Although navigating school during a global pandemic presented new challenges for almost all K-12 staff nationwide, some educators, like Jeffrey Wright of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, faced an additional difficulty that many others did not.

As the only Black male educator at Blackstone Valley Prep, where two-thirds of the student body is Black, Hispanic or Asian American, students and parents often would come to Wright with school-related questions and concerns — seeing him, perhaps, as an easier point of access than other teachers or the administration.

“They look at me and they feel I’m someone they can identify with,” said Wright, whose job, officially titled “scholar support specialist,” is a cross between a dean of students and a dean of culture at his charter school, he said.

Wright relishes his connections with students. Helping youth thrive was the reason he chose to work in education. But being a go-to contact is also an “extra burden,” he said. Wright has frequently dealt with imposter syndrome, asking himself, “Am I doing this the right way?”

“That’s a lot for one person to carry,” he told The 74.

That’s why, throughout the last school year, Wright looked forward to one evening a month when the experiences he usually shouldered on his own would be shared.

In monthly sessions, called EduLeaders of Color meetups, Wright would tune into a Zoom call full of teachers who understand the burden of being one of the few or only educators of their racial identity at their school. Hosted by a Providence-based nonprofit called the Equity Institute, which receives funding from the Rhode Island Foundation and the New Schools Venture Fund, the meetings welcome anyone in the education space to tune in — regardless of race — but are designed particularly to help Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian-American educators connect with one another in a state where 89 percent of the teaching force is white.

Read the full article about creating communities of color during the pandemic by Asher Lehrer-Small at The 74.