions anymore.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: Kids need teachers of color. There is such a thing as the tax we have gone through the period of all the deans or people of color.

All the teachers are not. We have gone through a thing of how do we teach black and brown kids without control? We had to go through all of that. That's what the last 10 years of education was in [00:56:00] Denmark with reform. And so it was just like, you can't tell me I'm not getting like a great review because my first inclination is to not put a kid.

And so you have to wonder, I had the opportunity to leave Denver three or four times and the only reason I stayed was 'cause my mother was here.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Bacon: But I would've left 'cause I saw people leaving. I even said to now, our mayor, he had two really highly talented black people on the staff. One of them went to law school with me and they stayed three years.

They're like, because they hit, it's like not a glass ceiling, it's a glass wall. You can see it, but you can't get there when you're black 'cause they won't let you leave in your culture. Right. The Reform squad was like, get on the team or you don't care about kids. They made it like that. And I experienced that politically, wholeheartedly.

And I had to take it on. When I ran for school board, I'm like, I am Teach for America. I did work [00:57:00] in a charter. I was on the board to open a charter myself. But this structure you got going on here needs to change. And I took a lot of licks for that, you know? Yeah, I bet. I bet. And the union ended up endorsing me.

'cause I'm like, what's happening here is not okay. Teachers need to be paid better and they need to be paid consistently. 'cause it was a bonus structure in Denver Public schools remember that? Yeah. And I'm like, kids don't have anyone to write recommendations in the far northeast. 'cause they can't keep a teacher longer than a year.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah, I've hear that still now. Mm-hmm. Right.

Jennifer Bacon: If you really want teachers of color, you gotta change how you are operating and evaluating period. And I got licks for that, but I'm still here. Because my community keeps electing me because they're like, she's not wrong.

Dr. Asia Lyons: No, not

Jennifer Bacon: at all. But I may not be the most paid person in education.

I have to run for office to keep a job because if it was up to these people, I'd probably be fired two or three times.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah. There's some folks, [00:58:00] I shout to my girl Veia, who should be it in this position to support folks in the political arena because same thing, very vocal, very like this is mm-hmm. Has to change.

We have to think about things differently. And like you said, folks, they want status quo. They want the same old, same. I find it interesting on a different note that you said that your history with charter schools, NTFA, that the unions still backed you. I'm surprised by that. But that speaks to the work that you're doing and your commitment.

Mm-hmm. And they believed you and I, I'm happy to hear that.

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah. I mean, I said to them, unions aren't here to be PEs. Look. If teachers don't wanna do extra work, that's not the union's fault per se, but they are the best chance of keeping people in this profession.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. '

Jennifer Bacon: cause they fight for them and they will provide support.

Remember I told you, all of my mentors, if I, it wasn't a union member, I would not have had copy paper.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm. [00:59:00] I would have been

Jennifer Bacon: breathing black mold. Okay. And especially for black and brown people going to college now for you to go take on 30, 40, $50,000 for a teaching degree and no one's advocating for better pay.

That is real.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes. For low

Jennifer Bacon: income people.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: Like I said, I had the privilege of going to sleep on my mom's couch. That is not the case for every person of color. And like who's gonna fight to protect you as a professional and that you are paid. Yeah. And to support you in that profession. And if it comes down to it.

That is why I'm like, we have to at least support union to a certain extent. Now, if they wanna walk off a cliff, then they will get community pushback. Yes. To change that behavior. But to the extent where they can support, they need to be around. And that's what I said. I'm like, look, I'm just not a fan. I believe that school choice required diversity of option.

That's not what we were [01:00:00] doing. We were just replicating. Mm-hmm. I believe that teachers deserved a chance to grow in their profession and not just be very rote. And for what it's worth, charters have adjusted like it's not 2015 anymore. Okay.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah,

Jennifer Bacon: yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was what was happening at the time.

Like I said, I have seen this. I just came from DC and it just blew there. I worked in a charter in DC I. It was like, wow. Yeah, I just came from New Orleans. I'm telling you. I'm telling. And then in Denver, it was just so stark. Denver was not dc, which is Black City, right? Mm-hmm. Or New Orleans, which is a black city.

Mm-hmm. But these schools were only in the black and brown neighborhoods. So to watch the white neighborhoods reject them, I was like, this is definitely different.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. And if

Jennifer Bacon: you can't even see that on his face, that the white neighborhoods do not want these schools, but you're only gonna put them in the black.

Yeah. I'm like, you gotta at least unpack that. I don't know what [01:01:00] this means. You know what I,

Dr. Asia Lyons: yeah. But something's happening. We need to

Jennifer Bacon: unpack that. Yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons: It was interesting. Mm-hmm. That's a good word to use. Interesting. In that same note, in that same vein of just talking about the places you've been and the communities and the union and the support you received.

Mm-hmm. I'll switch gears a little bit and ask the question. Is there a black educator that you would like to shout out on the show? You've talked about your family in Florida, but I don't wanna like push you to shout out anybody specific. But is there a black educator that you would like to shout out on the show who supported you or still support you right now and the work that you're doing?

Jennifer Bacon: I have a few, and I will start with my family. Rosemary Chambers became a teacher later in her life and she ended up being a principal at, like I said, she was a principal at our rival high school. But watching her [01:02:00] leadership was really interesting to me. She would say things like, they'd be like, you can't put black kids in calculus 'cause it's too hard.

And she'd be like, I'd rather them get a D in calculus than an A in number studies.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah,

Jennifer Bacon: something. Oh

Dr. Asia Lyons: yeah,

Jennifer Bacon: sure. And I'd be like, wow. She was like, you know, one, you'd be surprised that kids can rise to an occasion, but two. There's still something to be said about what you're exposed to. Mm-hmm. And it just made me think about cycles and how such low expectations that are out there for black and brown kids that they meet us at such a low place.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And then her daughter, Cherise Chambers and my cousin Shasu, they all went to get PhDs and have just been in schools for a long time. And being black in schools for a long time [01:03:00] and caring to stay. There are times where I'm like, I feel like a failure 'cause I'm not still in a classroom.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm. Because

Jennifer Bacon: it's so impactful there.

And then I think about, I didn't really like my principal when I was in New Orleans, miss Arnoldi. She used to say things like, you might be the only professional people they see. You will dress professionally as an educator. She was hard on us, but that's what it meant to work with a black principal and hearing it from her instead of having a white principal talk about how these kids need, it just lands differently.

Yes. I think about my own middle school experience. Remember before I went to my high school and you know, my mom knew every black teacher in my middle school and I had Miss Jackie Miles who looked out for me as being the only black kid. And thank God, it's so interesting because I had two black aps, including [01:04:00] Ms.

Tanner, and if it was not for them, I probably would've been expelled for fighting these white kids for calling me the N word.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Sure. No.

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah, it's real. And it just was like, this is why we need to be present. That's what I picked up on, that there needs to be people who connect to kids and their culture to protect them.

So I think about. A lot of black teachers. I think about my mentee, that one TFA core member, her name's Tara Jones, God bless her, born and raised in Montbello, wanted to come back and teach and would buy herself in that core. And I'm like, we will be each other's support.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brilliant

Jennifer Bacon: chemistry major.

And I was like, if we can't keep her, then there is a failure in this system. So she was my test.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Oh, I love that time. Out to Tara.

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah. So we have, you know, in my mind, I had two black teachers growing up, just two that I had those assistant [01:05:00] principals, but my first teacher, my kindergarten teacher was black Ms.

Clemont. And she was the only one who put my talkativeness to, maybe there's something here, you know? Mm-hmm. I was never tested for gifted because people like, she just talks too much and Ms. Mle was like, you should get that checked out. Yeah, she might be bright. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I believe in black teachers, we make such an incredible difference.

And like I said, every five years I find my way back to school. And like I said, I feel incredibly guilty that I'm not in a classroom right now. Yeah. But I just wanna say also to you, thank you for allowing me to reminisce and connect the dots on how the black educators in my life made me who I am. So thank you for that opportunity.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yeah, no problem. I mean, it's so important that we make sure to continually uplift the [01:06:00] names of black educators again, who've taught us, who are teaching right now because they're doing good work. And folks need to hear, especially in our audience, like maybe they've never had a black teacher and they need to hear the names of black folks who are out here teaching.

Or maybe they have had black educators. They wanna, I want them to reminisce on their own experience in the classroom with black educators, so, or, or deans or paraprofessionals or school psychs. So I appreciate that. Mm-hmm. With all this that you're talking about.

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I had a really tough week and its grand scheme.

We're having a problem in the state and funding K 12, and I almost feel like it's shameful, you know? Mm-hmm. Because we are talking with the governor on how to balance the budget. We are in a billion dollar deficit right [01:07:00] now, and there has been a proposal. Yeah, we're, and billion over 1.5. I think the highest end of that might be 1.5 billion, maybe 1.1, $1.2 billion deficit, which means we have to cut the budget.

The governor has a proposal. To cut $150 million from K 12, and it's like we just fought to get up to the BS factor, you know, catch up on the BS factor last year, which is the budget stabilization factor, right? Like Colorado voted to quote unquote fully fund education unless you need to stabilize the budget.

That's what the BS factor is, right? So we fully funded it last year, and now here we are trying to find $147 million and K 12. You know, last year we also changed the funding formula for the state puts more money into kids versus cost of living, right? Which we thought was a local issue. [01:08:00] And so if districts that have more ELL special education kids or at-risk youth get more money.

Does that make sense?

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And so it was a big fight to do that because it was a big status quo change the big districts. Didn't like it for lack of predictability, but also it changed things. It was like, yeah, we had to put a spotlight on you Boulder if you have kids of color, you know, and at risk kids.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Cherry Creek was one of those districts, cherry Creek's changing, if you're familiar, I Cherry Creek. And that was something we learned, cherry, right? Like Cherry Creek has more kids of color than people think.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Bacon: And so we had to change the formula and that was a big fight.

And now here we are after one year later trying to find $157 million and we do need a call to action to find it from somewhere else. We have been balancing this budget on the backs of K 12 for decades now. Mm-hmm. In this state. And we need to have an [01:09:00] honest conversation about how much money we bring in.

We bring in money in Colorado, but because of Tabor, we give it back. And at this point we're asking if we could keep even $10. Outta that $800 check, it would fund education. Like that's how bad it's, yeah.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yes.

Jennifer Bacon: So we need to be having those conversations. But it's a big political one. And then on top of that, this week I proposed, you know, I am a union champion.

I was a member of Colorado Association of School Board Board, but I proposed this week that we do something we never do here in Colorado or rarely do, which is to mandate a class in all Colorado high schools. Right. And the class that I proposed that we mandate is financial literacy. I knew you were gonna say that.

Yes. 'cause I'm like, yeah. I'm like, we can't. In the way that I presented is like, I know you're gonna hate me. I will love you to the end of my days. I'm even like, I will go find money [01:10:00] to help provide professional development, but we have to mandate this class at this point. This is a generation, we don't do it here.

Okay. If anything, I think the last time they did it was civics and people hated that. But I'm like, this is a generational issue. Mm-hmm. We're only gonna do it, we should only do it once for this generation because these kids going to college now costs damn near a hundred thousand dollars. Mm-hmm. Or if we're gonna have kids going to workforce and they're making good money, we need to teach them how to own homes.

But we keep talking about post-secondary workforce readiness, but then we don't teach them the hard skill of surviving it. Yeah. I'm like, we have to teach it. I'm sorry. I almost cried at the end of that bill. 'cause I'm like, I know you all hate a mandate. I know you do, but we had kids come and testify. You can't, we are just not going to break the cycle of wealth gap if we don't teach every kid about wealth.

[01:11:00] And that's what a mandate means. We have to stand in that gap. And the NEA. Right. The National Education Association. Recommended a standalone class, but there's only eight local control states in the country. Right. But we're like, look, people say this is a good idea. I was like, let's just do it for five years, but let's try it.

But we have to do something. So I think what's behind the reasoning of that class is the reality of what adulthood is for kids now.

Dr. Asia Lyons: Yes. Yes, I do.

Jennifer Bacon: I would love to mandate a lot of things. I wanna mandate ethnic studies. I wanna,

Dr. Asia Lyons: yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: And like I won't get that in Colorado. 'cause let's just be honest about, no.

The corners of the state. Right. But I'm like, we can all agree, we have to say, as a matter of import, that regardless of where you live, a Colorado student will know how to manage their finances. And so it was a big [01:12:00] political, I, you know, worried. I. About my capital because I would fight to the death for K 12.

But when we disagree, it's like on an epic scale. Sure. And so it's been an interesting week. That's what we're working on last week. Colorado's done well to create standards and you know, standards is different from curriculum and then we have to ensure standards are taught. That's another conversation here.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Asia Lyons (3): Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Bacon: Colorado's done well about including inclusive culture into our standards. A couple weeks ago, the Black Caucus supported a bill that comprehensive black history be included in the standards. And that is a nod to DC like you are trying to execute erasure by calling DEI Immoral and illegal, which it is not.

Yeah. And he is trying to undo the Civil Rights Act in the offices of Civil Rights in the EEOC. And so we believe that needs to be protected here in the state of [01:13:00] Colorado. Yes. So. I think that's what we're working on in education. Every once in a while we do audits to figure out how many black teachers we have.

But even the last line I was a part of, one in 2012, Rhonda Fields ran one a couple years ago when we ran our audit. When I was remember recruiting, it was like there were 36 black people who graduated from all of our schools of education.

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah.

Jennifer Bacon: That's it.

Dr. Asia Lyons: I feel like we're not that far away right now.

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah. Yeah. So our system needs to change. We are not competitively paying anybody. Our system is taking on, the state has grown. We have a million more people than were here 10 years ago. Our systems have not caught up to our reality, and that's why we're like, we need to support at risk. We need to support English language, special education.

We have more volume, and our system has not grown proportionally. Right?

Dr. Asia Lyons (2): Yeah. And

Jennifer Bacon: so. [01:14:00] We're not giving our kids their best shot. And these teachers who work in this state when there is literally other things to do, deserve medals and they deserve better. And so that is going to become one of my, in the next four years, we will figure out how to better fund K 12.

It's just a shame. We are one of the most affluent in highly educated states, but we are importing our talent. 'cause we cannot, Colorado has a 50% college going rate from high school grads. Okay. So we're importing talent and then we have the money. But because of Tabor, we give it back. And don't get me wrong, $60 back is important to some people, but we need to separate who that's important for.

Yes. And you can tolerate not getting $10 back. Yes. So we can better pay teachers. We're just over it. This is a new era for this state. And we can do so much better. And they're doing so much with so little. And that's why we got the pushback on [01:15:00] financial literacy. It was not because the teachers disagreed about it.

It was like, how do we execute this with very little dollars? So that will be my thing. I gotta figure out how to get in this school finance game. That's interesting. So, and ensure that we teach inclusive culture here. Mm-hmm. And that we have systems to defend when kids are discriminated against. That's another project that needs to happen.

'cause some of these school districts are trying to ban AP black history and BLM flags and we need some sort of apparatus to let them know that's discrimination. So that's the short term project. So that's what's going on. Yep.

Dr. Asia Lyons: You said a lot and there's a lot to chew on. I just thinking deeply about all things that you said, the billion one point, some odd billion dollars.

All the pieces. This is not an IT easy issue. I'm a hundred percent on board with the financial literacy piece. I think that [01:16:00] DPS has, I went a couple years back and presented at a financial literacy conference that DPS put on. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that program is still existing and what they're doing with that.

Mm-hmm. But I felt like that was like a glimmer of hope when it came to talking about financial literacy and being financially literate. Right. And like you said, students are going into careers right outta high school. They're not in dorms anymore, they're paying rent. They're figuring these pieces out.

And you could be 10 years down the line and not, and look up and realize I saved nothing for my retirement. Mm-hmm. Or I don't really know what credit score is, or I don't where to find my credit score. Or I don't know anything about mm-hmm. Investing, filling up like lots of things. And so how do we think about this on the front end before students get out into quote unquote, the real world?

Because they're in it [01:17:00] right now, regardless. Mm-hmm. But before they go out and start using that credit score, before they start taking out loans, before they start making some of these huge financial decisions so that they can be better off in the long run. And to be honest, generationally, right, because when we are smart about our finances at 17, 19 35, it impacts our children or the children that we support our grandparents, like lots of folks in our community.

So I'm in full agreeance with what you're saying, and I thank you for that work so much. And you know, any way that community can support, please let community know, because I know that lots of people are in agreeance with what you're doing. And so with all this, because you are busy and you're doing all the things.

Tell us for you in our final question, with all the back and forth of running and ripping and the advocating for you, what does it mean to be Well?

Jennifer Bacon: Yeah, [01:18:00] so for me, I'm still trying to figure out what rest means, but I do believe, for me it would be something along the lines of, my mind is at ease because I know or I can trust what's going on.

And that there is care for our kids in our community. And I think what worries me about it is I wonder if that will ever happen because that's what I, I stay up at night. Like I have whole arguments in my head that I wanted to have with someone when they said something that was a pejorative, right? Or when they talked about our communities.

I come home and have whole arguments in my head. I. Because I feel like I've seen enough in the world to know what happens when we don't change these systems. And sometimes I cry 'cause I'm like, black people deserve so much better than this. I think about the ways we [01:19:00] have indoctrinated ourselves and the one thing about being in politics is you see where it comes from.

Yeah. And to be so close to it, but you can't change it. And it's just because these are regular people. I wish you don't have to be a Rhode Scholar to be a legislator, but we are not above and beyond. We are regular people and you gotta get through their biases, you gotta get through their assumptions to change outcomes for kids.

And we're so close to it. So that's what keeps me up at night and I. Unless I get some good melatonin, I don't know if I'm gonna find some rest. But the flip side is I try not to every moment, even while I was sitting here, I miss four phone calls. There will always be a need and people will always be mad at you 'cause you don't answer all the time.

'cause everyone thinks it's just them, right? Mm-hmm. Constituent being [01:20:00] like, you don't respond to me. I'm like, I get 90 constituent calls a day, not just, and so when I have time with my family, I do not answer the phone. And I don't care if I get, because I'm the place now where my parents are in their seventies.

I have new nieces. I got a good 10 years with both of them. And so every moment of that counts and I'm here in Colorado and they're all in Florida. I gotta think about that. So it just seems like two extremes. So I'm still working on it. I'm learning. And so if you have any good tips, I'd

Dr. Asia Lyons: be happy to take them on.

Oh, yes. That's so real. I've been referring this to a lot of people, and I'll refer this to you in the audience and to you to rep bacon. We've had in this particular season, five of the episodes of the, the interview Dr. Sean Genwright was on earlier in the season, and he talked about having like [01:21:00] a micro diet of wellness.

Right. And it's not, it's not, maybe it is a vacation, but it's also chewing our food slowly, drinking our water, like you said, not answering every single phone call it is, instead of jumping outta the car and running into work or jumping outta the car and running into the grocery store, like sitting for a minute and letting the song finish that you really enjoy it is taking like time to breathe and like every minute micro diet, you know, like one minute here, 10 minutes there, 15 minutes there.

Because for most of us. We'll die in in our, well, all of us will die in our black or brown bodies that, um, all people I talk to at least on the show. And so like, how do we kind of snatch back what belongs to us, which is time for rest? And so I'll put that out to you, just like, I'll put that out to, you know, the people in the communities out here listening to this podcast.

We have to take this micro diet of rest and wellness seriously. [01:22:00] Like you said, we don't sleep, we don't rest, and then we're not well and it doesn't serve anyone. So yeah, I'll put that out there to you and I'll put that out there to my community as well. All right, folks, this is the end of our show.

Representative Jennifer Bacon. You've been amazing. Your story is amazing. You're doing dope shit out here in community. I appreciate it. The folks of Colorado, I hope they appreciate it. If they don't, that's too bad, right? It's happening anyway. I'm not even gonna ask the question. If people wanna reach out to you where they can they find you because you said you were doing things and busy, but they can find your information online for sure, especially folks in Denver who you represent.

I'm easy to find like bacon and eggs, I'll pop up. There you go. There you go. All right, good. Folks, this has been the Exit interview podcast for black educators. We'll talk to you later. Peace.

Thanks for tuning [01:23:00] into the Exit interview, a podcast for black educators. If today's conversation resonated with you, know that you're not alone. Through Alliance Educational Consulting, we work to support black educators in navigating racial battle fatigue, reclaiming their wellness and building community center solutions that sustain us in and beyond the classroom.

If you're looking for workshops, wellness cohorts, or strategic support for retaining black educators, let's connect. Visit Alliance educational consulting.com or follow me on LinkedIn, Dr. Asia Alliance, or Instagram. Hello, Dr. Asia to learn more. Until next time, take care and keep thriving.