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Zero. That’s the number
of male teachers I had
during my primary and
elementary school years.
By the time I got to middle
school, the number rose to
three and during my high
school years, I was fortunate
to have five male teachers.
In general, the majority
of my male teachers
were men of color. I know
this is not the norm; many
students can go through
each of these periods without
having a male teacher,
much less one of color. Not
surprising, in my graduate
program where I was
training to be an educator,
there were few men and
none of them were men of
color. In the ensuing years
as an educator and teacher,
I came to understand more
and more the importance of
having diverse teachers in
the classroom.
Six years ago, New York
City’s Young Men’s Initiative,
the Department of Education,
City University of
New York (CUNY), the Center
for Economic Opportunity,
and Teach for America,
launched New York
City’s Men Teach Movement
(NYC Men Teach),
a new initiative to put an
additional 1,000 men of
color in NYC public schools
as teachers within three
years. At the time, less than
10 percent of public-school
teachers were men of color.
Today, the program has
exceeded the 1,000th mark
more than twice and continues
to grow.
Every CUNY campus
that has an education curriculum
Caribbean Life, S 14 EPTEMBER 24-30, 2021
has a NYC Men
Teach program. At Kingsborough
Community College
(KCC), the NYC Men
Teach program began five
years ago, providing academic
and financial support
to its participants.
KCC program director of
NYC Men Teach Eric Conte
said the program initially
set out to get participants
in the door as teachers but
has evolved to keep them in
a teaching career.
“We were seeing some of
the educators quit within
the first three years. So
now, our program has extended
to offering dedicated
support even beyond
their four-year degree and
beyond their master’s degree.
We will stick with
them through their first-
A student returns to school on Sept. 13. NYC Mayoral Photography Unit
and second-year of teaching.
Some of our students
remain with us and become
leaders in the program after
getting their graduate
degree.”
Financial support extends
to assisting program
participants to obtain paid
internships and providing
money for tests, certification
exams, books and tutors.
Although KCC graduates
can’t be hired as lead
teachers (must hold a bachelor’s
degree), our NYC
Men Teach program supports
them on their journey
with transfer assistance to
a four-year college.
At KCC, the NYC Men
Teach program is a model
of effective education. They
are collaborative, as evidence
by their involvement
at a number of college-wide
initiatives like our upcoming
LGBTQ History month
celebrations. They promote
student leadership
through their NYC Men
Teach student ambassadors
program. Student ambassadors
give voice to the program
by not just being passive
participants but active
stakeholders that help to
shape it. Most importantly,
because they understand
that schools are one of the
first spaces in which children
experience diversity
in all its forms, despite its
name, the NYC Men Teach
program, events and its
meetings are open to everyone,
without regard to race,
gender, national origin, or
any other characteristics.
With programs like NYC
Men Teach, the days where
male teachers of color are
few and far between in
classrooms across the city
will be a thing of the past.
Dr. Claudia V. Schrader
is president of Kingsborough
Community College (KCC),
a 70-acre academic oasis in
beautiful Manhattan Beach,
Brooklyn. Information and
application for the Fall 2021
NYC Men Teach is available
at https://www.kbcc.cuny.
edu/academicdepartments/
behscience/education/nycmenteach.
html.
EDUCAT I O N PROFI LE
An A for the Effort: How the NYC Men Teach Program is Bringing Diversity into the Classroom
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BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Two New York state senators
introduced a bill last
week that could potentially
force schools to offer a remote
option this fall.
The bill, sponsored by
Queens state Sen. John Liu and
Manhattan state Sen. Robert
Jackson, proposes requiring
any public school located in a
city with at least one million
people to offer a remote option
to students if the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
considers the COVID-19
transmission rate of the surrounding
county ¨substantial¨
or ¨high level.¨
One of the ways the CDC
categorizes the level of community
transmission of COVID-19
in an area is by determining
the number of positive cases
of the virus per 100,000 residents.
If a county has 100 or
more positive COVID cases
per 100,000 inhabitants, it is
considered a red zone or an
area of high transmission. According
to current data from
the CDC, every county in New
York City is a red zone.
Throughout the summer,
parents worried about COVID-
19´s more aggressive delta variant
called on the City to offer a
remote option for public school
students. In response to parent
calls, lawmakers began to
also apply pressure on Mayor
Bill de Blasio to offer students
the choice to take their classes
this fall online.
In August, Jackson urged
the New York City Department
of Education to follow
the suggestion of Brooklyn
City Councilmember, and education
committee chair, Mark
Tregyer and implement a centralized
remote option for students
still uncomfortable with
the idea of taking classes in
person.
Liu joined a later chorus of
Queens lawmakers urging the
city to offer remote as families
in the borough continued
to express fear over sending
their children into crowded
classrooms where social distancing
was not guaranteed.
Medically fragile public
school students will be allowed
to take their classes online or
have a tutor visit them at home
this fall. But de Blasio ignored
calls for a centralized remote
option adamant that after 18
months of disrupted learning
the best thing for students was
to force them back into school.
On Sept. 13, thousands
of public school students returned
to physical classrooms
with all of their classmates
and teachers for the fi rst time
in a year and a half. And while
the return marked a pandemic
milestone, COVID proved it
would still cause disruptions
this year. A little over a week
into the school year, the virus
has caused 1,003 full and partial
classroom closures and
forced one Manhattan school,
P.S. 79 in East Harlem, to shutter
its doors for 10 days. Prior
to P.S. 79´s closure on Monday,
school staff worked to provide
the over 250 special needs students
with a device to log onto
the Google classroom, according
to the DOE.
The numerous closures
during the fi rst week of
classes validated the concerns
of thousands of parents, Senator
Liu said in a statement.
¨Given that the virus is not
under control and that most
kids are still not vaccinated, it
was irresponsible of City Hall
and the DOE to not have a remote
learning option in place,¨
the senator said. ¨We are now
compelled to proceed with legislative
remedies.¨
EDUCATION
New bill requires some schools
to offer remote learning option
/www.kbcc.cuny
