Getting to Know You Series: Meet Jasmine Gripper of the Alliance for Quality Education
Editor’s Note: We’re back with a new installment in our occasional Getting to Know You series, where we introduce you to our grantee partners, network members, and philanthropy colleagues who have interesting stories to tell. Today we’re chatting with Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education.
Elisabeth Rapport (ER): Tell me a bit about your professional background and what led you to the Alliance for Quality Education.
Jasmine Gripper (JG): I came up through the New York City public school system, and when it came time to choose a profession I envisioned a long career in the classroom. I began my classroom experience teaching English as a second language in South Korean public schools. I then went on to teach 4th and 1st grade in international schools in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. When I finally returned home to Brooklyn, New York I continued teaching 1st graders for a couple years. With over 5 years of experience teaching, I quickly realized that education policies impacting the classroom are often decided by those who have little to no classroom experience. In order to affect genuine change and address the growing opportunity gap it was time for a career shift. I decided to move to Cleveland, OH to work as a Field Organizer for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
After the election, I found a position that perfectly matched my talent for grassroots organizing with my love of education: Executive Director at the Alliance for Quality Education. I was proud to be named as one of City and State’s 40 under 40 rising stars in 2016, and in 2020 made the Education Power 100 list. I’m dedicated to educating parents, students, legislators and community members on their power to influence and advance policies to dismantle systemic racism in education to create well resourced, high quality, culturally relevant community schools in every Black & Brown neighborhood.
ER: The past year-and-a-half has changed and impacted education in America, and in New York specifically, in so many ways. How have the pandemic and our nation's reckoning with racial justice affected your work?
JG: COVID-19 exposed the inequalities that have long existed in our schools and made it undeniable there is a system of the haves and have nots. The lack of adequate educational opportunities during the pandemic was one of the greatest problems facing students and their families, in particular among communities of color and families in poverty. At its core are the combined impacts of systemic racism and severe economic inequality. In this time of uncertainty, we had to ensure that students have access to the resources and opportunities they need in order for instruction and learning to continue whether they were in-person or remote.
Low-income families remain economically devastated by the pandemic. Financial stress negatively affects how well students do in school. We placed a heavy emphasis focusing on the social and emotional well-being of our parents, students and community members. On top of all this, our communities were in the midst of civil unrest due to the violent, systemic racism of police violence. Students need to attend schools where they feel safe from discriminatory school discipline practices and school-based policing.
We faced a racial reckoning when George Floyd was murdered. People began to take to the streets and in that movement moment a campaign, for police free schools in Rochester, that we thought would take years was won imminently. The murder of George Floyd sparked protests nationwide and cities around the nation were at last recognizing the danger and harm that police officers in schools represent to Black and Latinx students. The Rochester City Council voted to end the contract with the Police Department, creating police-free public schools, making it the third city in the nation to take this important step.
The vote in June represents years of collective work. It took parents, students, community organizations and educators, all fighting together to realize their vision of schools as a place where students can thrive, and where their educational and socio-emotional needs are met by counselors, psychologists, and restorative justice coaches.
We are now fighting to maintain this victory to keep the police out of the Rochester schools and urging the district to increase its investment in counselors and other support staff. We are also collaborating with other partners in NYC to expand on that campaign to create police free schools in NYC. But one of the biggest challenges is parents defining safety as police officers in the schools. There are over 5,000 officers in the NYC schools, making the NYPD in schools division one of the largest police forces in the country.
ER: Too many Black, Brown, and low-income students across New York State were denied a quality education during the pandemic. Describe the fallout from that, and why your vision for education justice matters so greatly.
JG: Despite the fact that AQE adapted to the new realities of organizing in NY when COVID-19 forced NY into a shutdown, there remained deep concerns about crises in education. We saw huge inconsistencies in the quality of remote/hybrid learning and access to necessary technology. Our students didn’t have access to laptops and high speed internet making online learning difficult, while districts themselves struggled with teaching online for the first time and trying to reach students in a way that they never had all while dealing with a global pandemic. New York was the epicenter for this deadly and devastating crisis to Black and brown communities for most of 2020 and raised growing concern for students' social and emotional well being.
Educational learning loss due to COVID-19 and the growing state budget deficit meant threats to cut education when students and schools clearly needed more resources, not less. It was a civil rights crisis. AQE continued to organize and develop community leaders to build a robust campaign to protect our public schools from devastating budget cuts and ensure that students have access to educational, social and emotional resources and tools they need.
AQE worked tirelessly to inform parents, students and educators on the looming 20% cuts to schools. We kept parent leaders updated on budget threats in Albany through virtual town halls, social media, email campaigns and earned media attention. On Saturday, Sept. 12th AQE organized rallies across NYS in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Kingston, Utica/Rome, Westchester and the Bronx to protest against the potential cuts. Our actions earned media attention in news outlets across New York State. By Wednesday, Sept. 16th Cuomo’s administration announced the state would make full school-aid payments in September and have continued to do so ever since. This major victory put a stop to the looming budget cuts to education for the remainder of 2020, but due to the growing state budget deficit we had to ensure that the state continued to fund our schools. Without the advocacy of AQE, a bad situation would have been made worse. Stopping the cuts did not ensure every student had everything they needed during the pandemic, but it did ensure that districts didn’t have to lose out on the supports they did have in place.
By April of 2021, NYS finally vowed to fully fund the state’s equitable school funding formula, Foundation Aid. The 2021-22 school year kicked off with a record high of new resources for students. New York State is investing $1.4 billion in state funds for education for the 1st year down payment on the three year phase-in to fully fund Foundation Aid. In addition, NY schools will receive $12 billion in one time funding from the federal stimulus to help students and schools recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. We are now working to ensure these resources are invested in strategic programs and priorities identified by parents, educators and students. With the influx of funding to high need schools in Black and Brown communities we finally have the resources to transform education to make it more just and equitable.
ER: From your perspective, how have the full school reopenings this fall gone across New York State? What are the lessons learned?
JG: School reopenings have been far from smooth across the state. The 2021-2022 school year reopening started with a nationwide bus driver shortage felt in many school districts across New York. This created a critical issue of access for students to even get to their schools. Districts like Rochester are still struggling to resolve the issue. A remote option was not offered and the onus was put on Black, brown and low income parents to conquer their fear around sending their kids back to in person learning. These are the parents who witnessed for decades their school not provide their children with an adequate education. Parents who knew the school didn’t have soap in the bathroom before the pandemic hit. Prior to the pandemic, one of our parents from Queens shared that the school in her community was at 200% capacity and there is no chance of social distancing at this moment, when schools are already overcrowded. Since districts have not made any significant effort to significantly reduce class sizes since COVID-19 began, not offering a remote learning option puts those students in the most crowded classrooms at greatest risk of contracting COVID and spreading it to their families and communities. That means that it is Black and Brown students most at risk by the decision to only offer in-person instruction.
AQE supported parents call for a remote learning option to make it safer for everyone. Remote learning has been tough for some, but not for all families. If a few parents decide to keep their children home with a remote option, the safety of our schools increases particularly in communities where overcrowded classrooms are the norm. These overcrowded classrooms are predominantly filled with low-income Black and Brown students. Just last week a NYC student died from COVID-19 and now kids ages 5-12 lead the city’s weekly case rate for the first time in the pandemic.
Ultimately we want students to be in school, but not at the expense of the safety of themselves and their families. School districts cannot continue to take the trust of families for granted. They need to do their due diligence and listen to what all parents and families are demanding.
ER: In your view, what are the most important factors to consider in ensuring New York's students receive a quality education moving forward -- and what do you see as AQE's role in that work in the year ahead and beyond?
JG: In NY, we see the attacks on critical race theory emerging in the suburban communities of Long Island, around the Capital District and even in New York City among school board candidates. Some of these candidates have been successful, running on the idea of keeping critical race theory out of the classroom and out of our schools. There are constant attacks on efforts to incorporate culturally responsive, sustaining education or pedagogy in our curriculum in subtle ways happening across the state.
Zakiyah Ansari, AQE’s Advocacy Director, has been instrumental in pulling together advocacy groups from across the nation to create a coordinated response to these attacks. Although there are currently no bills in our state legislature that attack CRT, NYS has not made a significant effort to promote CRE or cultural diversity in the classroom. We are discussing ways NY can take a proactive approach and advance strategic policy and practices that will support and encourage anti racism and anti bias training for educators and the implementation of Culturally Responsive Education in more classrooms.
AQE will continue to fight to ensure that the state honors its commitment to fully fund foundation aid. This will increase aid to public schools by about 4 billion dollars by the year 2023. We are also working with parents and communities to hold districts accountable for how they use the new federal and state aid, to establish and expand programming to make sure students are receiving the supports that they need.
Leadership development and parent organizing is at the heart of this fight toward creating quality public schools and making sure parents have a seat at the table. AQE will continue developing parent leaders who are confident in their ability to advocate on behalf of their children. And demand that decision makers invest in equity and racial justice in education.