Transcript

Dr. Ayanna Brown worked with our faculty and Board at The Children’s School to help us articulate and advance our equity and diversity goals. She was able to meet us where we were, but also guide us to challenge ourselves–challenge our own thinking, our norms, and our ways of doing things. Dr. Brown is dynamic, insightful, warm, and professional.

As a scholar, she brings a deep understanding of historical and academic context to her work. This is coupled with her pragmatism about how schools and communities work and therefore how to best enact change.

Christina E. Martin
Director of Curriculum & Instruction
The Children’s School

Transcript

Hello, My name is Dr. Jameka Thomas, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Bessemer City Schools in Bessemer, Alabama. Dr. Ayanna Brown of Thought Spectrum has provided ongoing support to myself, the department of Curriculum and Instruction, admins, parents, and students.

Becoming intentional in our integration of culturally sustaining literacies, we were charged to make sure that our curriculum in Bessemer met the needs of all of our students. Dr. Brown provided academic support and pedagogical knowledge to help us create a curriculum that is current, relevant, purposeful and supportive of all students and teachers in our system. She is readily available, and can provide support one on one, small or whole group.

I am thankful for Thought Spectrum and its ability to enhance our offerings at Bessemer City Schools and look forward to our partnership together for many more years to come.

Dr. Jameka Thomas
Director of Curriculum and Instruction
Bessemer City Schools
Bessemer, Alabama

Transcript

As leaders of a school, we consistently look to engage, grow and challenge our staff. With a need to improve our literacy strategies in the classroom, we began interviewing potential teams and candidates to lead that initiative. Our search immediately ended upon meeting Dr. Ayanna Brown. During our initial conversations, she challenged our team to explicitly define what we wanted to accomplish both academically and in terms of equity. With those tangible goals as our foundation, we began developing a professional development curriculum that would help our instructional staff embrace their student’s diversity, in all aspects of the word, while also focusing on literacy strategies to help our students in their coursework and future endeavors.

Dr. Brown built approachable strategies for teachers that could be applied immediately in their classrooms. This content challenged our instructors to reflect deeply upon their life experiences, including identifying potential subconscious biases. With a greater awareness about themselves, they could advance their literacy work with a more equitable approach, ultimately leading to greater student success.

Throughout her instructions and observations, Dr. Brown has collected qualitative data that she’ll provide to the staff, administration, and our Board of Directors at the close of the academic year. We believe this data will be paramount in our analysis of our institution’s growth, and will be a useful point of reference as we continue to refine our literacy strategies even after Dr. Brown has left.

It has been my great pleasure to work with Dr. Brown and Thought Spectrum throughout this school year. Our hope is to continue to utilize her in the future, albeit in an ever-changing capacity so that we can fortify literacy as a pillar of our program curricula.

Derrick Burress
Principal
Lake County Technical Campus
Grayslake, Illinois