Redefining Leadership in Education with Principal Dare'ra Spragg
Join us on an intriguing journey with Dare'ra Spragg, a remarkable figure in the field of education, and the principal of Leadership Preparatory Brownsville Middle Academy. She is redefining leadership and reshaping education from the helm of her school in Brooklyn, New York. In this episode, she takes us through her non-traditional path from UVA to Teach for America, and eventually finding her calling as a school principal. She opens up about her day-to-day challenges, her commitment to her students, and her relentless pursuit of creating a safe, supportive environment for academic excellence.
Dare'ras story is one of passion and perseverance. She shares her experiences from her college days at UVA, where she found her sense of community in various clubs, leading her to join Teach for America. We discuss the critical skills she honed during this period and her eye-opening experiences in Atlanta public schools. It was here that she witnessed the stark achievement gap in America, a realization that spurred her decision to earn a master's degree, backed by a robust support system embodied by her family.
In the final segment of the episode, listen to Dare'ra as she reflects on her journey to becoming a principal, supported by her post-graduate experience at Johns Hopkins University. She discusses her experiences teaching in Baltimore and New York City, and how these experiences prepared her for her current role. We also delve into the significant impact of the pandemic on student learning, the importance of fostering relationships within the classroom, and the critical role of school safety. If education and leadership inspire you, or if you enjoy hearing about the journey of a passionate professional, this episode with Dare'raa Spragg is a must-listen.
Redefining Leadership in Education with Principal Dare'ra Spragg
Join us on an intriguing journey with Dare'ra Spragg, a remarkable figure in the field of education, and the principal of Leadership Preparatory Brownsville Middle Academy. She is redefining leadership and reshaping education from the helm of her school in Brooklyn, New York. In this episode, she takes us through her non-traditional path from UVA to Teach for America, and eventually finding her calling as a school principal. She opens up about her day-to-day challenges, her commitment to her students, and her relentless pursuit of creating a safe, supportive environment for academic excellence.
Dare'ras story is one of passion and perseverance. She shares her experiences from her college days at UVA, where she found her sense of community in various clubs, leading her to join Teach for America. We discuss the critical skills she honed during this period and her eye-opening experiences in Atlanta public schools. It was here that she witnessed the stark achievement gap in America, a realization that spurred her decision to earn a master's degree, backed by a robust support system embodied by her family.
In the final segment of the episode, listen to Dare'ra as she reflects on her journey to becoming a principal, supported by her post-graduate experience at Johns Hopkins University. She discusses her experiences teaching in Baltimore and New York City, and how these experiences prepared her for her current role. We also delve into the significant impact of the pandemic on student learning, the importance of fostering relationships within the classroom, and the critical role of school safety. If education and leadership inspire you, or if you enjoy hearing about the journey of a passionate professional, this episode with Dare'raa Spragg is a must-listen.
Music.
Speaker 2:Again who's Wear Podcast, another episode. We're coming in from New York City. My name is Chase Minifield, I'll be your host, and we have Max what's going on? World coming to you from Brooklyn. Today Got another good one for you guys so excited to have you guys back and we have a special guest another special guest on Class of 2014. Class of 2014,. De'ara Spratt is on the show, also known as.
Speaker 1:Principal Spratt. Is that right? Yes, they call me Principal Spratt. I work at the school.
Speaker 2:So she's the current principal of leadership Preparatory Brownsville Middle Academy in Brooklyn, new York. Thanks for joining us appreciate it, Thank you. Thank you for having me, it's good to be here how you been. What's new with you?
Speaker 1:What's new with me? I mean, the school year is just about to start, so I started work probably about three weeks ago. The kids are coming in August 21st, so right now my world is just preparing for the baby's to enter.
Speaker 2:So how does that feel from the perspective of, like you still have a summer? How was?
Speaker 1:your summer. I don't know. I don't have a summer right now anymore, probably just a weekend. I get a summer. We got out of school last school year June 16th. I got about five weeks. It's pretty solid.
Speaker 2:That's one thing that I always thought was nice about. Like the teaching industry is like. I still get my summer break, second bus break. What do you think about spring stuff? What are you afraid of? That's always been solid to me from that perspective. So is teaching and education something you always wanted to do.
Speaker 1:It's actually not what I always wanted to do. When I originally went to UVA. I went into pre-med.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah. And around my fourth year I was like I don't know if I'm going to go into med school yet, what am I going to do? And then around on the UVA campuses they had Teach for America recruiters and somebody reached out to me about joining Teach for America. Talked to the guy, heard about the mission of TFA and it just really aligned with me and myself and part of the work that I believed in. So I joined Teach for America and never looked back. I never looked back to the medicine.
Speaker 2:Did you have to talk to your parents or anybody like that?
Speaker 1:I talked to them, but they believed in me my parents just as long as I'm happy and it was something that I'm passionate about, and my dad actually worked with kids growing up, so I feel like education was something that was always around me, so he definitely supported me?
Speaker 2:So how many kids are at the school that you could get your personal from?
Speaker 1:We have about 400.
Speaker 2:You know all of them?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know the newest class.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're fifth through eighth grade. I don't know if fifth grade is coming in, but I'm in.
Speaker 2:I always thought that it was like that's a tough job because for me, when I was growing up, I always felt like my principal and my teachers, they were all in good moods and you go into so and so's class and you get the same thing that you get Monday through Friday and you know met now as an adult they probably had things they were going through. You know what I'm saying. In whatever fashion, what are you feeling as far as that perspective of having to put on that face for the kids on a daily basis?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a good question. I mean, I have things I'm going through, my teachers have things that they're going through, but the reality is my kids also have things that they're going through and they're coming from out of Brownsville, brooklyn. So it's important that, like us, as adults, we come into this space leaving everything that we're going through behind, because it's very easy for our energy to be put in on the kids when you have a kid coming in. They've had to fix their family breakfast, so whatever they're doing that morning, they don't need the negative energy coming in from the adult. So it's like a conscious decision you have to make every day when you're walking in the building like okay, time to be here for the kids. Let's put on that different face.
Speaker 2:So I'm assuming you're like the leader. Are you the leader of everybody, like for all the students to have? Are you like the head coach?
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't like to use the word leader, because we all pretty much work together you know what? I'm saying I'm not the expert at myself, the expert at anything. You know, I have really good people on my team who we lean on each other for our different strengths and weaknesses, so it's like we're all working together. For a comment.
Speaker 2:Yeah for a comment, good, but you don't have like team, you know, like our coaches. They have like coaches, like the head coach, like are you doing this, doing this, doing this?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we're definitely having meetings every day, all day. Every day, all day. We have meetings before school like team huddles in the morning. We're having meetings after school.
Speaker 2:What's the focus on from a leadership perspective Like? Is that a new? Have you always seen yourself as like a leader in just general? Do you have previous leadership experience, whether it was in sports or like programs or I don't know any of the things that you may be over top of people? Or is this like your first experience with like over over top of a group or an organization?
Speaker 1:This is my first time in the professional experience being at the top of an organization. It's hard to answer the question have I always considered myself a leader? I wouldn't say I have Right. I would say that I've always focused on just being the best version of myself and being someone who kind of helped out. You know what I'm saying and I think that that has led to leadership opportunities, but it's not something that I thought I would.
Speaker 2:I would have never thought that I would be the principal of this group right now, right, I'm 31 years old, so it's kind of crazy. That's what's so. I know some people shy away from leadership positions. Honestly, some people are cool with like, just like, playing the role in the back, you know, and not having that responsibility. So do you think about that when you got this opportunity where you're like, you know, I might be just good with just like a little class. I might be good with that.
Speaker 1:I mean there are some days where the work is so hard that I'm like well, maybe I just want to go back to my little class. You know Leadership is tough. You're taking all the hits you know what I mean. And when things are great, it's a thankless job. You know what I mean. So there are moments where it's like Is this for me? Should I really be doing this? Do I want to go back to the classroom? But at the end of the day, when you have the small payoffs and the moments with the kids and the parents where you know you've been talking to them for weeks or months, and then finally the lesson that you're trying to get through, kind of clips, or you've been working with a teacher from August to January and finally like, like, there are moments in the classroom are just kind of going off. You see the benefits of just sharing your learning with other people so they can grow as well.
Speaker 2:So as a leader, like how do you bring people around in such a hard profession now that it seems you know, how do you bring kind of teachers, that the same kind of mindset. But I mean, and also you know your UVA grad, you know a lot of people would be like, oh, you know, I'm going to come teach you. Like how do you kind of get over that and bring people?
Speaker 1:of that caliber that you have to teach for? That's a great question. I have a lot of amazing people on my team. I have people who graduated from Syracuse, I have people from Morehouse. Like, we're really really smart, smart, intelligent, experts in their content, and I think what brings us together is our passion for the students and just our alignment in wanting to make sure that they're able to interspace this after they leave us and be confident and have skills that they need to thrive. I think what really grounds us is our just passion for the kids, and if it wasn't that one company that's running us, we wouldn't be together, you know.
Speaker 2:So let's run it all the way back, so you're from Richmond.
Speaker 1:From Richmond, Virginia. Eight of them. Eight of them. Okay, that's what we're looking at. What is this like? Are we like?
Speaker 2:the city of Richmond, or are we like the Petersburg?
Speaker 1:You know I grew up in the city of Richmond, in Weston.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's what we're doing. So what made you want to come to UVA, Like what was your choice behind that situation?
Speaker 1:I did not want to go to UVA. It was not my choice school. I wanted to go to. It doesn't even matter. You're going to say.
Speaker 2:Virginia Tech. Yeah, but I'm going to say it.
Speaker 1:The thing, and I hadn't even really thought about UVA a lot. I had a friend that I worked with. Her name is Lauren Stewart. She's a class before me. I worked with Lauren when we were in high school. We were at a center for kids with autism, so that's another area in my life where kids came in.
Speaker 1:We worked together there and Lauren went to UVA and then when Lauren went to UVA, I'm like, oh, I wonder what UVA is about. And I remember I had missed the deadline to apply and I called up to the admissions office and said, hey, can I still apply? And I got in and I ended up getting a full ride. So my parents were like this is school you're going to. I didn't get a full ride to any of the other schools I applied to, so it's like okay, we're going to. Uva and I would take it back.
Speaker 2:Did you go to the campus before you decided that you were going on?
Speaker 1:I saw the campus when I went to interview for the scholarship that I got. So I'm a really scholar. So I went up a few I don't know maybe in January, February, before you get accepted, and I was able to see the campus.
Speaker 2:So was it any type of a culture shock or any type of shock on the campus, With just how obviously the campus did the diversity, different things of that nature? How was your experience when you first got there?
Speaker 1:So I went to Richmond Community High School, which was a specialty school within Richmond. So all the top middle schoolers applied to the school. But it was very small, like 48 kids, but we were all black. So Richmond. City. So I get to UVA and I think when I got to UVA at the time it was like 6% black.
Speaker 2:I don't know the numbers, but that sounds about right. Yeah, it sounds about right.
Speaker 1:So going from a space where you were in school with all students of color to a space where in some classes, you're the only black face, it was intimidating and I would say I struggled a lot my first year in college, just like with even engaging in class discussions and things like that, being afraid to speak up and just finding my boys in a space that was so different from where I grew up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense. I was always for me personally, I don't know, I probably didn't want to speak up anyway Like I was very shocked from the UVA perspective with just like the peer size of the classes you know what I'm saying Like the sites or whatever those little 101 classes that have like 300 kids in there. Oh yeah, that was tough for me from a learning perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough for me from that perspective because, first of all, I don't feel seen. You know what I'm saying. I'm going to shrink even more because I'm definitely not going to answer no questions and you know, we just going to, if we show up, we're going to just show up and be in the back. So that was always a tough thing for me. So that's interesting from your perspective. Did you do anything from a like clubs perspective?
Speaker 1:I did so my first year and the part of the reason why my first year was probably so hard because I wasn't a part of any club. So, on top of like having a culture shock, I was the only person from my high school. I didn't have no friends coming in and I didn't join no clubs. So my second year I'm like all right, I need to get in the game. So I joined. One club that was really really instrumental was READMix acapella. I love READMix. We were the only hip hop and R&B acapella group on UVA's campus. I was very proud of that. I also joined peer advisors, occa Office of African American Affairs, and I also joined up to Sigma Bay. That's already incorporated. So those three different spaces gave me the community that I needed.
Speaker 2:How are those things like DCLC effects from those clubs you joined now?
Speaker 1:Life long friendships from all three. I feel like I wouldn't have made it through UVA in one piece if I didn't have.
Speaker 2:You know the friends that.
Speaker 1:I had made from those clubs.
Speaker 2:So post UVA, obviously you said you were pre-med and then you switched real quick in the switching room. But post UVA, like what was it looking like going into, like the career workforce? Did you have opportunities through? You said TSA, right.
Speaker 1:TFA, teach for America, Absolutely. So Teach for America was. Teach for America is a program. They take students from top universities in the country. They place them in like title one schools in different cities in America. So when you apply, when you get in, you need to pick your top 10 cities that you want to go to and I have put Atlanta as one of my top 10ies. And I got Atlanta and I was ecstatic. I had a great time there. But anyway, once down there, teach for America really they did training programs. They set you up with a coach. Every week the coach is coming to your classroom to kind of observe you and give you feedback. So I felt, even though I hadn't gone to school for education, because I'm coming right out of undergrad with my bachelor's, so in psychology, pre-med track and then I had a drama minor.
Speaker 2:So there's no education within that.
Speaker 1:So I was not prepared to be a class for teacher at all. So Teach for America did a really good job just on the ground, training and providing you with those supports that you needed. And I was working in Atlanta public schools and a lot of people who I was working with who were also first year teachers weren't given that same support by the administrators. You know public school, you're friend and for yourself. So I felt lucky to have Teach for America in that way to kind of help me develop the skills I needed in the classroom. That's pretty solid.
Speaker 2:You ended up coming back to get your master's. When did you get your master's?
Speaker 1:I got my master's after being in the classroom for three years.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what made you want to go do that?
Speaker 1:So I was in Atlanta, did public school for two years, transitioned into Travis School and after that I, you know, just kind of reflected with myself when I said with myself because I had to make a decision, am I going to go back and do the medicine thing, am I going to go to med school or am I going to stay in education? And I decided that where I needed to be was in the educational space. You know one, because there aren't a lot of people who look like me doing it for kids, who look like us, as you know, in the communities, but also because of my experience when I got to UVA. Like I struggled, you know. It took a while for me to find my voice. So I wanted to be a part of the reason why, or part of the answer to students being able to enter spaces and just be successful. So in that moment I decided to stay in education.
Speaker 2:So that's why I decided to go to Johns Hopkins and get my master's, did you give me any pushback or pressure from your parents or others Like you really going to drop medicine to become a teacher type thing?
Speaker 1:I mean, I come from a black southern family. There's always pressure Pressure today, Like my parents say what are you going to get your doctorate? So it's pressure in the good way, because my parents only want the best for me but all in all they support whatever I want to do.
Speaker 2:What are you teaching?
Speaker 1:Like what were you teaching in Atlanta Science, Always been science teacher.
Speaker 2:Love, love, love science, oh so you were like that's what you do, that's my thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:So essentially, what did you?
Speaker 2:see in the Atlanta public school system. Was it any type of? Did it look like Richmond? Did it look like Richmond from a different situation or is it different?
Speaker 1:And you're seeing a lot of similarities, that you go from there to New York and seeing these different types of environmental cultures, I mean that's a good question. I it did not look like the Richmond that I knew more than I would say, but there's different parts of Richmond Some of that I wasn't exposed to. My parents put me in private school from K-3 grade and then when I went to high school it was a specialty high school so I was never in educational space. It's one of where I was around kids who weren't motivated, or I was around kids who didn't have parents in their life that were pushing them. Like I was around the same type of student, like in the schools that I went to.
Speaker 1:So going into Atlanta public schools my first year, it was another type of culture shock because it was the first time that I had witnessed like the extreme achievement gap within Atlanta, like there was, I'm in within America. I was at a school where there were barely, there were no resources and the first day of school my principal brought me a box of paper like hey, this is all your paper for the year. Like I had a class set of 30 textbooks for like the 100 kids that I had to teach, so kids didn't have their own textbooks. There were no like individual computers, so I was really hit with okay, there's a huge disparity here. How do you like in?
Speaker 2:that situation. A lot of people don't even a lot of people that never heard, that would never think that. You know what I'm saying from that perspective. So yeah, I didn't even think it before going how do you show up and you like? Try to give these things to them. You give these kids the best opportunity to have success.
Speaker 1:It's. It's wanting them to have at least the same experiences, if not more than what you had, or the same opportunities, if not more than what you had. And even if you don't want to graduate and go to a school like UVA, like I believe that all kids should graduate and have options and have choices. So it was tough, trying to work with the parents was tough, but at the end of the day it's like okay, if I can only help one kid today, if I can only get through and have a good conversation with one parent where they're going home to have to spend a conversation with their kid too, then like out, done enough and over the years it's not a compound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's 100 percent the right-hand colleges and people seeing that college may not be the right way. Do you think or see?
Speaker 2:any, just in case you bring it back, the trades full path or that for. But also been a big question in cities, for minority kids for sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I definitely believe in bringing back the trades full path. We need to be able to make money with Office Finance. You got to be so many. If college is not the option for you, that's not what you go into. There has to be other opportunities for you to go out and make a living for yourself or provide for your family. I was talking to my best friend maybe like two weeks ago. She's a college pathologist and we were just having a conversation about life and she was like you know what, dara, if I was unable to go out and make money off my hands, like I don't know what I would do, because I need this for tomorrow and I could go out and get it today just because of the talent and the skill set that I have. So I do believe that it's important to have that as an option for kids.
Speaker 2:Remember when I was in. So I was in private school most of my career up until high school and then I went to public school. In public school I learned there's a difference here, mm-hmm, there's a difference. And we had to bring down like general classes, advanced classes and AP classes Mm-hmm, right, and I was mostly in the dance and AP, where it was very few black people. But then when I did have a general class, like I did English, it's not my strength, so that's where I'm heading down. You know what I'm saying For sure. And then from so I'll take like general English, like my senior, or something like that.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like this is all my friends. I didn't know what he was going to say. What he was going to say Did they miss school? But then when I get there, I'm like I got a full backpack and you know they got like one notebook with a pencil and things of that nature. They go into the same class with the same notebook and it becomes like, just like, how do you be successful in being able to explain and give people the understanding, like put yourself in the best position to succeed?
Speaker 2:You know, I said I think that's where there's a gap is that if nobody's ever seen what it looks like to be a good student, then how do you know how to come to there and, you know, put yourself in the best position to be a good student? So that's what I was thinking like. From your perspective, have you seen that change a little bit? Like how are we getting resources to these communities that don't have resources?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, that's a good question, and I mean the resources aren't, aren't widespread across the nation. You know, I can speak from my school specifically. We provide all of our students with all school supplies and everything that they need. So we give them their backpacks, all their notebooks and minors they need for classes, pencils, pens, everything Uniform. If they need the uniform, everybody has a Chromebook, one-to-one Chromebook ratio. So I feel like, on the school-to-school basis, there are ways to do that, but widespread, I don't know the answer.
Speaker 2:It seems like there should be more investment into the actual education. I don't know what it looks like from like I've been hearing about Bill Gates and then they found they should give money to certain things, but I never heard of nobody giving money to like increasing, like, just like school supplies. That would be amazing again for sure. Yeah, you hear about all the money. Yeah, I'm gonna say he talking about some high political problems here.
Speaker 1:A lot of people got pushed for it. Yeah, everybody else got it.
Speaker 2:We got these BC capital funds. You know what I'm saying, but yeah, that was thought by some of my experience how I've seen that. So after your masters, or you did you went to go to your master's. What did you get your master's in? Education education studies. So how did that set you up?
Speaker 1:after that, like what is the advantage of having that versus the dare that was previous, the learning that takes place because you know when you go and when you get into the master's space, right at that point all of the classes that you're taking are aligned with.
Speaker 1:You know exactly what you're doing. So it's like I was in my master's program and also teaching at the same time Right. So on the day to day I'm learning things in the classroom that I'm able to directly apply and see the benefits of within my practice. And then I would also say, even more than the learning, I would say the network of people who you're introduced to. Like I have friends who are principals in other states and things like that doing things in the educational space One of my professors at Johns Hopkins. He is also a professor at the University of Arkansas and started a program there on educational equity. So I was able to intern over at the University of Arkansas with that program for one summer and also met so many people. So I would just I think it opened doors to expand my network for people who do the same thing as me, so like if I ever need anything or somebody else ever needs anything, it would reach out.
Speaker 2:Do you think that you needed the master's to get to the principal's place?
Speaker 1:For sure, for sure you can't even. You know you need the degree to even enter the door. Consider the table.
Speaker 2:That's okay, talk to him Alright. So after that you were in Baltimore Johns Hopkins, right and you were teaching there as well.
Speaker 1:I was for a little bit, yeah, but I was doing my master's.
Speaker 2:But there was a so some time before I was in Baltimore. So now you've seen Atlanta, you've seen Baltimore and then New York City, and then you went to New York First year Brownsburg. So how was those experiences that? Once you got to New York, did you start off in the classroom and then get to the principal, or did you come?
Speaker 1:up here to the principal. I started off in the classroom. I was in the classroom for four years up here in New York Science. Still, it's interesting to think that you know. You would think that you go to different cities and you would see different things, but in a lot of ways the educational system is the same. It's the same, the same disparities, the same lack of resources.
Speaker 2:It has nothing to do with the city, has everything to do with the country and the pocket of poverty, like in every city, right you?
Speaker 1:seen they call in time wrong, no.
Speaker 2:I refuse not to watch it. Is it good?
Speaker 1:It's pretty good. It makes you think. It makes you think it talks about how things in different cities are the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that for sure. So you're in science, did they just ask you? Hey, I'm in the principal. Yeah, or was it grooming you to be the principal?
Speaker 1:There were steps to it, there were levels, so I taught science for about a year and then I had the opportunity to become a curriculum writer. They needed someone to. My charter network needed someone to write a seventh grade science curriculum, and I had never thought about what it meant to write curriculum, because in public school, everybody writes their own curriculum. There's nothing provided for you. So the network that I work for right now is amazing in the fact that it provides so many resources to their teachers. So one of it is the curriculum. So they needed someone to write their curriculum. I'm like, oh, let me think a stab at it. I love science.
Speaker 1:I love black students who were teaching and I was really, really interested in just finding out the secret sauce to have students of color love best. And what better way you can get you to do that through, you know, writing a curriculum and seeing it for yourself. So that was just really fun for me, and I was writing the curriculum and teaching it at the same time as well. So just to see it come to life and to see, okay, well, let's put some more experiments in here, let's talk about some black scientists here, let's do a little history lesson here, was really, really fruitful. And after I did curriculum writing, went on to start coaching other teachers. After coaching other teachers, I went on to become a principal fellow, which is like an assistant principal and then, then the big time.
Speaker 2:so what is your? What do you consider your job Like? The job title of principal to me Like what is that?
Speaker 1:In my mind. I just see it's like Is there one way to say it?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just see it's like you're talking about everything. You're like a CEO, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like a school. You are the person that keeps everybody grounded in the mission, Because on a day to day that's the simplest way to put it I would say On a day to day.
Speaker 1:everybody has the PD priorities. You know a teacher might want to do this or somebody might want to do that, but in a lot of ways things might not be grounded in the mission you know, or grounded in the goal, or it might be a little bit selfish or whatever. Whatever have you, people have their own things going on. So my job is just to keep everybody centered and focused and accountable to doing what's best by the students. We did it with people's lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely, and kids in the middle school space something that you do today they will remember for the rest of their life and you will not remember it the next day. You know what I mean, so just keep it as focused. You interact with the kids a lot, cause I was always afraid of our principals, and the only time I saw them was when I was in trouble. That's the way, it is Not me. I'm not that type of principal. I interact with the kids on a day to day.
Speaker 1:I'm at the door every morning I'm reading the kids shaking everybody's hand when they come in saying good morning. I'm walking in sitting in on the classes cause I want to learn too, cause I also just had like teachers, who I'm inspired by.
Speaker 1:So just to be able to sit in and have fun and enjoy the life with the kids keeps me coming back. So I am not. I don't want to be just the behavior principal. I don't want to be the one just sitting in my office I had now every day I'm in the mix. Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2:How does it feel? I'm sure you have some teachers that are older than you. How is it, from a leadership standpoint, to lead?
Speaker 1:No, I think, and going into being a principal, that was something I was really afraid of, because I am young, I'm like I don't. I was intimidated by having to manage somebody older than me that might have more experience than me. But I think it's not issue number one, but I think there is a mutual respect when there are people there just to do the work, so they have a respect for me and I have a respect for them and we just work in the team. So it's not like I'm having now for them that you know, it's like we're working together because we just respect each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, how much power do you have? Do you have power?
Speaker 1:to fire If people act up. You're not doing right on the kids, you gotta do it.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you gotta write it up to somebody else and be like all right, now you can fire them.
Speaker 1:Well, we floated by HR, Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's what's up. So what is some of the give me like a story of, like something that has been one of your best experiences of being a principal, Like what do you love to see when this happens? What makes you want to be like that was a good day?
Speaker 1:Good days. I went. Kids I leave in the building with smiles on their face and like just wanting to stick around. You know, like when they want to stand around and talk to the teachers, when they want to stand around and like get the extra help and they don't have to be there, you know they could be at the park clean basket while with their friends, but just seeing that students are happy to be in that space is what does it mean? So what would you suggest?
Speaker 2:or advice would you have for someone who wants to go down this path and like when they want to get principals but they're sitting at UVA and they're trying to figure out, like how should I go about things? What kind of advice would you have for somebody in this space?
Speaker 1:You gotta be passionate about it, you gotta love the work. It is not easy. It is not easy. You know what I mean, and it is. It's hard work. It's like it's mental work. It's physical work. Sometimes you might be breaking up some fights, but you just have to love it, and if you don't love it, you're not going to last Are you the last one?
Speaker 2:Are you the last one in the defense for the fights?
Speaker 1:No, the security. I'm past the days where I'm breaking up.
Speaker 2:Speaking of that, that is an interesting conversation. How do you feel about the school shootings and like the security? I'm on the board of my former school that I was a part of the elementary middle school and that's like a big topic of the conversation Just in general around the country. Is security for the students and for the school in general, like what do you guys think of that perspective?
Speaker 1:I mean we have a really strong security system at my school in terms of keeping the kids safe because just at the location we're in, we're in Brownsville, brooklyn, with Chess, the highest incarceration rate in New York, you know. So just based off that we take extra security measures. But all in all, I can't say I have the answer to it.
Speaker 2:What do you think is becoming a problem that we continue to address as far as, like, making sure security is getting better and better in public, private Colleges? I mean, you did, you just had a shoot not too long ago. How do we? I don't even know, how do we? Where do we start from that perspective to know safety and privacy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean security and gun control.
Speaker 2:Was it different? I mean, we got to solve that. Was it different from Baltimore?
Speaker 1:and then like your security measures that you were in I would say that I'm always so safe in the schools that I worked in. I haven't been in a situation where I personally felt unsafe, like there are situations where there's a shoot, there's a shooting outside in the neighborhood and we have to go onto a shelter and play, so like that happens, like. But I think because the staff is so trained and we know what to do, there hasn't been a. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What about? I guess I got to get into the comments questions. What about, like how do you feel about kids and cell phones in the classroom, Because it seems like they all have cell phones now?
Speaker 1:All of them got cell phones, and social media is a big issue. There's a lot of things that spring up just from social media. Yeah, so that may not interest much, or something like that. Thanks a lot. I don't love cell phones in the classroom. Yeah, I don't love it. I personally we personally don't allow kids to have phones in the classroom. They put their phones in the state. They lock it up In each classroom or, like in a day, like in the beginning of the day in their homeroom. There's like saves in the homeroom, yes, and they put their phones in, so it's not an issue. But I just feel like, so like I have had kids who have come to school at 7 o'clock in the morning and started fighting immediately over something over Snapchat From that morning while they were getting ready. Social media is huge.
Speaker 2:On site, on site. On site On site. Social media is a huge, huge issue.
Speaker 1:That's funny, but I would love like if there's a way to tap into the phones in an educational way and like to get them to like figure out how to be passionate in the technology outside of social media. I'm all about it, but I need somebody to admit that.
Speaker 2:Did you teach during the COVID cycle?
Speaker 1:with Zoom and stuff I did.
Speaker 2:How was that experience from that perspective?
Speaker 1:It was. I mean, personally, I loved being able to work from home, but it was difficult. It was not. Kids were not learning. One of the biggest issues we had was just getting kids to tag on their Zoom camp. You got to have a call. Hey, Ms Smith. Marquis has been on Zoom for the past hour but he's not saying nothing in the chat and he's not responding to me. Is he there?
Speaker 1:And Ms Smith is like let me go in this room to make it to see, you know so it's like on the day to day you're trying to get kids to get off the PlayStation and even get on Zoom, so there was not a lot of learning happening over COVID, which we saw immediately when kids started coming back to the classroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I heard there's a thing like COVID kids or something like that.
Speaker 1:It's a real thing you have like, honestly, it's both academically and like developmentally, socially, like the skills just weren't developed. So you have kids like my eighth graders who graduated last year. They started middle school over Zoom.
Speaker 2:So fifth grade, sixth, grade they were all over Zoom, so they never developed the social skills that most kids develop when they enter middle school and you know middle school is the big social scene.
Speaker 1:You're figuring out who you are like, what group of kids you want to be hanging out with. So they really missed all that. So I had, you know, in some instances, seventh and eighth graders who are still on a social maturity level as a kid who had been just entering middle school. So it's a lot of catching up to do outside and just academics.
Speaker 2:So anything in particular, you would do different as you look back.
Speaker 1:Anything different like what they have in my life, maybe not party this much. My first year.
Speaker 2:You know I was gonna say that. For sure it tastes a little like my first day we're not taking things Professionally, no, professionally, no.
Speaker 1:It has been rewarding. There's nothing that I would change, and I'm really really happy with just what I do every day.
Speaker 2:And you talk about your passion a lot, so you want to just speak on like what is your passion and what is your teaching?
Speaker 1:What is my passion for teaching? My passion is around number one making sure that students who look, students of color, are able to enter spaces with the skills that they need to be successful both academically and socially. And then two, just creating a school space, just speaking selfishly from my school community, a school space where kids want to be but they love to be and teachers as well, they love to be. And I feel really blessed to be in that space where I have a community of teachers who just love on our kids on a day to day basis and I students thrive because of it.
Speaker 2:Because it takes the relationship as well. So, almost done. What's next? I was like to say what is next? Are you looking to stay in the current role like this, and there's no pressure? I'm sure she left us.
Speaker 1:No energy.
Speaker 2:What's next for you as a person, as far as your career? What do you see in the next five or ten years? Like trying to keep scaling. What does it look like?
Speaker 1:Great question. I am going to stay in education as long as their gaps for students of color are going to be in there, but what that looks like I don't know, I'm going to be in preschool for.
Speaker 2:You want to stay in that age group or do you want to go to high school?
Speaker 1:Middle school is where it's at. I think, going into education I was afraid of middle school. I wanted to teach high school originally, because they already know what they want to do.
Speaker 1:They already are the people who they are. They're easier to talk to and I'm like teach for America, sign me middle school. I'm like, no, but after being in it for so long, that's where the work needs to happen. That is when students, kids, are still moldable and you can really make a change that needs to happen. So I love adolescent, ages 10 through 13.
Speaker 2:That's it Alright. So before we get into rapid-fire questions, rapid-fire questions. Yeah, rapid-fire questions, that's what I'm talking about. Where can people keep up with you? Where can they reach out to you if they need a mentee or a mentor type situation? How do they get touch with you?
Speaker 1:I'm on Instagram at DDSprague. You can also find me through email ddspraguegmailcom. There you go, and I was fine there you go Alright.
Speaker 2:So rapid-fire. Are you ready? I hope so.
Speaker 1:So this is a pretty simple situation right here.
Speaker 2:It's going to be this or that you got to choose what you prefer between these two things. Okay, hotels or Airbnbs. Ooh, hotels, alright, listen to books or read books.
Speaker 1:Read books.
Speaker 2:Go to the movies or Netflix. Go to the movies Cable or stream Streaming IG stories or IG posts.
Speaker 1:IG posts Watch the news or read the news.
Speaker 2:Watch the news. Would you rather start a podcast or would you rather write a book?
Speaker 1:I would rather write a book.
Speaker 2:Apple or Android, apple Detroit Pizza or New York Pizza, new York. And if you were moving, would you hire a moving company or would you just get your friends helping with?
Speaker 1:it Moving company.
Speaker 2:Very easy, and that's it. We'll see you guys next week. Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1:Good job, that was fun.