Youth at the Core with Joy Delizo-Osborne Live at SXSWEDU 2025

 I'm really thankful for the way that things have worked out, and I know, right? You know, people always say like that, which is for you, you know, it's for you. Like it's there, it's waiting. That was a hard thing to trust in that moment, but if I had gotten any of those jobs that rejected me, I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you like I would've been somewhere else.

Right. 

In a world where the recruitment of Black educators dominates 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 Lyons, and I'm embarking on a mission alongside my. Themed 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. Welcome to the Exit Exit Interview podcast for Black educators live at South by Southwest. Give it up for your sales folks.

So excited to be in front of you all today with my good friend Georgia Lizzo Osborne. It's a long time coming. We applied for this Eon ago. Yes, and I'm so happy to be on Stay With You. 

Yeah. 

Before I read Joy Bio, I want to talk about why the Exit Interview podcast exists. I was an educator for 12 years in a school district in Colorado, and left teaching in 2018, and when I left, I demanded for my superintendent and exit interview.

I. He needed to know why I was leaving. He needed to understand why Black folks in education were leaving his district and across the board. And after several emails, uh, he finally responded and said yes. And walking back to my car, I realized that there's a lot of us who leave education in a traditional sense and never share exit story.

And so my job has been with this podcast is to archive the stories of Black folks who've left the field of education. And so I've asked Joy to come on to share some of her education journey and so I'll, I'll read her bio and we'll get started. Joy, she, her, hers is a president and CEO at Student Achievement Partners, where she makes every effort to listen deeply, imagine boldly and work humbly.

She holds a BA in English and Women's Studies from. Pomona College as well as a master's degree in education from Claremont graduate University. Joy's decade of experience as a teacher, instructional coach and principal at school buildings in the Bronx. Harlem and the Bay Area help form her belief that anything can be done to make this education system one that sees and values each and every student is a worthwhile endeavor.

She joined SAP in 2019 after working as a school design lead. At Education Resource Strategies, and even now, she finds time to tutor middle and high school students in writing. Joy lives outside of Denver, Colorado with her wife, who was a middle school science teacher, and her two daughters and two dogs.

Welcome to the show, joy Russell and Ron, shout out. Shout out. Yeah, shout out. Yeah, shout out. So first things first, I gotta let you know we were in the green room and Joy told me that her mom shout out to Leslie, told her to. No curse words, right? And don't be too woke. And I said, I'm gonna cuss. If you can't, I will Uhhuh.

And she says she's not gonna promise not to be woke. So, yes, super excited about the conversation. So in the podcast, we ask each guest the same questions. And so I'll start with the first question. When people come on the show, we talk about their education journey. Some folks knew. From third grade, they wanna be an educator.

Some folks talk about they found education, becoming a teacher, a school counselor, school psych, and this is how I define education. Anyone who impacts youth in college or some other way, what was your journey into education? I. 

Well, first of all, I'm sorry, can we just acknowledge all of the Melanated?

Wonderful. Vanessa. I'm so excited.

It's giving Black, we said Black Black Lady Courtroom. Yes. Yes. Uh, yes. Our own, our very own Black Lady Sketch show happening right now. 

Yes, yes. But no, just like 

really thankful for you all being here. So I just wanted to name that. How did I know I wanted to be a teacher is such a good question. I didn't know I wanted to be a teacher for quite a while, but my kindergarten teacher knew when I graduated from sixth grade, Ms.

Kaison brought me a pillow and it had kids of different races. You know, she had, I don't know, painted them or whatever, but in the middle it said, kids love joy. And she said, you're gonna be an amazing teacher one day. And I looked at her and I said, I wanna be rich. Not sure how those work together. You know, Ms.

Kaison knew. And I didn't. So I went off to middle school. I was one of these kids. I'm from Miami, Florida, uh, Carroll City. And at the time there weren't a great educational choices. I lived across the street from an elementary school, but I never actually attended it. I was always transferred to other schools and other neighborhoods.

And in middle school, I got a scholarship to an independent school across town. And through that time I learned a lot about what teaching could be, uh, versus what teaching had been in my neighborhood schools and really asked the question like, why school was so different where I was going across town, right?

We had free periods, we got to sit on the quad all afternoon. You know, there were tennis courts and pools and the middle school in my neighborhood, we had annual riots. Like that was what we were known for. And so I think I had a very early sense of educational inequity. Like I saw lots of different things and I wasn't sure what I could do to solve those things.

But when I went to college, I decided that my summers I wanted to give back. And the way I ended up doing that was through the Summer Bridge Program. It's now called Breakthrough, but I was a Summer Bridge intern every summer of my college career. Then it just felt natural to continue and be a full-time teacher when I graduated.

So that's really how I ended up in the classroom. 

Yeah. And so makes sense. Some folks, they're told like, this is for you and that's not the plan. And we always, not always, but a lot of times we come back full circle. Mm-hmm. So tell us about your college. You decided to go attend college, become an educator.

What did you teach? Tell us about that part of the journey. Oh. 

I went to school in Southern California, so I'm from Miami and I'm queer, I'm Black, and Miami was not a place I could necessarily see myself forever. And my mother tells a story actually of like me seeing Jeopardy when I was a kid and saying, I wanna go to China, like how far can I get away from this place?

Well, I didn't make it to China for college, but I did make it to Southern California, which was a huge. Huge learning experience. I mean, culturally just so different from South Florida, though the weather is not necessarily all that different, which was important too. And so it was at Pomona actually, I studied abroad in Cuba, in Havana for a semester and saw firsthand what socialism looks and feels like, and it was really radicalized by that experience.

It was really interesting to think of myself as poor in the US and then for folks to look at me like, but you got shoes. Like, do you have some to spare? Like you have multiple shirts. You know? The folks I was working with were kind of like, you have so much, and I'm thinking, I worked all summer to get here and I had $800 exactly for this entire six months.

Like every dollar I spend is so important. And they're looking at me like, you have so much. How are you not appreciating that? So that really changed my way of thinking about my positionality, my place in the world, what I could do about anything. And it really did cement my commitment to going into social impact work and specifically education.

I'm a big book nerd, you know, I read like three books a week, mostly cozy mysteries. Nothing exciting. That's 

fine, that's fine. 

I love to read and I was like, what better thing to do than to share that with other people. So I became a middle school English teacher and worked in some schools in Southern California.

I applied to Teach for America in College, was denied. I knew the moment that happened in the interview, they asked me why I wanted to be in TFAI. I said, I don't necessarily wanna be in TFA, I mean, I just wanna be a teacher. Oh, 

okay. You know, 

that would've done it. That would've done it die. Like she was like, uh, okay.

Uh, 

this is a theme of, of her life. Folks, I just will let you know. Prepare for this part. I'm Yes. 

And so, oh, my friends were like, you're gonna get in. I was like, I'm not getting in. I told the lady the truth. Oops. So I did not get into TFA, but decided I wanted to live in New York City, so I moved to New York of my own accord, got a job as a founding teacher in a middle school in the South Bronx, and then I was off to the races from there.

Yeah, we have folks on the podcast who founded schools mostly as administrators. What was that like to be a part of a founding school? Because I know that people, they say, you know, like that's a dream because I can be a part of something that starts completely fresh. Right. I get to be a part of the planning and all the 

things of that, not your experience.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely dreamy parts. There's also a lot of really difficult parts. You know, a founding school doesn't have systems, doesn't have structures, doesn't have staff. You're doing 10 jobs for the price of one, regardless of where you are in the hierarchy. It was a great job for me at 23.

Yeah. 

Right. But then I kind of got bitten by the founding bug and did it three more times in my career. And by the last time I was a founding principal at a mom and pop charter school in Oakland. Yeah. It wasn't serving. It wasn't serving us anymore. 

Tell us about that. Yeah. We wanna 

know. We're nosy. Yeah.

It's just really hard, you know, and I think we were talking about this earlier. I. So often in education we start to have this sense of, I mean, I'm not a white savior. I wasn't trying to save anybody other than maybe myself, right? By thinking that the work I was doing would make me feel like I had sufficiently given back to all of the people who had given me things throughout my educational experience, but it can be really hard.

I experienced a real difficulty divorcing the job, the exchange of labor for pay. With an institution from my commitment to the people in a school building, right. The children, my fellow teachers, et cetera. And when I did finally actually leave the school building, it was at the best of my doctor. She said, do you need a permanent vacation from this job?

Mm, now I'm gonna cry. But yeah, it was very hard. I was, I gained a ton of weight. My blood pressure was out of control. It was a really hard time. I was doing good work. I was working all the time. We could never get subs. I was teaching math. I was the lunch lady. I was answering phones. I was the principal, and I was like, it's never good enough.

I would wake up at three in the morning like, will I have subs today? What do I have to teach today? My heart racing. And the doctor was like, you need to stop this. And I'm like, but who else would do it? 

Yeah, if not me, who? 

Yeah. In the end, my wife bribed me. I saw a puppy on a friend's Instagram. I. Russell, one of the dogs aforementioned.

She said, you can have the dog if you quit the job. The bar is low. 

Yes. The bar is in hell. The bar is in hell. 

And we're stepping over 

that bar. Yes. Uh, yes. She said, if you get rid of the job, you can have the dog. And I said, okay, I want the dog. So we got him at eight weeks. I quit my job. Principal quitting is not like today.

I quit. Tomorrow, I'm gone. Right. It was. In February, I'm not coming back. And then I had a runway or so I thought to find another job and my wife was a founding teacher at a nearby charter. We were, you know, she was a teacher, I was an administrator. Different charters, but same sort of general area. And we had decided that one of us had to be out of the building.

Yeah. That, you know, we were never seeing each other. We're both working all day, all night. It was so hard for me to find a job. It took 

hold. Hold that thought. Hold that thought because I wanna talk about that. Yep. So when we were having this conversation earlier today, I talked to, I said that you know, Dr.

Sean Jen Wright, who wrote a book called The Four Pivots. He does a lot of work with youth. He was on the, uh, show a few episodes back. He talked about this addiction to care that Black women have. 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And he said, you know, 'cause the question I asked was.

Part of the show. We obviously have Black folks come on who have left the Phillips education, but we also have counselors and therapists and coaches come on to give advice to educators. And he said, that's the problem. Black women have an addiction to care and we have to put it down. 

Mm-hmm. 

Right? And he said he has graduate students who are going through the same things and they're just running from one place to another.

What about the students? What about the kids? Who's gonna do it if I don't, and you know, and I'm just, and constantly jumping in front of. A lot of and taking that on. Mm-hmm. Right? And so he suggested to folks, and I would implore you all to listen to the episode, to put it down, right? Mm-hmm. And the fact that.

Your doctor said it, but the puppy was the reason, right? Yes. For so many of us, and I'll speak for myself, it's the outside influence. Mm-hmm. Right? And so absolutely. We talk about, and we'll get into Black educator retention specifically in a second, but when we talk about. This idea of leaving spaces. I think that a lot of folks in human resources that do the work of recruiting forget that we come with a community of people and that just like we text them and call them and ran home and celebrated when we got that job.

When that job is eating us up, we text them and we call them and we tell them. And so that community says F that job. Yeah, I get you. I, I know my cousin does real estate. I can help you get a light. Right. And so if we wanna be real about Black educator retention, we have to remember that we come with a community of people who love and care for us.

Yes. Right. You already kind of segmented into this, but so we understand what it was that helped you decide it was time to leave education. But I want you to continue that part of you thought you had a runway. 

Oh yeah. Well, I'm like. I've done every job in the building. I mean, of course I can get another job.

I know lunch. Yeah, I know. Mopping up two the rectangular pieces. Yeah. I mean, I know it all, like why wouldn't I be able to get a job outside of the school building? But what I found actually when I tried to move into the nonprofit space was a lot of like, I mean, that's helpful I guess, but it's not what we do, right?

Like it's not directly. Transferable skills, how to position all the things I had learned in new language with new vocabulary for new reasons and new contexts was really, really difficult. So I found myself, I got to the final interview like six times or something, right? And then they'd be like, eh, you know, we went with this person who has already done blank before and was getting rough around our house.

I mean, two educators, bay area, very tight. Anyway, a puppy. A puppy, you know? Yeah. No children yet, thankfully. But it was like, woo, you know, by May or June, we're like, how this mortgage gonna go? You know, if this goes more than two or three months, more months, like what are we, are we moving back into your parents' basement, babe?

We're like, what are we doing? And then I got a job. Someone took a chance on me and I think I was really close though at that time to saying, well, nevermind. I guess the only place I. I have any worth or value is the school building or in the district, which wouldn't have been the worst thing, right? But it wouldn't have given me, honestly, the space to heal a little bit physically, emotionally, or two, the opportunity as I have now to, to actually use my experiences in schools to impact, you know, far more than just an individual school or an individual district.

I mean, my role is a nationally facing one now. So I'm really thankful for the way that things have worked out. And I know right. You know, people always say like that, which is for you, you know, it's for you. Like it's there, it's waiting. That was a hard thing to trust in that moment. But if I had gotten any of those jobs that rejected me, I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you like I would've been somewhere else.

Right. And so what was for me was coming. It took longer than I would've liked. 

Yeah. 

It took more outta my savings account and. My begging of people in our community to help me make it than I would've liked, but it taught me something too about staying really steady in my belief in what I, I had to offer.

My perspective mattered enough for me to keep trying to be able to share it in different spaces, so 

thank you. I think what's interesting about not being employed for six.

Healing, right? Yes. And what I found is when I talk to folks out in community, and the Black educator wellness work that I do for my day-to-day work is that folks go right from a classroom or from the counselor's office, whatever you're doing as an admin, right. Into nonprofit. Mm-hmm. Or right into some other job and have no space to heal.

Yeah. 

And they feel like. The nonprofit will be the clean slate. They need to then do the healing work they need to do. And that is not what happens at all. 

No. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no. Yeah. We end up likes bleeding 

over people that did cause us no harm, and I just see it over and over again. And so having savings or community or, and time to have at least consider and start a healing journey.

Leaving one space to another, whether that be as a teacher or from nonprofit to nonprofit, whatever that is, that healing is so important. I don't think that we, I hope that there's conversation happening more often. It feels like it on my Instagram. It feels like everybody's out here on the healing journey.

Yes. But I hope that's actually happening and people are taking their wellness seriously. We are finding therapists. They're finding joy and liberation, and not just going from one job to another, thinking that's going to help them to heal. 

Yeah. I think there is this desire to be able to find it all in one place.

Yeah. I'm gonna get my paycheck and my joy and my, you know, all wrapped up in one. It's gonna be easy. Like, no, I was saying to Asia earlier. When I think about my childhood, the community we were in, you know, we were a very tight-knit church community, and I'm like, I didn't know who Mr. Person was any other place.

But on Sundays he brought Krispy Kress, like that was his commitment to care. I don't know if he was a lawyer. I still don't know. I don't know what he did. I don't, it doesn't matter. That was the way he showed up. Right? Or you know, you led the choir or you did Sunday school, or you know, you had your thing and that was where you poured into the community and had an identity that liberated, that gave joy, et cetera.

And I think sometimes, at least in my context right now, it feels like in the absence of some of those kinds of spaces, we're more transient. We're in and out of communities more. Work becomes the place where we're looking for like all of that. Right. And it doesn't work. Yeah. You know, it turns out, at least not for me.

Yeah, that's real. Thank you. Yeah, so I think my next question is, given that obviously you don't work in a traditional education space anymore, and we know that we are finding out that funding for pipeline work is drying up and there's. You know, in Colorado where I work, there's less than a thousand Black educators across the state.

Yeah. Dry, real dry, right. It's a drought. Yeah, it's a drought. And then in places like California where they don't, the Department of Education doesn't even count Black educators, but we don't even know how many Black folks are in California who are teaching. My question to you is, what do you think that schools districts.

Unions can do to keep Black educators. And the reason why I'm asking about unions too is because unions are not exempt from the harm, right? Yeah. In my experience, when I was leaving education, I went to my union rep and said this, this racism is happening, and let me tell you how, and I could see in his face that he did not believe my story.

Mm. And so he was a part of the harm caused that made me decide like, this is a systems issue. Yeah. So what do you believe that schools, districts, and unions can do to retain Black 

educators? That is a good question. I'm not sure. You know, I think there are a few things. I'm not sure, you know, without a pretty massive overhaul of the system overall, you know, kind of, I'm blanking on options.

There you go. Thank 

you. Bye. Next question, right? 

I do think that teacher pay always huge in terms of thinking about compensation in the various ways you can compensate and think about a total compensation package. I think one of the things that is kind of like harder to see but is real, so my wife no longer works in.

Public schools. She works in an independent school right now. She's not Black, she's Filipino, but same, you know, sort of difference in that. The thing that keeps her there, even though her compensation is lower, is flexibility. We have two small kids. She can say, Hey, I need someone to cover my class for the next four hours.

And they're like, okay, bye. Like, see you later. Right? That kind of ability to say what you need and have a response that is human and flexible. Is kind of priceless in our lives right now and is one of the things that's been able to keep her in the classroom thinking about like systemically, how it becomes like schools become places where people can live.

My sister used to be a kindergarten teacher and I'm like, how do you go to the bathroom? She's like, oh, I don't, I just, you know, I watch when I drink water so that I don't have to pee for the five hours or there's no break. Right. There's some ways in which, just like structurally, we are creating places and experiences that expect things of people that are inappropriate.

I think also sort of finding ways to honor voice at the systems level is really important. Right? How do you actually hear from teachers not in an annual survey, right? Or a cherry picking of individuals that you bring to one dinner once a year to hear how things are going. To understand what the real challenges are at the classroom level, so that the decisions you're making as a system are actually responsive.

I think so often when I'm sitting with district administrators, they're looking at survey data from six months ago, right, and saying, well, this is the investment I'm gonna make to fix this problem. I'm like, well, the problem has probably changed 10 times since you asked this stupid question. You know, like, whatcha doing?

What are the actual problems people are facing? Interestingly, I think this moment is one where folks are becoming more attuned to the need to rapid response, right? Our political situation, I think, has us all sort of aware that things can change more quickly, right? It's no longer modus operandi, right? Or just business as usual.

So I think there is an opportunity here to start to listen more deeply and more closely to the needs both of educators themselves. Also like our community members, right? For what schools need to be, even when we are all under attack. I think I've seen it in Denver with ice, right? Like questions around how schools will continue to be safe places for all students.

Yeah. 

But I think that's also the kind of question we could be asking. All the time for all groups of kids, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And responding to in, in similar ways. 

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And that's always a tough question. I have folks who respond and say, here's the things that I think it's also folks who say, I don't believe it's possible.

Yeah. 

Right. And I'm on the leaning on the side of if they wanted to, they would have. 

Mm-hmm. That's fair. 

Right. We are a long way from white fragility being the only book that people wanna read. We know what we need to do. And so I've always asked that question because I think the audience needs to hear it, but I'm just so, like if they wanted to change, they would have a long time ago, and I had a guest come on a little while back, Dr.

Adrian Davenport, who said, we had during covid a time to really think about things differently and we chose not. 

Yeah, 

right. I don't wish a pandemic on us at all, but that was the opportunity. Yeah, that was the time. And we, a lot of us didn't, just chose not, so thank you for that answer. Sure. My next question is, this particular section is my favorite, so I wanna start off with a question that, has anyone ever been to BM EC?

The Black educator male convening in Philadelphia. Yeah, so I borrow this Sharif. Shout out to Sharif. We don't steal in teaching. We borrow. Right. My next question is, is there a Black educator or educators that you would like to shout out? 

Hmm. Well, I was an English and Women's Studies major. My thesis was on Black feminist theory and literature, and so Bell Hooks is very near and dear to my heart.

Audrey Lorde. I don't know if Octavia Butler would've considered herself a teacher, but my daughter is named after her, her middle name. Oh, that's dope. Because Parable of the Sower before this very moment where everyone's like, ah, you know, that whole trilogy has been my favorite set of books for a long time, and I love Lauren Mina.

The main character in that book says, you know, God has changed. There's nothing you can depend on as much as the fact that things are gonna change. Right. And so I think that is actually a way of thinking that I embody, right? There's a hope and there's a fear built into understanding that things will always change, right?

Changing for the better and changing for the worse. But ultimately, within all of it, you have to know who you are, what you're committed to, what you believe in, and how you're going to live your truth regardless of the conditions around you. And so maybe Octavia Butler's my favorite. I don't know. 

That's fair.

That's fair enough. There's not nothing about there. 

Yeah.

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. 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. I. 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 school and you want something that really amplifies justice, that amplifies seeing the whole child in a diverse school.

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

My next question is, what are you doing now? Sure. Tell us about the 

work that you do. Sure. I lead an organization called Achieve the Core, or Student Achievement Partners Achieve the core.org or learn with sap.org. The history of the organization's really interesting. It was actually started by the folks who wrote the Common Core State standards in Literacy and in math.

Those people did not look much like me. And so when I joined the organization five and a half years ago, I joined as a program manager. Basically, I. Nobody anybody listened to for any reason at all. So my being here and sitting in this role is more like illogical than you could ever really imagine. This wasn't like a stepping stone.

And then I did this and I then I did that. When I said what was for me was for me, I meant that, I mean, there's no way five years ago you could have told me when I took this job that I would be the boss. Or that I'd be doing particularly well at it, which I'm kind of kicking ass. 

Yeah, right.

Uh, so that's right. 

Truly when I joined the organization, it was like, who's that girl, whatever. And then Covid happened. And before Covid happened, I was actually pretty ready to leave the organization. Not because I wasn't anyone that was fine. It was that there were things that I just felt like I couldn't.

Find myself in, you know, the way we were doing the work, what we were committed to, just didn't match who I was, and I had moved out of my space of like, if not me, then who? Right? I had moved into my, well, I have value and I'll figure out where to place it, where to share it, and I'll move on. Then the murder of George Floyd happened and the organization took a pretty major pause to think about equity.

And we came out on the other side of that, really thinking about not just standards, right? Grade level expectations, not just the what of what needs to happen in K 12, but also the how, how do you get kids from not reading to reading? How do you get kids from not knowing math to knowing math and how to context, identity, experience, and reality impact that?

How. When I first got there, it was kind of like the standards, you know, are for everyone. Everyone's equal, it's fine, you know? And I'm like, no, we know. Systems of oppression. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Like do we not, how do we make sense of what it looks like in different contexts to get kids where they need to go? So the organization went on, you know, did a big reorg and one night I got a phone call and someone said, someone wants you to be in charge.

And I was like. Hell no. I hung up. Sorry, ma, but uh, 

we'll cut that part out for you, Leslie. 

Yeah, I was like, nah, I hung up the phone. Literally. I was like, I can't do this. Why I don't wanna talk about this. What was the hesitation? I was like, who am I? No one's gonna listen to me. How could it even work if I were in charge?

And also, I didn't want it, so I went away. I refused to talk to my boss about it for months actually. And then Leslie. Said, pick up your big girl panties. That's her favorite thing to say. And so she said, you need to talk to her about it. You know, when will this ever happen again? Someone give you an opportunity like this out of the blue, like, are you crazy?

And I said, well, fine. So I was willing to have the conversation and it's been a rocky journey. People has been the rockiest of journeys, but also I think ultimately one of triumph. So. What we do at SAP is lots of technical assistance. We support states, districts, individual schools at times, curriculum developers, professional learning providers in getting better at actually doing evidence-based work around literacy and mathematics.

So that looks like helping folks understand what it really looks like to teach kids how to read. We have a course called Improving Reading for Older Students. That's all about. How to actually intervene when a kid is in fourth grade or above and doesn't have foundational reading skills. Right. And curricula no longer tell you what to do.

And once a kid's past third grade, it's kind of like, well, good luck. Yeah. Get on read 180. See you later. Right. Yeah. And we believe that there's more to do that we owe every child, regardless of when they are on that literacy journey or the math journey. Right. The same things. So yeah, that's what we do.

It's interesting, it's influential of the work that you do. What are you most proud of? Hmm. I think I'm most proud of our commitment to really thinking about responsive and sustaining practices as well as linguistically sustaining practices in classrooms alongside our focus on evidence-based strategies.

Right? School has to be relevant. It has to be engaging. It has to be joyful. It has to see kids in all of who they are for us to have any hope of actually changing the outcomes for especially Black and multilingual students in this nation. Native students in this nation, students with disabilities. My daughter has an IEP.

She has an anxiety disorder. And when I think about a world in which folks say like, this is where you have to be, but we don't really want to think about how you'll get there from where you are, right? There is a worst nightmare for me as a parent or as a former educator. So what I'm really proud of is being able to codify in ways that people look up and listen and pay attention to the kinds of teaching.

I know teachers of color, teachers, like the folks in this room have always done right. It's just, I. Naming it, writing it down, and making people actually take notice, right? Like, this is what good teaching looks like. We've always known and this is what we should expect systems to support and make space for.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your work and your team too. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's good.

Yeah. I've come across, uh, my father-in-law, he just passed a couple weeks ago of prostate cancer, was illiterate. And to see how he navigated the world and in some places didn't, was really hard. Right. And so when you talk about students in fourth grade or 15 years old or whatever age Yes. And unable to read.

Yes. These folks become like my father-in-law, 70 years old and trying to navigate healthcare systems and trying to navigate paying bills and things and just don't do that well. Right? Yes. And so when he passed. My husband brought home a suitcase full of just papers because he had no clue. My father-in-law what was what.

Right? Mm-hmm. And so when you talk about this need for literacy, and this is a Black man in Detroit with dyslexia and trying to figure that piece out in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and the work that you're trying to do is just so important. Yes. 'cause it just breaks my heart to think there's so many folks out there who just never got the skills.

Yes. Right. I. Well, and then you think about my experience in Cuba, right where the literacy rate is like 95% and they don't got nothing. It's not like, you know, they have computer for every child, one-to-one, you know, da, da, da, ai. There's a commitment to making it happen. I. And a skill building. And a capacity building.

Right. And so I think that's the piece actually, when I reflect on my own experience as a middle and a high school English teacher, I didn't know, nobody taught me how to teach someone how to read. Like it didn't even come up in teacher prep for anyone that was focused on older grades. Yeah. So when I had a group of Black boys that kept failing ninth grade English, and surprise, I was nominated as the teacher that would take them and fix the problem.

In the basement twice a week or whatever. I thought mostly about motivation, right? How do I get them excited to come hang out with me in this room? I could do that. I could think about stories that would be super engaging and reflect their experiences. I could do that. When it got to the mechanics of like, now how do I get them to actually know how to read this?

I was at a loss like no one had taught me. Right? And so I think that's the gap we wanna fill. I think there are lots of us who I. Intend to do right by kids and actually just have never been taught ourselves what some of the evidence-based practices really look like. 

Yeah. This work is really important.

Mm-hmm. Thank you for that. Yeah. We'll take questions from the audience in a moment, but I have maybe two questions, but one question for sure. It's really important that we are well in our bodies, right? It's really important that we experience healing mess Black educators. In the day to day, even when we're still teaching, some of us do not wanna leave and we want to, yeah, keep doing what we're doing and we're seeing the results or not.

We just believe so much in public school, charter school, private school, wherever we are. But there's an importance to being Well, so my question to you is, for you, what does it mean to be Well, 

one key piece of being, well, for me, honestly, is remembering that my job as a job is not me. You know, I have to be myself and that I can be the President and CEO, but like those two things are not forever intertwined.

My job involves making a lot of hard decisions and communicating really difficult decisions, and I'm an empathetic person. I'm a lover, you know, not a fighter. It can be really hard to think like, I am the one making this decision, or I am the one behaving, you know, having to do this thing. So part of being, well, for me, my blood pressure's under control.

Thank you. You know? Yeah. I've done a lot of work on myself. Yeah. Making that space to be a mommy, a dog, parent, a baker, and saying no to making it all about a hustle culture. Right. At some point, it just has to be enough. I think the other thing that I do. To be well is I've started exercising. It's very, you know, I know that's novel, but I was just telling Asia, especially in a world like the one we're living in, forcing myself to go do something physical lets me like leave my head.

You know, I'm always thinking, I'm always on, I'm always planning. I'm always trying to fix things for other people and when I'm just doing me. For 45 minutes a day. That is actually also, it's been a real tool for mental health, is just being able to fully disconnect and be in my body. 

Yeah. Thank you. Let's give up for Joy before we talk.

Hi. Hi. Jasmine Rosa, I'm from New York City. I'm currently a director of community schools and a large nonprofit and a doctoral student. So I'm going through it. All the things, I'm going through it, all the things. Um, so I'm always on the go, go, go. But specifically, please allow me to read my question. You mentioned that women of color have an addiction to care and need to put it down.

Definitely agree. Do you see this as solely a matter of letting go? Or is it also about equipping ourselves with additional skills like delegation prioritization, or boundary setting to ensure that we don't just withdraw, but actually shift how we lead and support others? And how do we balance that tension knowing that the expectation of self sacrifice is deeply embedded historically?

So putting it down might not actually be as simple as a mindset shift, but it may require. Structural support and skill building. So can you share a little bit more about that? Yes. The skills 

needed. Yes. I wholeheartedly and deeply agree and I think that's actually one of the things I've brought to my job that differentiates me from others.

Again, Black queer, I think you heard church in my history. You know, come from a Southern Baptist, pretty traditional family. And I bring all of that into my experience of oppression, specifically into my leadership, right? And I think about the ways in which, so my organization is pretty much all women and non-binary folks.

I think about the ways in which we actually have to teach each other how to do those things, how to hold a boundary, how to communicate what you're actually mean without worrying about if it's mean, if it's gonna hurt someone's feeling. What is the thing that we need to get done? Is the thing you're doing going to get us there?

If not, then what? Like, yeah, take ownership. Be the fricking boss of your work. Right? Do it. That is a hard thing for us often to do. And then I think the other thing is that privilege is written all over this idea of choice and sometimes you have the privilege just like a really great community that you can lean on, right?

It doesn't have to be money. I. Necessarily, but there are folks who do have money, who have a cushion, who can say, F this job, I got it. Like, I'm fine. That hasn't been me most of my career. And so when I do a calculus about like, is this serving me? Am I gonna let go? Right. It's not as simple as I just need to put it down.

Mm-hmm. It's like, okay, well how many months of expenses do I have? Am I willing to work at Target part-time? Am I, you know, like not Target, there's, well, not even Costco, right? Costco. Costco. You know the benefits package, it's good. Okay. Right? Yes. I mean, I keep my eye right, like it's an important thing to actually think like, what is your equation, right?

How do you balance that equation for yourself? Where are the funds of support that you have to lean on? Who can you be honest with and vulnerable with to get that support and then say, okay, so what's my plan? And I think that's the coolest thing, right, is I got a passion planner recently. Maybe it's not tomorrow, maybe it's in six months, maybe it's in two school years.

You know, I'm giving myself this much time to get outta here, and that means I need to save $150 every month without fail. So I have six months right to fall back on, and when I get outta here, I can say bye. Uh, without an ounce of worry. 'cause I know I've taken care of myself and my people, right? And so I think it's a balance of creating that exit plan for yourself, sort of getting all your ducks in a row, but then also when we do have some power in a space.

It sounds like you're a director, right? Like how can you use the positional authority? You have to create systems and structures to empower others to show up in the way that you wish someone would allow you to show up. True. It's really cool. It's women of color owned. They're beautiful little planners. I have my little financial goals that I'm tracking right now, so that's my thing.

Hi, how are you? Good to see. See you. Yeah. Good to see you too. Thank you so much for your vulnerability. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks. My name's Laura McGowan Robinson. I lead an organization. Called Diversity and Leadership Institute, we support principals in the pipeline, principals of color.

Cool. And my question is around this tension in supporting people who are very excited about the idea of leading a school, being in a school building who might be first generation college students themselves. Who are supporting families who have students in the schools that they're serving and they wanna be there, right?

Yes. But they're finding themself in this moment, this very tense moment with a lot more added stress than the job already had to offer. Yes. And I guess my question to you is, what will your advice be to them in this moment? 'cause they want to hold on. Yeah. But they're finding it really difficult. Yeah.

And my job is to be like, you can do this. Right? I'm this cheerleader for them, but I also know, wow, what are they carrying? How heavy is that load? Yeah. I can't even imagine right now 

I'm like sitting in just solidarity and empathy for folks in those roles. I can't imagine. I know how difficult my role is.

I'm sure it's exponentially more difficult. So thank you so much for sharing their experience here. Honestly, the first thing I thought about, and this is I'm not a plant, but I think you should contract with Asia. She does Black educator wellness, so she does these really cool cohorts outside of the system space where folks can come together and talk about what they're going through.

Like I think community ultimately for a group of folks like that, is probably the best place to find, like the release valve leaning on your own families or your own. Communities is helpful until they just don't really get it. Yeah, because how could they, right. The context is so specific. It's so hard.

It's so tough. My mother tries to be successful or supportive, but like pick up your big girl pan. Like not useful. No, thank you. You know, and like I love you and I know you're coming for me, but like I need someone who knows what I am going through right now. Like creating those spaces I think could be really amazing so that folks can share resources.

I had to send an email. I have a Black woman, CEO chat on my phone. That is one of my lifelines. I need to do a really difficult HR thing this week. Has anyone done something like this before? Oh yeah, girl, I'll throw it in your email right now. Here's a template. You know, just having that kind of experience, community support, I think is maybe one of the most important things we can offer.

But I don't think there's any way getting around How difficult right now is. I don't know, but thank you so much for asking the question and really, she's great. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. 

Hello. Hi. Hi. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for your podcast, which is amazing. I love listening. Thank you.

My name is Jerry. I'm from Virginia Beach and I am a personalized learning specialist in an ed tech company. Um, I'm also a doctoral student, PhD candidate, so almost, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you Jesus. Um, yes. I identify with so many parts of your story. I was a middle school teacher, I was a founding member of a school, so I understand how tirelessly draining that can be and doing, uh, lots of jobs that you really didn't sign up for.

And I really try to take advantage of that opportunity to learn a lot of different things. And I felt like it gave me lots of opportunity to gain different skills. Yes. And I did that as much as I could until it burned me out. So I understand. Yes. Identify with that. Where I'm struggling is that I, I've been in my career for almost 20 years now.

Yeah. And I feel like I'm in a crossroads and I'm wanting to pivot and do something a little bit different. I struggle with how to best market myself. Yeah. 'cause I feel like I have this bevy of knowledge I. Having been doing several different things over the last 20 years, but all within the space of education and ed tech.

Yes. So I feel like I don't want to overlook anything that I bring to the table, but I also don't want to just give this laundry list of things. Yes. And miss kind of the essence of what it is I bring to the table. So I guess my question is, how do you best market yourself without minimizing your skills or talents?

Mm. That's really, that's a great question. It's coming to me is like this sense of how clear are you on what will make you happy? Because I think ultimately, and I, I say this to folks in my team all the time, right? The job owes you too. You are doing the job and the job owes you. And so what is the thing that you don't mind giving up your life force to do?

And then if you are clear on what you're interested in. You have your plan, right? Your backup plan, you're looking for the right thing. You have a job now, et cetera. How can you find ways to showcase the strengths that you have in relationship to the thing that you believe is your best purpose? There might be a few sort of like jumps along the way, right?

It's not always. Straight from where I am to exactly where I want to be, but being able to think about, well, what's the next step towards where I'd eventually like to be in my career and how can I position or package the things that I am able to do and the experiences I've had in that context. I think networking and being in spaces like this has always really helpful 

exchange.

Business cards folks. Yes. Talk to people. Seriously. Seriously. That's important 

because. For me. I mean, it happens all the time, but now I often have something to offer. But I think that it's so nice when someone reaches out and they said, you know, I thought of you for this. I knew you were interested in something like this and I thought of you.

Right. That's so often how I get great folks on my team. So I think being really clear about what you want and sharing that with as many people as you can, whether it's formally through job applications or informally through networking, the right thing will come. 

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. 

Hi. Hi, I'm Tym.

I'm from the Houston area, um, principal apprentice. So in the position of being mentored to be prepared for being a principal, having my own building. So not quite ready to step out yet? Yes. Good. And I know that this is work that's very important. And so you speak to the thing of, if not me, then who? Right.

Right. And so that's the mentality that I come to this with. So I wanna build this skillset. Mm-hmm. But I also see gaps. I also see needs that maybe. Where I'm building my skillset is not going to be where I end up. Right? Mm-hmm. I wanna provide those opportunities to fill in those gaps. And so I come from a background family.

They say, you don't see it. Create it. Yes. You know, build what you need. And so then I start thinking about what you shared in relation to founding charter schools. Yes. In different worlds. And the difficulty of that, and I'm wondering. So we have all of these people who have had these experiences and they say, like, she said, okay, I give it what I get, I'm gonna get what I can get out of it and I'm moving on.

But those kids in those situations and those circumstances still need those things that, that we built in charter school before. Yes. So what do you have to speak towards as we're planning, as I'm learning, as I'm building these experiences, how I can be preparing myself? As I'm looking to fill that void down the line so that it's not as hard, it is set up to have structures in place to attract those persons who we need in those environments.

Yes. And not burn them out and push them away so quickly. 

Yeah, that's a great question. I wanna be clear, for some people the work is their life force. For some people being. In a school building, that founding experience that I had that tore me apart may have been someone else's opportunity to see their strengths at work, right?

They just weren't mine. So I think there is the potential for this to be the exact right thing for you, right? Which would be so nice because kids need you, right? And folks like you. I think in terms of planning for the future though, it's very similar to the same thing I said to the last person.

Literally, everything that has happened to me comes through other people that know me. Like the way I got this job was someone, not even this job, like the job at this organization was someone coming up to me and saying, I've noticed you at a few of these events, and you always have something that's so smart to say, do you wanna come work for me?

I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, what is the Josh like? I don't know, but like, we'll figure that out later. But you never know who in the room is listening, who is admiring what it is you have to say who finds value and inspiration in your story. So yeah, I would say just keep living into the purpose you see for yourself right now.

And as you think about building systems for the folks that come along with you into your system, think about ways to encourage them. To always be aware of the value of what they're doing with you is Right. I think there's nothing worse than a boss that makes you feel like if you leave, you're a bad person.

Yeah. What, like, do what makes sense for you. I want you to be happy and kids will not be happy. This community will not be happy if you feel like you're chained to this job. Right. And so sort of like leave your hand open. Right. 

Yeah. 

And all those relationships. 

Yeah. Give it up for Joy again.

Give it up for our production team. They've sit here. Thank you. And then finally, for real, give it up for yourselves. 

Yeah. 

You can find us on Spotify Apple Podcasts. The website is exit interview podcast.com. And if you're interested in being a guest on the exit interview, there's a guest form on our website.

Thank you and have a great rest of your day. 

Thank y'all. 

Thank 

you.

Thanks for tuning into the X Interview, a podcast for by 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 Lyons educational consulting.com or follow me on LinkedIn, Dr. Asia Lyons, or Instagram. Hello Dr. Asia to learn more. Until next time. Take care and keep thriving.