Hello. My name is Bay Jones, the founder of BEE – Beyond Equity in Education. I am an educator with a passion for inspiring others to create transformational classrooms for their students. I am so honored to welcome you to this space that we have worked so hard to prepare.
I’d like to share with you my story of becoming a teacher. I entered the teaching profession quite by accident. I was a 22-year-old recent college grad who was planning a career in international business and needed a temporary job as I planned to get my MBA. I applied to be a substitute teacher in a ‘high-need’ school district in California.
On my very first day, I was amazed to find a kindergarten classroom with more than 40 little brown faces staring back at me. At the end of that first day when the principal poked her head in to check on me, I asked her where I should go tomorrow. She replied, “Here. You’re hired.”
So, with no training whatsoever, I began my first year teaching on an emergency credential.
But something was very clear to me: it was no accident at all as to why these children were getting ME as their teacher. They were brown, poor and the children of migrant farm workers. Like so many educators before me, I knew that in order to create an ‘equitable’ classroom and become the teacher these children deserved I needed to understand my students and their families.
Everything has led me to the belief that the road to ‘equity’ in education is a fairly simple one: a teacher must have faith in her students to do what they know how to do naturally – LEARN. But it also requires a willingness to continually look at the world in new ways and to model her own growth alongside her students.
We welcome you on this journey with us as we build community through joyful connections and curious conversations that will allow us to become the educators our young people deserve.
