Study after study has shown the benefit and importance of Black teachers in our public schools, yet in 2023, the National Center for Educational Statistics released a report which revealed that only 6% of American public school teachers are Black.
A Parsons native and 1993 graduate of Parsons High School is doing her best to remedy that.
Trinity Davis began her professional career as a teacher in Topeka and Kansas City public schools, after attending Labette Community College, and then earning her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Pittsburg State University in 1997. She taught first-and second-grade classes and provided literacy coaching at those public schools for 8 years.
Education was not her focus of attention in high school. She really liked math and wanted to be an accountant, but one of the things she started seeing from her own education was there were not a lot of teachers of color.
“I was reading a lot of things. My family is from the South, but of course my mom and dad were in Parsons. At home, I was highly educated in Black history starting in about sixth grade,” she said.
That then created in her a desire to learn more. At school in Parsons she said they did not go into depth about those things. When she asked as a ninth grader why they could not delve deeper into certain aspects of Black History in class, she said she was told by a teacher, “Because it is not in the curriculum.”
’“That’s what made me decide to go into education, because I didn’t know what curriculum was,” she said.
She quickly learned curriculum standards are what the states create to tell teachers what to teach, and schools choose curriculum to meet those standards’ requirements, and both are missing big parts of history. Sitting there with her high school peers, she was telling them all she was learning outside the classroom, and they knew nothing about it.
“So that’s what sparked me when I realized, ‘I need to be a teacher because I could get information out and focus on curriculum making sure everyone is getting what they need,’” she said.
Before long, her aspirations extended beyond where she found herself. She entered the college arena in Kansas City and then Overland Park where she worked for the Director of Academics, before moving back to Parsons and taking a position as an assistant professor at Pittsburg State University in 2004. Through 2012, she taught reading and language arts and effective classroom management as well as supervised student teachers. During that time she was promoted to associate professor as she earned her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from Emporia State University, and earned her a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Kansas State University in 2009.
In 2008, she was named the College of Education Teacher of the Year at PSU, because of the tremendous impact she was making on the students she taught.
“I empowered my students,” 99% of which were white, she said. Her ensuing promotion was not based on the fact she was Black, but because she was doing the things to make students rate her so highly.
In 2010, Davis authored the article “Recruiting Minority Teachers: Benefiting All Students,” which appeared in The Advocate. Within 10 years of that writing, her career focus became recruiting minority teachers.
In 2012, she headed back to Kansas City because there was talk of a state takeover of the Kansas City Public School District.
“I moved back to help them with curriculum and was eventually promoted to assistant superintendent of curriculum and professional development,” she said. “I did that for eight years and then created my own non-profit called Teachers Like Me that focuses on recruiting Black teachers into the profession and supporting them in their first three years of teaching, including providing them with affordable housing.
Through Teachers Like Me, she recruits student teachers from all over and places them in schools across the Kansas City area. Olathe, Shawnee Mission, and Kansas City, Kansas all want her teachers, and slowly she is spreading her non-profit to reach schools all over the KC Metro area. Her goal is to eventually expand to five locations, in five different cities, in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.
“We have a partnership agreement,” Davis said of working with schools.
To provide affordable housing, Teachers like Me is building their own housing. The organization has donated lots in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. The teachers recruited then live together as a community, because most are not from the area.
“So they are like family. They plan together, they get together at one of the houses and visit about their professional learning community and data and what next steps to take,” Davis said. “We offer monthly professional development that helps them in the classroom. They each have a mentor and we even give them a monthly stipend, so the Saturdays they are at PD, we pay them for that. We offer them graduate degrees, so we either pay for their certification or their master’s degree, then we place them in a job. So, we do job placement, too.”
“So we are pretty much a program that offers wrap-around services for Black teachers,” she said. “The (public school) districts just do not have the opportunity to do that kind of thing for professional development.”
While Davis’ overall focus is recruiting minority teachers of various ethnicities, she said that she started with Black teachers in this program because it is the group of teachers that are leaving the profession at the fastest rate, and not looking back.
There is an overall teacher shortage, but the absence of Black teachers has a substantial effect on student learning and success.
The National Council on Teacher Quality shows Black teachers “have a significantly positive impact on students, particularly Black students, often leading to improved academic outcomes, increased self-esteem, reduced disciplinary issues, and a higher likelihood of graduating high school and attending college, largely due to the "role model effect" of having a teacher who shares their racial identity; this positive effect can even extend to non-Black students as well.”
Chronic absenteeism is also reduced by up to 60%.
Knowing the statistics, Davis pondered why somebody wasn’t already doing what she set about doing with Teachers Like Me.
If schools want Black teachers they have to be intentional in their recruitment. Davis said she recruits teachers to her program while they are in their junior year. She often finds where students are attending college and their major through social media posts from people in the community.
Sometimes it is difficult to get them to come to Kansas because school districts across the nation are trying to recruit new teachers, especially in core subjects, and they often pay more. But Teachers Like Me helps open up the doors of consideration.
The difference Davis is making is garnering attention nationally. She was recently invited on the Kelly Clarkson show.
“Kelly Clarkson does the Good Neighbor Award every season and she picks people who are doing something to strengthen the community, especially the most vulnerable groups in the community. I just got a call one day out of the blue saying, ‘This is the Kelly Clarkson Show. I’m a producer and we looked into your organization and we’d like to feature you as a Good Neighbor from Kansas City” Davis said. “Someone, nominated us. I don’t know who. They flew me to New York City and treated me like a star. I got to meet all these stars. I was in NBC studios. It was very cool.”
Davis said her desire is to use the last 10 or 15 years of her work to focus on the Black community, how to really make changes and how to really support in that area.
“A lot of Black teachers were lost during integration and steps have never really been taken to get them back,” she said. “That’s where this comes in. It's something that happened in the 60s that still impacts us today. That’s how I do my work. The things that have happened, what are we doing to overcome that?”
“With all schools are facing, they may have to write grants not just to get teachers, but to keep the personnel they have," she said.
To all the young people still in high school pondering their future careers, Davis encourages them to find what they love.
“Once you graduate from college, you still have 40-some years to work. You want to wake up and feel excited about what you get to do for the day. Think about that. What is it that makes you feel excited and feel like you are helping? Always think about that, because everything I feel I’ve wanted to do is about helping other people who don’t have some of the same opportunities as me, so what does that look like for you?” she said.
If students think they might be interested in a particular career, but are unsure, she encourages them to talk to someone in that field.
“Dig into your community for people who have connections, because it’s really hard to think about being a lawyer if you don’t know any lawyers. It’s really hard thinking about being an architect if you don’t know any architects. Make those connections with people in the community. If they are not the architect, they know an architect. You have many people from Parsons who are doing so many things, like my architect is Joey Keal who graduated from Parsons in ‘93. He is also my board member. So the connections are strong. Any kid who wants to be an architect, you have Joey Keal. He’s been an architect for almost 30 years,” she said. “Just connect to the people because Parsons has some great people that can help draw kids into those experiences.”