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

5 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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California Black Media

Study: UC 4-Year Grad Rate Doubles That of CSU

Graduation rates at the University of California have increased by 10 points over the last ten years putting the college system on track to achieve its 2030 graduation goals, according to a report on college completion in the state released by the Public Policy Institute of California. Recent data indicated that the UC system has a graduation rate of 73% for four-year students and a six-year graduation rate of 86%, according to the institution’s data. The system will increase the four-year graduation rate to 76% and the six-year rate to 90% by 2030. However, students at California State University are lagging behind with a graduation rate of 36% for four-year students and a 62% for six-year graduation rate. The graduation rates for students in the UC system are more than double that of students at CSU. Consequently, it is unlikely that CSU will meet its graduation goal of graduating 40% of four-year students and 70% of six-year students by 2025.

Published

6 days ago

October 1, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock Photo

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Recent data indicated that the UC system has a graduation rate of 73% for four-year students and a six-year graduation rate of 86%, according to the institution’s data. The system will increase the four-year graduation rate to 76% and the six-year rate to 90% by 2030.

However, students at California State University are lagging behind with a graduation rate of 36% for four-year students and a 62% for six-year graduation rate. The graduation rates for students in the UC system are more than double that of students at CSU. Consequently, it is unlikely that CSU will meet its graduation goal of graduating 40% of four-year students and 70% of six-year students by 2025.

The report revealed that nonprofit institutions have relatively high completion rates compared to a high number of for-profit and private colleges that have lower graduation rates.

Researchers stated that longstanding equity gaps in college completion persist indicating that Black and Latino students graduate at lower rates of 52% and 64% The data is varied in comparison to White and Asian students who graduate at higher rates of 75% and 83%, respectively.

Nonetheless, the report showed that Black students in the UC system graduated at a rate of 78% in four years, nearly double the graduation number of Black students in the CSU system with a rate of 47 percent.

“Campus and regional disparities are stark,” the report stated regarding the varying graduation rates at the different college locations.

“Despite progress, equity gaps at UC remain nearly as large as they were in 2018. At CSU, gaps have widened over time; however, many campuses have made progress in closing them,” the report stated about the equity gaps in the college systems.

The state has set a goal to achieve a graduation rate of 70% by 2030.

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Black History

From Louisville to the Olympics: The Legacy of William DeHart Hubbard

William DeHart Hubbard, born on November 25, 1903, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a trailblazing figure in American sports history. Hubbard grew up in Cincinnati. While attending Walnut Hills High School he excelled in academics and athletics. This earned him a scholarship to the University of Michigan in 1921, where he studied in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. In college, he quickly made a name for himself as an exceptional track and field athlete.

Published

7 days ago

October 1, 2024

Oakland Post

William DeHart Hubbard made history in 1924 when Hubbard made Olympic history by winning the Gold Medal in the long jump. Public Domain.

By Tamara Shiloh

William DeHart Hubbard, born on November 25, 1903, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a trailblazing figure in American sports history.

Hubbard grew up in Cincinnati. While attending Walnut Hills High School he excelled in academics and athletics. This earned him a scholarship to the University of Michigan in 1921, where he studied in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. In college, he quickly made a name for himself as an exceptional track and field athlete.

Hubbard was the only African American on the school’s track team; he was also the first African American varsity track letterman at the university. In his college career, Hubbard won several meets including being a three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion, eight-time Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) champion, and seven-time Big Ten Conference champion in track and field. His 1925 outdoor long jump of 25 feet 10¹⁄₂ inches stood as the Michigan Wolverines team record until 1980, and it is still second. His 1925 jump of 25 feet 3.5 inches stood as a Big Ten Championships record until Jesse Owens broke it in 1935 with what is now the current record of 26 feet 8.25 inches.

In 1924, he was selected to represent the United States at the Paris Summer Olympics.

Competing against some of the best athletes in the world, Hubbard made history by winning the gold medal in the long jump by jumping 24 feet 5.5 inches. This victory made him the first African American to win an individual gold medal in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

In 1925, Hubbard broke the long jump world record with a leap of 25 feet 10⁷⁄₈ inches at the NCAA championships. In 1927, he bettered that with a jump of 26 feet 2.25 inches — which would have been the first ever over 26 feet — but meet officials disallowed it, claiming that the take-off board was an inch higher than the surface of the landing pit. He also competed in the hurdles at the 1926 AAU championships. He graduated with honors in 1927.

He specialized in the long jump, a sport that would soon bring him international fame.

Hubbard’s Olympic success was not just a personal triumph but a milestone for African Americans in sports. His victory challenged the prevailing stereotypes of the time and inspired a generation of Black athletes to pursue their dreams in the face of adversity.

After his Olympic success, he continued to excel in track and field. He set an additional world record in 1925 with a jump of 25 feet 10.75 inches, which stood for several years. His accomplishments were not limited to athletics, as he also became involved in civic and business endeavors after his graduation from the University of Michigan in 1927.

Following his athletic career, Hubbard returned to his hometown of Cincinnati, where he took on various roles serving his community and the progress of African Americans. He worked as a manager for the Department of Colored Work for the Cincinnati Public Recreation Commission and later became a race relations adviser for the Federal Housing Administration.

Hubbard passed away on June 23, 1976. As the first African American to win an individual Gold Medal in the Olympics, he not only paved the way for future generations of athletes but also demonstrated the profound impact that sports can have on societal change.

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Bay Area

Oakland Students Learn to Foster Solidarity Through Multiracial Leadership Organization

For over 25 years, an Oakland leadership organization has worked to foster multiracial relationships amongst students, where historically, there has been division. Youth Together was created by Raquel Jimenez, a Latino history teacher at Castlemont High School, who noticed tension between Black and Latino students. Through a coalition of other Oakland-based organizations, Youth Together was established to provide resources to students and give them skills to build community with other racial groups.

Published

3 weeks ago

September 16, 2024

Oakland Post

Student members of Youth Together told the Post that the reason they joined the organization was to build skills around social justice and connect with people they otherwise wouldn’t have met.

By Magaly Muñoz

For over 25 years, an Oakland leadership organization has worked to foster multiracial relationships amongst students, where historically, there has been division.

Youth Together was created by Raquel Jimenez, a Latino history teacher at Castlemont High School, who noticed tension between Black and Latino students. Through a coalition of other Oakland-based organizations, Youth Together was established to provide resources to students and give them skills to build community with other racial groups.

Student members of Youth Together told the Post that the reason they joined the organization was to build skills around social justice and connect with people they otherwise wouldn’t have met.

One student, Oli, said the group helped her to grow confidence in speaking with new people and to learn more about the history of racial issues in Oakland, which she wishes teachers did more of to include in their curriculum.

Lena, another student who attends Skyline High School with Oli, said the groups at school are typically divided by race because “students fall into stereotypes”. She explained that kids would put her in a “stereotypical Asian” persona but once they got to know her, they started treating her differently.

Berlin, a student Youth Together member, shared that he transferred to three different schools because of racial tensions with other students. He said other groups attempted to start problems with him because he didn’t come from the same background as them.

Lena said people would be more open to being friends with other races if they were taught about them more frequently in school.

“It’s really important to understand different ethnicities and their backgrounds and struggles that they’ve went through,” Lena said.

Asian, Latino and Black students make up the biggest racial groups in Oakland Unified School District. Latino students in particular make up over half of the student population with almost 24,000 kids in the 2022-23 school year.

The Youth Together students shared that over the years more white students have started attending their schools and the diversity is no longer what it used to be. They also said the teachers do not reflect the student body diversity.

Oli said although there are student fights at Skyline, she doesn’t feel that they are racially motivated. But she claims that most of the racial tensions actually come from teachers who express negative rhetoric to students during their lessons, especially in history classes.

Through these conversations about race and social justice, the students are better prepared to speak to their peers at an annual event called Unity Day.

Unity Day was hosted at Skyline and Oakland High School at the very beginning of the school year. Kids participated in activities and group discussions about diversity and the ongoing disparities in their education.

The Youth Together team said they looked forward to having these talks with students and to connecting them with others.

Lead organizer Seanna said she wants Unity Day to bring folks together and undo the years of division that Oakland schools have experienced. Her two high school aged brothers, who are also members of Youth Together, have told her that tensions run higher now than they did when she was in high school several years ago.

Seanna wants the cycle of tension and detachment among different racial groups to end, both in school and in the city. She said people felt more united and like a community when she was growing up, but that doesn’t feel like the case anymore.

If Unity Day is what the school and larger community need in order to get along, she hopes the idea continues and expands until things start to come together again.

“It just takes one person to want to keep fighting, to inspire other people to keep fighting, and that’s the domino effect I would love to see. Maybe that change that we all crave for will come,” Seanna said.