{"id":70641,"date":"2020-08-11T00:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?post_type=bu-article&p=70641"},"modified":"2023-08-10T20:46:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T00:46:42","slug":"the-advocate","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/magazine\/articles\/2020\/the-advocate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Advocate"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Julie Duran works to improve equitable access to education even in the face of COVID-19 and acts of racism and police brutality<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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August 11, 2020<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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In mid-March, after Boston Prep\u2019s administration decided to close the 6\u201312 charter public school and move classes online because of COVID-19, Julie Duran and a team of teachers began assembling a makeshift warehouse in the school cafeteria. From it, they doled out Chromebook laptops to every student\u2014most from low-income communities in Boston\u2019s Hyde Park, Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan neighborhoods. That was only the start. For students who didn\u2019t have internet access at home, the school arranged for wireless hotspots or paid lapsed bills. It also provided breakfasts and lunches to students and their families\u2014not just in the spring, but throughout the summer, too. And when they learned that parents who\u2019d lost their jobs weren\u2019t able to pay bills or buy groceries, the school established a family fund to help pay for utilities, food, medical expenses, and more. They are continuing these efforts this school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe already knew that some of our students are coming from neighborhoods that are often neglected, that don\u2019t have all the resources that they need,\u201d says Duran (CGS\u201906, ENG\u201909, Wheelock\u201910), Boston Prep\u2019s high school principal. \u201cSchools like Boston Prep have been supporting communities even before the pandemic. It\u2019s unfortunate that it took the pandemic to highlight for others not living in our communities the inequities that have been in existence for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The events of 2020\u2014from the pandemic to acts of police brutality and racism\u2014made Duran realize her work beyond academics is more important than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately, our state governments have failed our communities over and over. Boston Prep provides specific academic programming to ensure students succeed through college, but we also look at the wellness of our community. It\u2019s about standing with our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duran, who was a first-generation college student, is determined that all students should have access to quality education\u2014with equal learning and achievement opportunities no matter their background or personal circumstances. And that didn\u2019t change in the pandemic. Boston Prep has a robust team of academic and social-emotional support staff to help students every step of the way. Each student is paired with a faculty advisor, and alumni are even given help through their college careers. Boston Prep prides itself on having all of its graduates, most of whom identify as non-white, ethnic minorities, accepted to four-year colleges. In the US, 14 percent of Black adults and 11 percent of Latinx adults hold bachelor\u2019s degrees, compared with 24 percent of white adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Culture Shock<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The daughter of El Salvadoran immigrants, Duran grew up in Los Angeles, Calif., in a neighborhood that was predominantly El Salvadoran and African American. She joined BU\u2019s biomedical engineering program\u2014and found the University a culture shock. \u201cIt was the first time I left my community. And my community was predominantly Black and brown,\u201d she says. \u201cThe Howard Thurman Center was a big saving grace for me. I was able to go there and find people who understood what I was feeling. I was able to have honest conversations with them and they provided resources for how to not only navigate BU culturally, but also academically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While she worked toward her engineering degree, Duran also tutored children through BU Upward Bound and the BU Initiative for Literacy Development (BUILD). It wasn\u2019t until her senior year that she realized these tutoring jobs were her favorite part of the week. One day, as she headed into a research lab, all she could think about was getting through the hour until it was time to tutor. \u201cThat\u2019s when I thought, \u2018What are you doing with your life? You\u2019re doing the wrong thing and you\u2019re about to graduate.\u2019\u201d That night, she decided to apply to BU Wheelock\u2019s Master of Arts in Teaching program, with a focus on math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duran knew that she eventually wanted to \u201ceducate other students like me,\u201d working to address the very skill gaps she realized she had when she got to BU. \u201cI was fully aware in college that I had some skill deficits. It\u2019s tough finding that out then,\u201d says Duran. She taught math at Cape Cod Technical High School in Harwich, Mass., then joined Boston Prep, where she taught eighth grade math and was the chair of the math department before becoming principal last year. \u201cIt feels like a scramble because you have a short amount of time to accelerate learning and fill these gaps that have formed over so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Boston Prep, staff at the college and career counseling office lead the Persistence Project, an initiative the school implemented to make sure that students\u2014many of whom, like Duran, will be the first in their families to earn a degree\u2014continue to succeed once they matriculate at college. Besides providing students with college preparatory and counseling services throughout their time at Boston Prep, the school offers support services to graduates, including tutoring, professional development opportunities, book stipends, and emergency financial support. Students are paired with an alumni counselor whose full-time job it is to follow up with them throughout their college careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alumni counselors also gather important data from graduates that help inform how Boston Prep\u2019s curriculum is shaped. \u201cWe ask graduates to tell us what in the curriculum has served them and what we need to go back and fix,\u201d says Duran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of those efforts are paying off. More than half of Boston Prep\u2019s alumni from the first three graduating classes, the Classes of 2011\u20132014, successfully earned a bachelor\u2019s degree within six years\u2014a rate nearly twice that of their peers nationally and four times that of low-income youth across the country. For the 10th year in a row, 100 percent of Boston Prep\u2019s most recent graduates, the Class of 2020, were accepted to a four-year college. At graduation, every single student had planned to matriculate to college this fall, despite the challenges and uncertainty posed by COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening, Leading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the school\u2019s mission is to ensure that all of its students have a pathway to college and through college, Duran says she is invested in their personal growth, too. \u201cIt\u2019s also about a student knowing who they are and how they fit into the world.\u201d Duran and the rest of Boston Prep\u2019s leadership and staff have ramped up efforts to connect and build relationships with the school\u2019s students and families, especially as the pandemic has forced everyone to be apart. Over the spring semester and summer, Boston Prep hosted a series of student and family town halls outside of class to discuss current events. The first was in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, as protests broke out over police brutality against people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur students were definitely feeling all of this emotion and bringing it into the classroom,\u201d says Duran. \u201cWe wanted to create a space for students, families, and faculty to share how they\u2019re feeling and what they\u2019re going through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That town hall spawned a series of other virtual discussions for those students who wanted to continue the conversation. Duran says she was inspired to see that students wanted to lead these talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just created a space where we felt like we were together and were able to honestly talk about what was going on,\u201d she says. \u201cIt made us all realize that we need to keep having these other moments where it\u2019s not just about the academics. We need those conversations where it\u2019s not just about what you\u2019re feeling in response to the greater problems in the world, but also more about, \u2018Where are you right now?\u2019 and \u2018How are you doing?\u2019 Because it shouldn\u2019t take these crimes that are happening in the world for us to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duran believes it is important to listen to what students are feeling and thinking and give them what they want out of their school. In fact, many course offerings have been shaped by student requests, including a new ethnic studies curriculum. Duran also continues to help lead efforts to improve the school\u2019s work in diversity, equity, and inclusion, including having conversations with her colleagues on checking their biases in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have all the answers,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the one thing we do need to be able to say to our students is \u2018We love you, and you are safe here\u2019 and show that we mean it through our actions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In mid-March, after Boston Prep\u2019s administration decided to close the 6\u201312 charter public school and move classes online because of COVID-19, Julie Duran and a team of teachers began assembling a makeshift warehouse in the school cafeteria. From it, they doled out Chromebook laptops to every student\u2014most from low-income communities in Boston\u2019s Hyde Park, Dorchester, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9090,"featured_media":52259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[],"bu-publication":[6613],"magazine-article-category":[],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[6630],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/70641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9090"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/70641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70642,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/70641\/revisions\/70642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=70641"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=70641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}