“The Kids in Prison Program”: A Critical Race Personal Counternarrative of a Former Black Charter School Teacher

The New Orleans Charter School Experiment

Hurricane Katrina created an environment for the erosion of Black rights, because the storm forever changed the people, the educational system, and the city of New Orleans (Buras, 2015; Dixson et al., 2015; Kee, 2015; Sanders, 2015). Additionally, Hurricane Katrina altered every facet of New Orleans, and the city shifted to rebuild itself under a cloak of neoliberalism, that is, free-market capitalism and deregulation (Cook & Dixson, 2013; Dixson, 2011; Henry & Dixson, 2016; Sondel et al., 2019). Furthermore, the disenfranchisement of Black New Orleanians within education began as the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), which was majority Black for over two decades, became majority white in 2008.

The racial makeup of the OPSB was not the only drastic racial change in the New Orleans school system. After Hurricane Katrina, more than 7500 OPSB employees, the majority of whom were Black teachers, administrators, and teacher’s aides, faced termination from the school district; OPSB replaced them with a young, majority-white teacher force that was not native to New Orleans (Cook & Dixson, 2013; Dixson et al., 2015; Sanders, 2015). Similar to the mass firing of Black teachers during desegregation (Foster, 1991; Siddle Walker, 2013), newly hired white teachers largely replaced a previously Black workforce, shifting the racial balance of teachers in New Orleans (Dixson et al., 2015). White reformers believed a crucial step in improving New Orleans public schools was firing teachers, who were majority Black and a vital part of the community (Dixson et al., 2015; Sanders, 2015). Despite Black teachers and administrators in New Orleans historically having “little or no input into educational policy, senseless mandates, and programs, or financing public education” (Sanders, 2015, p. 206), white education reformers viewed Black educators as the problem. However, these new teachers are responsible for the lowest school performance scores in recorded history, a figure 30 points lower than the mostly Black teachers they replaced (Sanders, 2015).

In addition to the termination of majority Black educators in New Orleans, the city did not give the parents, who were also majority Black, a choice to establish NE charter schools in their communities (Dixson, 2011); instead, OPSB did so without their input or consent. Scholars have argued that the combination of such acts has reproduced white dominance within the New Orleans school system (Henry & Dixson, 2016). Within New Orleans, Black parents and a small number of nonprofit organizations are the last line of defense for Black students’ equitable treatment in education.

Some scholars argue that KIPP should be seen within education as a social justice institution (Macey et al., 2009) because it provides “low income and minority students greater learning and over the long-term greater class mobility than they would otherwise have” (Maranto & Ritter, 2014, p. 252). Such perspectives tout the positivity of KIPP schools without discussing the CMO’s negative impact on students, their families, or their communities. These views counter others from more critical scholars who argue that KIPP and other NE CMOs are strongholds for anti-Blackness (Sondel et al., 2019), inappropriate judges of student character (Dishon & Goodman, 2017), and promote a view of students as deviants (Lopez Kershen et al., 2018). Also left out of positive KIPP or larger NE CMO discourse are that their dehumanizing behavior practices do not correlate with academic success and hinder the development of students’ social skills (Golann & Torres, 2020).

To Be Black, Racialized, and Surveilled: A Positionality Statement

I was a nontraditionally trained Teach for America (TFA) special education teacher who taught at a KIPP middle school in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 2013 to 2015. I primarily worked with Black seventh- and eighth-grade students who had various intellectual, physical, and neurodivergent exceptionalities. My former affiliation with TFA and KIPP helped me to develop a critical stance toward and skepticism of neoliberal reforms in education about which I knew little immediately after undergraduate study. Through my experience as a teacher and graduate school training, I have learned how these so-called reforms have “. . .done little to eradicate racial segregation, improve access to high-quality education for students of Color, students with special needs, and white students who live in poverty” (Dixson et al., 2019, p. 82). During my time in New Orleans, K–12 education was between 85% and 93% CMO run, which meant the Black students I taught had little choice regarding their engagement with neoliberal CMOs (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools [NAPCS], 2015). Schools that were not charter-run—to which students struggled to gain admission—had limited spots (Dixson, 2011).

These experiences shaped the subjectivity of my narrative. I refused objectivity in favor of tools that are anticolonial, reject white academic norms, and encourage “methodology” to be “disobedient (rogue, rebellious, Black)” (McKittrick, 2021, p. 44). Despite my identity as a Black man who experienced racist and racialized surveillance and punishment practices in education as a student and teacher, I was an agent of KIPP, an authority figure over Black children in a position to further their racial oppression. I did not allow my professional identity, however, to supersede my Blackness. Instead, my racial identity pushed me to create relationships with students that upheld our humanity and celebrated our Blackness.

Critical Race Methodology: Counternarratives and Personal Narratives

This counternarrative highlights my experiences as a Black teacher in a New Orleans KIPP school and exposes that, despite promoting social justice rhetoric, the CMO and its supporters did little to actualize it in KIPP schools. To create a counternarrative, which challenges dominant or stock stories, I relied on critical race methodology (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2018) and Solóranzo and Yosso’s (2002) critical race methodology counterstory framework. Critical race counternarratives can be biographical, autobiographical, and/or created using primary or secondary sources to construct a story centered on racial identity–based oppression and the fight against white supremacy (Solóranzo & Yosso, 2002). Counternarratives facilitate the following:

(1) psychic preservation by not silencing the experiences of the oppressed and thus exposing neglected evidence (counterstorytelling); (2) challenging normative reality through an exchange that overcomes ethnocentrism and the dysconscious conviction of viewing the world one way; (3) listening to the voices of people of Color as the basis for understanding how race and racism function; and (4) purposefully attempting to disrupt liberal ideology. (Cook & Dixson, 2013, p. 1243)

More specifically, CRPCNs are subjective, autobiographical, and rooted within CRT’s legal tradition (Solóranzo & Yosso, 2002). One of the most compelling examples of a CRPCN is that of legal scholar and critical race theorist Williams (1991), who detailed the misuse of law and her experiences with gendered racism as a Black woman within the United States. Education scholars have utilized CRPCNs to make sense of “post-racial” rhetoric within a doctoral multicultural and equity course (Dixson, 2015) and to relate the tenets of CRT to qualitative research in education (Parker, 1998).

Construction, Data, and Presentation

I constructed this CRPCN “to relate theory and the experiences of the oppressed in such a way as to challenge the dominant and totalizing narrative of white supremacy” (Cook & Dixson, 2013, p. 1243). I selected primary and secondary data sources, a vital step in critical race methodology’s counterstorytelling framework (Cook & Dixson, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).

Primary data derived from media (e.g., photos and videos), memos, and conversations with former students that I had during my time as a teacher. Media also reflected KIPP’s behavior management tools and procedures, which I discuss in greater detail below. Finally, the media exhibited moments when students were dancing, smiling, conversing, playing sports, reading, writing, playing instruments, painting, and studying. I also analyzed memos that I would regularly write to decompress after challenging days working at KIPP. These notes encompass my experiences with students, their parents, other teachers, and other challenges and triumphs. Finally, as former students have transitioned into adulthood, I have continued conversations with them through texts and phone calls about our time at KIPP.

Secondary data were self-reflections I wrote after teaching and scholarship focused on the treatment of students within urban NE charter schools (Dishon & Goodman, 2017; Golann, 2015, 2017; Golann & Torres, 2020; Goodman, 2013; Kerstetter, 2016; Lack, 2009; Lopez Kershen et al., 2018; Sondel et al., 2019). This body of research suggests the inhumane treatment of Black students in the NE charter schools that I witnessed and recount here was not an anomaly. As CRT’s methodological counterstorytelling framework suggests (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), I used this scholarship to draw connections between recent research and my primary data sources. In 2016, I started to compose reflections, different from the memos I wrote while teaching, in which I free-wrote to process my teaching experiences at KIPP. To prompt reflection, I reviewed my primary data sources.

To analyze data, I used concepts rooted in or analogous to CRT; they were racial realism (Bell, 1992b) and the permanence of racism in U.S. society (Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) as each connects to Black fugitivity, anti-Black surveillance, and discipline (Browne, 2015; Campt, 2014, as cited by Sojoyner, 2017; Givens, 2021; Sojoyner, 2017). Using these concepts as a lens exposed how my students and I maintained our humanity at KIPP. I analyzed these data further for more distinct themes, which emerged as punishment, control, surveillance, conformity, race evasion, racial resistance, and fugitivity relative to maintaining Black humanity.

My narrative begins with my own account of experiencing racialized surveillance practices as a high school student. Then I provide a description of the school, which is the site of this narrative—what one of my students called “the prison” due to the behavior practices they endured in it. Afterward, I discuss a tool known as motion voice participation (MVP) (Canter, 2006, 2010) that my KIPP school utilized to surveil and control our students’ Black bodies. Then, I analyze how and why the majority-white teachers used the MVP tool on Black bodies. I close with an account of my place as a Black male special educator within an authoritarian institution; I highlight how my students and I rejected the anti-Black surveillance tools, which created a space of fugitivity (Givens, 2021; Sojoyner, 2017) within our classroom and interactions. To productively read this CRPCN, I ask that readers postpone bias, identify the fibers of the narrative, connect them to experience and knowledge, and use my CRPCN as representative of an individual case (Cook & Dixson, 2013).

Movement, Voice, Participation, Paychecks, and Bench

Scholarly literature on NE CMOs has broadly highlighted discipline strategies that these institutions utilized on students (Dishon & Goodman, 2017; Goodman, 2013; Lack, 2009; Lopez Kershen et al., 2018; Sondel et al., 2019); however, few studies discuss in great detail the particular techniques promoted to control student behavior. Therefore, in this brief section, I draw on my own accounts to discuss three of the main tactics—MVP, paychecks, and bench—to add to the literature a more explicit demonstration from someone who regularly witnessed them.

The school used a behavior management technique called MVP. Noted in former educator Lee Canter’s No-Nonsense Nurturer Model (Canter, 2006, 2010), this technique has influenced CMOs (Goodman, 2013) and was foundational to my training as a nontraditionally trained TFA corps member. This approach calls for teachers to constantly monitor student behavior by repeating commands meant to control how students move, speak, think, and even learn to ensure “100% compliance 100% of the time” (Goodman, 2013, p. 90).

Absent from scholarly literature, MVP was the foundation of all teacher and student interactions. Sondel and colleagues (2019) gestured to one application of the “M” for movement during a hallway transition when they noted, “Students moved, as if in a prison yard. . .” (p. 19). In my school, movement was also applied to how students sat in seats and stood in lines, as well as where their hands, writing utensils, classwork, and books should be placed at all times. The “V” for voice sought to control how loudly students could speak at any time and was often used to restrict them from speaking altogether. During transitions and/or classroom instruction, teachers dictated students remain at a noise level 0, meaning complete silence. The “P” stood for participation, which required students to be perfect regarding any and all commands of a teacher or administrator.

An important component of the MVP technique was regimented and repeated narration. Administrators as well as teachers who perfected this technique instructed other teachers learning the MVP tool to stand in a power stance, feet planted on the ground, squared up facing the students, and use a stern voice while narrating every action the students performed. If two students were talking, and the teacher did not give them permission to speak, MVP dictates the teacher should narrate the students’ behavior by saying, “There are two students who are not silent” as they continue to narrate the behavior of other students with a comment like, “Avery is silently reading her book.” After making such oral remarks, a KIPP teacher using MVP might state, “The two students who aren’t silent need to fix their behavior now!” The school-wide expectation was for all teachers to use the MVP technique. If I did not narrate, I often received criticism from white teachers and administrators. The MVP technique also expected students to repeat a behavior until completed to the teacher’s satisfaction. For example, if students did not walk on the duct tape lines, our majority white teacher population, whose eyes constantly surveilled students as they walked in class or down the hallway, would make students turn around and rewalk the duct tape line. Within the white teachers’ classrooms in my grade level, there were lines of duct tape that started at the front of the room and directed students to their desks. If students resisted the directions, the teacher would mete out punitive consequences for noncompliance.

Because NE CMOs require students to comply or suffer punishment (Dishon & Goodman, 2017; Goodman, 2013; Lopez Kershen et al., 2018; Sondel et al., 2019), if a student was not at noise level 0, they would receive a “paycheck” deduction (i.e., a merit/demerit system based on a financial value) or detention depending on the number of infractions (Lack, 2009; Macey et al., 2009). Although some note KIPP’s use of paychecks as a way to manage or incentivize academic and behavioral expectations (Angrist et al., 2012), paycheck deductions were a source of anxiety for my students because the majority white teachers/administrators preached that following or not following directions meant one day the students would be financially unstable or impoverished.

The most punitive consequence utilized at my KIPP school and across the KIPP New Orleans region was bench, a mechanism of social ostracization. According to Lack (2009, “Students who violate behavioral expectations. . .are stripped of the right to wear their KIPP shirt” (p. 78). At my school, a benched student wore blue painters’ tape, which teachers used to cover the school logo in a large X, or a jersey with “BENCH” written in bolded letters because, as a white administrator put it, “The student is not a part of our KIPP team or family when on bench.” White colleagues often referred to bench as “social Siberia” because it represented more than being stripped of the right to wear a shirt. Benched students were not permitted to speak unless spoken to by a teacher or administrator. Furthermore, they were required to sit away from their peers in class and at lunch, and they were not allowed to participate in recess or extracurriculars. If a student who was not on bench communicated with a benched student, they would also earn bench. The purpose of bench was to isolate the benched student in a solitary confinement–like fashion over three days—or more, if necessary—while simultaneously being used as a fear tactic to control the behavior of students who were not on bench.

Without Control, Order Is Lost

I identify the majority white teachers’ application of the MVP technique, paycheck, and bench on Black students as an extension of racist and racialized surveillance and disciplinary practices that resemble white supremacist tactics used during the enslavement of African people (Browne, 2015). MVP and paychecks align with Charles William Taits’s rules for governing enslaved laborers through “disciplinary power operated by a set of rules, instructions, routines. . .as means of regimenting enslaved labor through repetition where there was an attempt to account for every moment of enslaved life” (Browne, 2015, p. 51). In contrast, bench in itself is a punitive practice that aligns with the branding of enslaved Africans as a means of punishment on plantations.

Why did the school use these practices? Two white administrators told me that to maintain order, our students had to be monitored and disciplined at all times because learning would be too chaotic without an authoritative structure. These talking points of order and discipline are consistent with Golann’s (2017) study of NE CMO leaders. I interpreted this explanation to mean the white administrators thought our Black students were difficult and unruly. Similar to Lopez Kershen et al. (2019), the white teachers regurgitated surveillance and discipline talking points, underscoring the idea that our Black student population needed structure and a no-nonsense nurturing approach to discipline.

Although white administrators and teachers enforced this discipline structure, they could not answer my question: Why aren’t these strategies used in schools with majority-white student populations? Some white teachers and administrators saw my questioning as defying professional expectations, a source of contention in NE CMOs like KIPP (Golann, 2017; Macey et al., 2009). Scholars have showcased strict disciplinary procedures used within CMOs due to the criminalization and fear of Black and Latinx students within urban schools, particularly by non-Black teachers and administrators (Lopez Kershen et al., 2018; Sondel et al., 2019). Additionally, these studies indicate NE charter school teachers deem their student populations as a problem socially and academically. As a result, teachers leveraged their perceived care for students’ life outcomes to rationalize the NE approach to school discipline (Lopez Kershen et al., 2018). Like a Black veteran teacher in Sondel et al.’s (2019) study who did not utilize the strict disciplinary structure of their school because it did not facilitate academic achievement, I witnessed Black New Orleans veteran teachers reject the school’s authoritarian rules when possible. I also knew that students did not need authoritarian discipline in their schooling.

The harm of such policies is mobilized via racialized disciplinary power. NE CMOs utilize disciplinary power, a form of control that intentionally damages children, to create the model student (Ellison, 2012). Within the United States, white enslavers mobilized a racialized disciplinary power as a means of controlling and perfecting the work of enslaved Black bodies (Browne, 2015). Similarly, my KIPP school wielded racialized disciplinary power over students, curbing their bodily autonomy. Dominant groups use discipline in the classroom to instill societal norms that represent their own power interests (Ellison, 2012), something administrators and teachers use to promote narrow visions of student success that are predicated on the racial power of whiteness and the subordination of Blackness (Sondel et al., 2019).

Benched to Solitary Confinement

In the second week of my first year of teaching, I had to place a student on bench for cursing. In my reading course, Torrance, a 15-year-old student, blurted out in frustration, “Damn this is hard. I don’t want to do this.” His eyes bulged; he immediately placed both hands over his mouth, and he placed his head down because he knew he would be in trouble. A white teacher overheard Torrance and said, “Torrance, you said a curse word. That is inappropriate. You are going on bench.” Then, Torrance got out of his seat, walked out of the classroom, and left the eighth-grade trailer. I followed Torrance, and when I reached him, he was standing with a white administrator who had stopped him for being outside his class. Within the exchange, Torrance admitted that he “said a bad word,” and the white administrator directed me to place him on bench.

The moment of placing Torrance on bench taught me that the tool serves torture-based aims. As I stood in front of Torrance with blue tape in my hand, he clenched his fist to contain his emotions. As I unwound the tape, tears streaked down Torrance’s face onto his shirt. His eyes had a blank stare as I tore off two pieces of tape and placed them in an X over his logo. Torrance’s reaction told me that this tool was unjust and forced students into an unproductive mental space. Bench was about getting Black students to submit to the rules by stripping away their souls through isolation, known as spirit murdering, a form of racial assault (Williams, 1987). In the moment, all I could see was a crying Black boy standing in front of me, a Black man who was told by a white administrator to apply the harm. This interaction stirred sadness in me because I realized I was a Black man who worked for a school that harmed Black children. With this episode, I realized early on that I would need to find or create ways to reclaim both my students’ and my own humanity in school.

Keeping It Real(ist)

Using the MVP tactic and its disciplinary power was not an option for me. Teaching Black students—Black children who looked like me—meant that I wanted them to have a learning space where they felt respected and had control over how they were treated. However, that was not the reality. I witnessed Black students being treated in a way that did not affirm them. White teachers were praised and rewarded by administrators and KIPP leadership for having their Black students submit to their commands. I refused to take part in such actions. As a result, white administrators and teachers levied constant criticisms at me for being too friendly and relatable and for rejecting the tactics I found harmful. Quitting was not an option, either, because I would be freeing myself while deserting my students during the school year. By refusing to leave mid-year or use racist, racialized surveillance and disciplinary methods, I accepted the reality of my circumstances.

Though I could not name it then, my acceptance of this reality at the school was a mobilization of racial realism (Bell, 1992b). Racial realism underscores that racial equality is “not a realistic goal” (p. 363) for Black people in the United States. Therefore, we must understand the system of racism, our role in it, and how to maintain the humanity through our own survival. Similarly, I had to prioritize the survival and humanity of the 11- to 16-year-old students who received special education services alongside myself. The school was going to continue its racist practices to control Black students. I had to accept that white educators were not going to view these tactics as I did; they were going to utilize whatever practices produced the “best” behavior and academic results from the Black students. I had to recognize that students were going to continue being punished under the bench and paycheck systems. I had to accept that few if any of the school’s white educators learned under such conditions. I had to realize that unfairness was the reality for the Black students and for myself as one of their few Black teachers. As a result of these understandings, my resistance through Black fugitive pedagogy (Givens, 2021) began to take shape. Acceptance of reality was not enough, however. The next step was learning how to maintain our Black humanity and survive, for which I relied on communication and transparency with my students.

Amplifying Students’ Voices

The students and I began to have discussions during class about their treatment at KIPP. Opening up my classroom as a space of transparency helped to establish the foundation of our community in fugitivity. I repurposed some instructional time so my students had an opportunity to articulate their feelings, a decision that undermined the prevailing discipline structure and instructional expectations. Our conversations revealed that students were frustrated by how they were treated on a daily basis, and I was, too. Our discussions often began because students felt they had been mistreated by a white teacher or administrator. Students would make the following comments:

Once one student vented about how they were treated at KIPP, the others would immediately chime in with their frustrations. These conversations were vital, because students would have been silenced and disciplined for naming their grievances with their white teachers.

Collectively, we understood that the way they were treated by white educators was a problem. Though we did not intend to stress race, in these conversations, a salient racial analysis was always present. For the students and me, it was not teachers broadly who were harming them, but specifically, white teachers. At their request, I shared that I did not attend a school where we were treated in such a way. These conversations were a space for the students and me to openly acknowledge the poor conditions of KIPP and to name our reality. They were stuck at KIPP for the time being, and I chose to remain. No matter our frustration, the rules and who enforced them were not going to change. We had to be realists about our situation. Therefore, we sought a way to exist within KIPP that left our humanity intact. We used our voices to create our own fugitive space of survival.

Creating a Black Fugitive Space Inside the Classroom

In creating our Black fugitive space, the students and I came up with our own rules throughout the school year(s). We decided there would be no taped lines on the floor, MVP, narration, or rigid discipline. Students could speak freely; there was no noise level expectation. Our classroom would be a space of learning and offer students a sense of freedom in the classroom. Sometimes our class was a little loud, and the white teachers in the grade level would complain by texting me privately or chastising me publicly for disrupting the quietness of their classrooms. White administrators and TFA personnel visited my classroom to evaluate my teaching on a regular basis. These visits implied that we had to be careful, because we were constantly surveilled by whiteness even if within an all-Black classroom. Therefore, we had to keep our rules and actions as confidential as possible.

In striving to protect our fugitive space, we discussed how to act when white teachers or administrators entered our room: we would act as model KIPP students and teachers. I would start the MVP directions with narration. Students would sit up in their seats, attentively track their work, and follow my directions. Although my students did so to protect our fugitive space, they were shielding me as well. Students knew my teaching evaluations were important, and they did everything they could to make sure assessments went well. Once the white teachers or administrators left, we would exhale and reset our Black fugitive classroom space. While in our classroom, we were mostly insulated from whiteness and racialized disciplinary practices. However, these moments of faking the KIPP way helped us to navigate parts of the school day when we were not in our classroom.

Creating Black Fugitive Spaces Outside the Classroom

The students I worked with received both push-in and pull-out services; therefore, we also had to develop fugitive space outside the classroom. Outside our class, we were not able to use our typical rules because we were observed by other teachers. When we pushed in to a white teacher’s class, the goal was to exit with as few issues as possible. This was easier said than done, because my students and those who did not rely on special education services resented KIPP’s discipline structure. When frustration reached its peak, a student would resist by defying a teacher’s commands, defending their actions vocally, or walking out of the classroom altogether. Each of these actions came with additional punishment (e.g., paycheck deduction, multiple in-class lunches, recess, or after-school detentions).

My daily goal was to help each student avoid trouble with white teachers when I was present. If a student cursed, I gave them a glance and said, “chill,” which indicated that I heard them, but I was not going to put them on bench. With me, it was okay for them to slip up or make mistakes. My role was to act as a buffer between them and the white teachers and administrators. This often meant trying to diffuse student frustrations in one-on-one or small group conversations. To ease the frustration of some students in heated moments, I’d ask (or they would ask me) if we could take a short walk around campus. They would be able to vent freely about their frustration on these walks, but more importantly, to attain a space to breathe sans rigid discipline.

At times, it seemed as if I was caught between two masters: my students and the KIPP organization. I viewed myself as having been hired by administrators to serve Black children at the school, not the agenda of the school itself. Bell (1976) highlighted a similar tug-of-war between Black plaintiffs and their lawyers within school desegregation cases. While attorneys identified desegregation as the answer to racial injustice, their Black plaintiffs simply wanted more educational opportunities and community resources, which they felt desegregation would provide. Similar to the lawyers who had to rethink the right choice for their Black plaintiffs, I had to constantly consider and reassess what doing the “right thing” meant. I had to choose between the school, career progression, or doing right by the Black children I was serving; as a 22- to 24-year-old, inexperienced, untrained, Black male teacher, sometimes doing the “right thing” was an in-the-moment decision. Although I sought to be the Black progressive teacher who created spaces of fugitivity outside of the school’s rules, my efforts were limited. Thankfully, my students were there to challenge me when I expressed thoughts or actions that strayed from the ideals we created together. Because my interactions with students operated outside maintaining discipline, our teacher–student alliance was built on self-autonomy rather than submission.

Recognizing We Were Never Really Safe: Nori’s Story

Unfortunately, individual students that made up our collective were never truly safe from the racialized surveillance and disciplinary practices of white educators. During the spring of my second year, in New Orleans’ rainy season, an eruption of emotions enveloped my student Nori, who was with me for the entirety of most school days. Nori’s little sister, who attended the elementary school, had been bullied for weeks by a middle-grades student on the bus, and the administration did little to help. Nori entered the ramp to our trailer furious and immediately sought me out at the entrance to the building. Nori vented about what happened. Simultaneously, a white teacher reprimanded her for being loud, noted a paycheck deduction, then issued MVP directions for Nori to be silent and to rewalk the ramp before entering the building. The white teacher’s actions indicated a lack of concern for Nori, exacerbating Nori’s emotional state. Her sister was being bullied; she sought me out for help to de-escalate her anger, and somehow, she was in further trouble for using a strategy she found helpful.

This act by the white teacher ignited Nori’s passion, and then the following exchange occurred:

“The only teacher here that cares about us is Mr. Gway! Get out of my face! I am not talking to you!” Nori yelled back at the white teacher.

Refusing to back down, the white teacher communicated more behavior consequences. As I tried to refocus Nori’s attention and lead her into a different classroom, the white teacher said, “Paycheck deduction. You are going on bench; come into my room.”

Nori responded, “I am not going anywhere with you. You are not my teacher,” while I closed the door.

As I sought to continue de-escalation and allow Nori to vent, a white administrator entered the room and disrupted our progress. Nori explained that the administrator had not helped her sister, a claim the administrator rejected. This act provoked further commentary from Nori: “This school is racist. These white people are racist, and they do not care about us!”

Then, Nori criticized white educators with questions regarding noise level, walking in lines, paychecks, and other KIPP practices. A hush fell over the room, and Nori began to calm down. She would later receive discipline for each action. She was sent home; her paycheck was deducted, and she was placed on bench for cursing. Our fugitive space couldn’t outweigh the school’s power and control, no matter how much I wanted it to.

It Was Time to Go

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about my resistance during my time in New Orleans. Because the school did not have substitute teachers and could seldom use sick days, one way I resisted was by showing up every day. Resistance meant putting extra money on a student’s paycheck to ensure they qualified to participate in the weekly celebrations and avoid detention. Resistance meant having conversations with students if they blurted out a curse word in frustration or broke another rule that would have otherwise placed them on bench. Resistance was finding ways to support students in getting through each day. During my first evaluation meeting, white administrators criticized my acts of resistance. One white administrator noted that I was too relational to students and needed to consider a sterner approach. This remark signaled that my time at KIPP was limited.

At the end of the first quarter of my second year, an unexpected and major change upset the balance of the fugitive space the students and I were building. Without notice, the white special education coordinator and the white co-principal informed me that the following week, the school would be transitioning to a full inclusion model. This meant that regardless of a special education student’s ability level or their academic improvement, time spent in our classroom would be significantly reduced. It was my responsibility to inform my students that we would no longer be able to regularly use our classroom. This was difficult for me to say, and it was also challenging for my students to accept because their freedom would be constrained in other classrooms with white teachers who believed in and deployed the regimented and racialized strategies of the school. This ultimately led to more behavior issues for my students, because they often did not comply with all their white teachers’ directions. This abrupt change, which felt like retaliation, showed me that given the racial harm I continued to witness students facing, I could no longer remain at the school. When asked by the white special education coordinator and white co-principal why I was leaving the school at the end of the year, I referenced this example.

During my time at the school, I regularly talked with other Black teachers via informal discussions in groups of two or three. These conversations would take place before school, at recess, after school, and through texts and phone calls. We would discuss strategies to support our students, how some white teachers did not understand race, whether it be their whiteness, the Blackness of our students, their parents, and even ourselves as teachers. We also often talked about escaping KIPP and finding different occupational opportunities that would be humanizing. A common saying in many of these discussions was “KIPP ain’t it!” Since my time at KIPP has ended, some of us have transitioned to other opportunities; others have stayed to continue working in the trenches of the New Orleans Charter School system that the community had no choice in receiving.