Education

How Daagye Hendricks Serves Community, City Schools and UAB

Daagye Hendricks is not one to remain stationary. The Birmingham Board of Education member, businesswoman and mom of a 16-year-old, had an opportunity to become a part of the Living Donor Navigator Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)—and she didn’t hesitate to join.THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES —

Published

4 years ago

June 20, 2019

Oakland Post

By Ameera Steward

Hendricks wanted to not only try something different but also do something she believes in: “Diversify yourself, stay fresh, and make sure you sharpen your toolbox and your skill set.”

“The opportunity to create a [Living Donor Navigator] program or be a part of that was, of course, exciting. More importantly, … I knew I could make a difference, and that is gratifying,” she said.

More than 110,000 people in the United States are on waiting lists to receive life saving organs, and nearly 100,000 of those are awaiting a kidney. The Living Donor Navigator Program, founded in 2017, works with both recipients and donors to identify needs and guide each through the process, from transplantation to post-transplant. Hendricks is one of two patient navigators in the program.

“This body of work has never existed,” she said. “It is evolving every day as we continuously improve our standards driven by our patient outcomes.”

The initial goal was to have two transplants from the first set of classes in the first year—they ended up with more than 20.

Outreach

Because of the program’s importance, Hendricks often works weekends: “On a Saturday, even.”

“I sometimes hate losing that time away from my family, but it is always a joy to be able to help someone along the way. The benefits we have been able to receive since this program started are very gratifying, to be able to reduce somebody’s wait time for a kidney transplant to six months to a year from four to 10 years is huge,” said Hendricks.

Her duties include educational outreach, letting people know how easy it is to donate a kidney and talking about the needs for kidney donation. She also works with people who have signed up for her class and helps them navigate the process of identifying and attracting live donors. The class is designed primarily for family members of the patient, she said.

“It is hard enough to go through dialysis and fight the emotional struggles that go along with that to stay healthy enough to get transplanted,” Hendricks said. “Our goal is to teach the family members—the wife, the husband, the coworker, the church member—how to stand up and be an advocate for the other person’s care. Let us help them stay healthy enough to get transplanted. Let me teach you how to do the outreach to help save your friend or your family member’s life.”

Learning the Business

Public service is part of Hendricks’s DNA.

“That is inherently who I am,” she said. “The best part of me and my day is public service. I want to help someone else. I want to make a difference. I want to be impactful. I want to make someone else’s day or way easier for them. That is gratifying. That is why I serve.”

Hendricks, 44, learned to help others growing up with her family in Birmingham. She watched her grandfather run his restaurant, Bud’s Deli, on Finley Boulevard in North Birmingham’s Acipco neighborhood. Her grandfather’s brothers and sisters owned the Hendricks Brothers restaurant on the same block. One of her grandmothers owned a beauty shop and her other grandmother helped operate the deli business. Her parents, Elias and Gaynell Hendricks, own the Wee Care Academy day care center.

“I really didn’t know anything different,” said Hendricks. “When I was a little girl, my grandfather owned a delicatessen. … When I was about 4 or 5, I learned how to count money because he had me working his cash register. I was enthralled by that process of actually counting money and … the process of selling those goods—sandwiches, hot dogs, sodas. … That’s what really attracted me to doing business.”

Hendricks, currently in her second term as a board member, attended pre-kindergarten through fourth grade in New Jersey at Oak Knoll, a Montessori school. When the family moved to Birmingham, she went to Cherokee Bend and St. Paul’s elementary schools. She attended Altamont School from sixth through ninth grades and Homewood High School in her sophomore year, and she graduated from Shades Valley High School.

“I went to three different high schools, and that’s part of the reason why I got on the [Birmingham] School Board,” she said. “I have a very diverse academic background, and I wish I could see those types of advancements happen in public education, as well.”

After high school, Hendricks enrolled at Clark Atlanta University, thinking she was going to major in marketing, but she really wanted to be a social worker. Eventually, she changed her major to finance.

“I come from a family of entrepreneurs,” she said.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in finance, Hendricks later attended the University of Alabama to obtain an Executive Master of Business Administration degree; she has one more class to finish before graduating.

Around 2001, she moved to the Norwood community and embarked on another chapter in her life of service when she joined other residents to generate buzz, to create “… excitement about Norwood and get people interested in wanting to relocate … [to the neighborhood],” she said.

Norwood had two schools, Norwood Elementary School and Kirby Middle School, and both closed: “We realized over the years the impact that made in the neighborhood,” she said.

Hendricks worked to reopen one of those schools, and that gave her insight about the needs of her community.

“I was able to go into the [school board] position knowing some of the critical needs of my district,” she said.

Elected to School Board

In 2013, Hendricks was elected to the Birmingham Board of Education representing District 4; she was re-elected in 2017.

“The state took over the leadership [of the school system], and that’s what motivated me to run. … I really wanted to make a difference right where I am for my child and for all the students,” said Hendricks, whose son is a student at Ramsay High School and was attending Phillips Academy when she decided run for the school board.

Hendricks said Birmingham City Schools are headed in the right direction and have their finances in better order than when she first joined the board. Her district has five schools—Hayes K-8, Hudson K-8, Inglenook School, Norwood Elementary School, and Woodlawn High School—that serve 19 neighborhoods.

“Not only are the students within those schools my customers, but the neighborhood, the parents, the community are, too,” she said, explaining that board members don’t get assistants, so she has to answer each phone call.

“There’s an expectation to be available and accessible to the community. That is critical and necessary.”

“Board members have the responsibility of not only hiring, firing, and governing the superintendent but also being public servants in our communities and being stakeholders with our parents and our corporate partners.”

Mentoring

In addition to serving on the school board, Hendricks serves as a mentor—something she began long before being elected. She meets many of her students while they are in high school and stays with them through college.

“That’s just a part of me because I know the struggles academically,” Hendricks said. “I was not the smartest student in class. I had to work hard. I had to struggle sometimes. When I see my students … transitioning into that position, I do anything I can to help.”

Hendricks’s style of help includes scholarships, subsidies, “and just being there.”

“[When they say], ‘Hey, look, it’s getting hard out here, I don’t know if I’m going to make it through next semester.’ [I’m there] being that support, saying, ‘Hey, you can keep doing it,’ or aligning resources.”

Opportunity to Succeed

Oftentimes, Hendricks believes, the only thing separating children in terms of success is the opportunity to succeed.

“If you can bridge resources, oftentimes our children will reach up and grab them,” she said. “They just don’t know where to go. … I like to connect those dots, so we can make these things easier and work together to transform the community.”

Hendricks’s love of working with students began at her family’s Wee Care Academy, where she served as vice president of operations from 1999 to 2005 before taking a position at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Airport; she returned to the day care from 2013 to 2017.

“Working with children keeps you energized,” she said. “It makes you keep changing your perspective. It makes you broaden your opinions. Our students, our children are the future. If you want to know where you’re going, you need to talk to the folks that are going there with you. I think we often ignore or overlook the words of children. I interact better with children.”

Hendricks has worked with Wee Care in different capacities since her college years.

“That made me not only realize how important it is to listen to children … but also realize the importance of service … [and] education,” she said. “Our children who graduated through Wee Care in the past 30 years … probably have almost 98 or 99 percent college-[attendance] rate. … Seeing that in [our] business, I feel compelled to try to translate that into public education.”

This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.

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Community

Silicon Valley Students Stranded by Shuttered Schools

A popular Bay Area charter school system is closing its two Sunnyvale campuses this June despite months of attempts to save them, but parents and teachers said the ordeal is far from over. Board members from Summit Public Schools voted to shut down the middle and high schools in Sunnyvale, called Summit Denali, at a special board meeting Thursday. Families and educators said they’re reeling from the decision and now face an uncertain future.

Published

4 days ago

March 29, 2023

Oakland Post

More than 600 students are currently enrolled at Summit Denali's Sunnyvale schools, according to state data. Officials have encouraged students to apply to other Summit locations, but many parents say those schools are far away and would require hours of commuting.

By Loan-Anh Pham
San Jose Spotlight

A popular Bay Area charter school system is closing its two Sunnyvale campuses this June despite months of attempts to save them, but parents and teachers said the ordeal is far from over.

Board members from Summit Public Schools voted to shut down the middle and high schools in Sunnyvale, called Summit Denali, at a special board meeting Thursday. Families and educators said they’re reeling from the decision and now face an uncertain future.

More than 600 students are currently enrolled at Summit Denali’s Sunnyvale schools, according to state data. Officials have encouraged students to apply to other Summit locations, but many parents say those schools are far away and would require hours of commuting.

More than 100 parents, students and teachers tuned in virtually for the board meeting. About a dozen attendees spoke during a half-hour public comment window.

“The fact that we are here less than two months after the initial announcement of Summit’s plan to close Denali gives families and students very little time to plan for the future,” Unite Summit President Justin Kim, who represents the teacher’s union, said. Officials said teachers can apply to transfer to other Summit locations but employment is not guaranteed.

After shuffling into a closed-door meeting, the board members emerged a half hour later and voted unanimously to close the two schools.

“The board is being asked to make a decision today from which nothing positive is going to come,” Summit Public Schools CEO Diane Tavenner said. “To all of the members of the Denali community, I’m very sorry.

Parents, teachers and the Santa Clara County Board of Education called on Summit Public Schools to make a final decision after the abrupt announcement of Denali’s probable closure in January. Officials blamed a loss of pandemic-era stimulus funds, declining student enrollment and a yearslong budget deficit for the closure. But families have called for accountability, questioning claims of financial problems amid a $31 million investment to construct Denali’s high school, which opened in 2021.

After the controversial vote, Summit Denali parent organizer Shan Sankaran said he’s worried the upheaval is impacting quality of education. The Sunnyvale resident said he’s concerned about the mental health of his young children, who are in sixth and eighth grade, and their peers with a transition to a new school looming.

“We need to figure out our next options,” Sankaran told San Jose Spotlight. “The kids are still in denial. They couldn’t comprehend that the school is going to get closed because they love the school.”

Kim Nicholson, a teacher at Summit Denali, said she’s afraid that the school’s fate will extend to other Summit locations. The system has six other California locations, including one in San Jose and others in Richmond, Daly City and Redwood City. Nicholson said community input is critical and the board meetings happen when most teachers and parents are working.

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” she added, “and just a question about the future of Summit (Public) Schools in general.”

Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

Black History

UC Berkeley Professor Wins World-Renowned Prize for Research on Women and U.S. Slavery

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, UC Berkeley’s chancellor’s professor of history, recently won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her research that focuses on women and slavery. This global recognition for outstanding work in the study of the human past is given annually to up to nine recipients and recognizes emerging scholars whose work “illuminates the past in bold and creative ways.”

Published

5 days ago

March 28, 2023

Oakland Post

UC Berkeley history professor Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers has researched the issues of gender and economics in American slavery for over 15 years and also won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Photo by Lily Cummings.

By Ivan Natividad

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, UC Berkeley’s chancellor’s professor of history, recently won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her research that focuses on women and slavery.

This global recognition for outstanding work in the study of the human past is given annually to up to nine recipients and recognizes emerging scholars whose work “illuminates the past in bold and creative ways.”

“Our winners represent a new generation of historians,” said Ariel David, a Dan David Prize board member. “They are changing our understanding of the past by asking new questions, targeting under-researched topics and using innovative methods … they have already challenged how we think about history.”

Recognized for her 2019 book, “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South,” Jones-Rogers has researched the issues of gender and economics in American slavery for more than 15 years and also won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers’ book, “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South” was published in 2019.

Each winner of the Dan David Prize receives $300,000 to support the scholar’s future endeavors. For Jones-Rogers, that funding will allow her to delve deeper into her new project, “Women of the Trade,” a book focused on European, West African and North American archives that depicts the British transatlantic slave trade through the eyes of women.

“This prize also means a great deal to me, personally,” Jones-Rogers said in an interview with Rutgers University, her alma mater. “I’m the descendant of enslaved people, the granddaughter of North Carolina sharecroppers, and the daughter of a single New Jersey mother. I’ve been very poor for most of my life. So, I never dreamed of being honored in this way. This prize is something my ancestors could never dream of. It feels wonderful.”

Community

Artificial Intelligence In School: Virtually Chatting With George Washington And Your Personal Gpt-4 Tutor

ChatGPT both awed and alarmed the computer savvy and the computer-phobic public when the encyclopedic chatbot debuted in November. Teachers worried about cheating, and parents feared the unknown. The artificial intelligence software, which analyzes mammoth amounts of information from the internet, spits out impressive essays and logical answers to seemingly any question — even, on occasion, with undue confidence, as it miscalculated a math problem or made up an answer.

Published

5 days ago

March 28, 2023

Oakland Post

Khan Academy offers free personalized learning where students can work at their own pace, a comprehensive set of pre-K through early college courses and programs on life skills. Its videos and prompts guide students through content that's available in 50 languages. Tens of millions of students have used Khan Academy.

By John Fensterwald
EdSource

ChatGPT both awed and alarmed the computer savvy and the computer-phobic public when the encyclopedic chatbot debuted in November. Teachers worried about cheating, and parents feared the unknown.

The artificial intelligence software, which analyzes mammoth amounts of information from the internet, spits out impressive essays and logical answers to seemingly any question — even, on occasion, with undue confidence, as it miscalculated a math problem or made up an answer.

Sal Khan, founder and chief executive of the Mountain View-based nonprofit global classroom Khan Academy, envisions artificial intelligence as a powerful tool for learning and teaching. On the same day last week that the research lab OpenAI released GPT-4, which is an even more advanced version of ChatGPT, Khan introduced Khanmigo. It’s an application of GPT-4 that will be integrated into Khan Academy’s lessons and videos.

The timing wasn’t coincidental. Khan had been working for six months with OpenAI on the application, getting a sense of GPT-4’s possibilities, he said.

“We view it as our responsibility to start deeply working with artificial intelligence, but threading the needle so that we can maximize the benefits and mitigate the risks,” he said. “We think artificial intelligence needs to be a tool for real learning and not for cheating.”

Khan Academy offers free personalized learning where students can work at their own pace, a comprehensive set of pre-K through early college courses and programs on life skills. Its videos and prompts guide students through content that’s available in 50 languages. Tens of millions of students have used Khan Academy.

Khan said Khanmigo will act like a “virtual Socrates,” asking questions and coaxing answers, not giving them, suggesting how to create students’ essays, not writing them — just as a good tutor would, he said.

Studies point to “high-dosage tutoring” — face-to-face, in school, several times each week with the same tutor — as the most effective form of tutoring. But those tutors are hard to find and often expensive. Instead, many districts are relying on tutoring in after-school programs and through companies that offer tutoring by text or phone, more like homework help.

Khanmigo will work in real time in the classroom with students who are struggling, Khan said. Teachers who integrate Khan Academy will have a record of Khanmigo’s “conversations” with individual students and monitor their progress, Khan said. Parents will have full access to what students are working on at home, too.

Khanmigo will engage and captivate students in ways that haven’t been possible until developments in artificial intelligence in the last few years, Khan said. What’s available already hints at the potential, he said. Students can have conversations with presidents they’re studying in history class. Khanmigo will take the other side in debate exercises.

Over time, there will be a lot to offer teachers, from correcting papers to creating handouts and prompts for discussions. Khan Academy has been consulting with experienced teachers and content experts on an activity to develop lesson plans, “and it’s quite good,” Khan said.

The assistance will save teachers time so that they can spend more of the day focusing on their students.

To be clear, he said in announcing Khanmigo, this will be a “learning journey,” and “there is a long way to go. AI makes mistakes. Even the newest generation of AI can still make errors in math.”

That is why Khanmigo is rolling out slowly, as Khan and his team troubleshoot and build safeguards into the system, defining areas that are inappropriate and off-limits.

The first users have been a select group of students, teachers and funders. Soon Khanmigo will be open to the 500 school districts nationwide that have partnered with Khan Academy. In California, they include Atwater Elementary School District, Long Beach Unified and Compton Unified.

Khan is inviting individuals to join a waiting list and will let in several thousand in the coming weeks. Khan is charging them $20 per month to cover development expenses and OpenAI’s fees. The cost should come down substantially in coming months, and there’ll be no charge for low-income schools, he said.

Compton Superintendent Darin Brawley said Friday that high school grades hadn’t used Khan Academy since the start of the pandemic but the district is interested in learning more about its use of artificial intelligence in the classroom.