An early equity visit in Era 3 took place at Sojourn High School, a school located with a juvenile detention center, which is part of the Essex Regional Education Services Commission. Almost all of the students at Sojourn are Black and Latinx males and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Superintendent Charles Sampson, whose problem of practice and look-fors were shared in Figure 1.3, reflected on the visit to Sojourn—so different from his own district student population, which is over 75% white and has fewer than 10% of students who are economically disadvantaged. Despite the differences in demographics, Superintendent Sampson connected issues of barriers and access across district contexts:

I spoke with a group of incarcerated youth, all young African American males, about their aspirations for life after incarceration. After each young man articulated a clear goal of graduating high school as a means of getting off the streets, I inquired about how long they had been incarcerated.

Their responses shocked me as many had been jailed for periods exceeding 14–15 months while awaiting trial. The systemic barriers to their reaching the goal of graduating high school were severe. Yet each young man clearly recognized the benefits of a high school diploma. I could not reconcile their hope with the reality of the system that had locked them up for such large portions of their young lives while awaiting trial.

Their reality helped me to further commit myself to the paradoxes of my own system where we had implemented large-scale changes to provide access, opportunity, and support to students in an effort to create more equitable outcomes for all. Like those young men, our aspirations did not represent our reality. While our [district] numbers soared, we had students who were not soaring like others. That moment at Essex Regional helped to question my own district successes in a harsher manner. The hope expressed within a system designed to deny opportunity further strengthened my resolve to continue to dismantle the barriers in my own system while encouraging me to not hesitate to begin to question others who were not dismantling their own systemic barriers wherever they might be found.

–Dr. Laurie Newell, Superintendent, Essex County Regional Educational Services

“Dismantling Systemic Barriers Across Demographic Difference”