National Grow Your Own Collective

The lack of educators of color across the country is a national crisis. While states, school districts and colleges of education struggle to address this issue, a group of practitioners pooled experiences and expertise to form The National Grow Your Own Collective (GYOC), whose purpose is to create a national model for recruiting/ training/retaining culturally responsive, community grounded educators of color.  Dr. Rachelle Rogers-Ard, co-founder of GYOC, presented at our recent Chicago/Lake County March 2021 monthly professional development session on the silencing of black educational leadership and the necessity of authentically educating diverse youth.