4 North High students on why Denver needs more teachers of color
-
Loading... - Lotta Koskinen
- 23 May 2022
- 292 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
North High School senior Martin Castañon grew up in a neighborhood where most people looked like him. But now, he said, white newcomers treat him with irritation, when they were the ones who “came into my neighborhood, tearing my culture away from me.”
North High’s decision not to rehire teacher Tim Hernández, who taught English, Latinx literature, and a Latinx leadership class, along with leading a student club, feels like yet another blow for the majority-Latino students at a school serving one of Denver’s most gentrified neighborhoods.
“It’s sad. It’s depressing,” Martin said. “It’s like you go from so much color and so much joy to so much depression and darkness. It sucks to get that taken away from you.”
Hernández grew up on Denver’s Northside and began teaching at North High last school year. He was hired again this school year on a one-year contract. When he applied to continue teaching at North next year, Hernández said he was not rehired
In a statement, Denver Public Schools did not address why Hernández was not rehired. The statement said the district is committed to recruiting and retaining qualified teachers of color, and it’s up to each school’s personnel committee, which at North includes Principal Scott Wolf, to decide which teachers are hired. If the committee can’t come to consensus, the principal has the final say, according to the teacher’s union contract.
Hernández’s students said it’s been devastating to lose the teacher who taught them about the Chicano movement, Colorado student activists like Los Seis de Boulder, and the West High blowouts of 1969, when Denver students protested racism and discrimination. Hernández kept a refrigerator that students from the club stocked with free groceries. His classroom was decorated with flags and a hand-painted banner that said “casa de la cultura.”
“In the walls of our building, we know our culture is not centered anywhere else,” Hernández said of North High, “but it was in my room.”
District and state data show 75% of Denver students are students of color. But only 29% of teachers are teachers of color. Hispanic or Latino students make up 52% of the district population, but only 19% of Denver teachers are Hispanic or Latino.
“This is bigger and has always been bigger than Mr. Hernández,” said North High freshman Nayeli López, who is part of the club, called SOMOS MECHA. “The reason we talk about him so much is because he’s one of the only teachers of color at the school. Because retaining teachers of color isn’t just offering them a job, it’s making this a safe place for them.”
Over the past several weeks, North High students have held a sit-in and two walkouts to demand the school rehire Hernández. On Thursday, approximately 50 students and supporters marched to the district’s downtown headquarters, where they chanted, “Who do we want? Mr. Hernández! Where do we want him? At North High!” About 20 people signed up to talk about Hernández and North at Thursday night’s school board meeting.
At the end of the meeting, the board voted unanimously to remove Hernández from the list of teachers being “non-renewed.” Superintendent Alex Marrero said that while that doesn’t mean Hernández will be reinstated at North High, “we will support him on his journey to finding another position within DPS next year.”
Chalkbeat spoke to four students — Nayeli, Martin, senior Daniela Urbina-Valle, and junior Viridiana Sanchéz — about Hernández and the need for Denver Public Schools to hire and retain more teachers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Here’s what they said.
What have your experiences been with having BIPOC teachers in school?
Martin: I’ve only had about two teachers, total, of color. … Mr. Hernández was one of the only teachers that was really true about having Brown pride. It’s kind of unfortunate that we can’t really learn about our culture through teachers. … Bringing in teachers of color would help us a lot. We can’t find out who we truly are if we don’t know where we came from.
Viridiana: Finally having a teacher that talked exactly like you did, that had a background story exactly like yours, it was eye-opening. It was so refreshing.
Nayeli: I was raised around a community where it was people from the Chicano movement and that community. That’s what I was raised in, but I never heard it in a school setting.
Daniela: Even when we do have these teachers that look like us, they are expected to conform to a system that was made by a white man. … A lot of times the white man thinks education is about control, and Mr. Hernández taught us all that that’s not true.
What did you learn in Mr. Hernández’s classes? And how did you feel?
Martin: I learned who I was. I learned what it meant to be Chicano. Coming from straight-up Mexican parents, the term Chicano isn’t really taken lightly. It’s a completely different definition from what it actually is. To them, Chicano is lazy, someone who lives off the system. That’s not what it was intended to be. Chicano is about Brown power. Read More...
