trevordayschool

here I am," he told the students. "I survived." Mr. Hood added that the family didn't have a lot of money and that his mother had a lot of hand-me- down girls clothes that she had to replace when the twins were born— so she had a baby-naming contest to raise money for baby clothes. From the pick of a lottery, Mr. Hood's twin was named Courtney, and he was named Koreé. (His grandfather added the accent to better distinguish it from Courtney.) When the twins were born in the '80s, Mr. Hood's mother now had three Black boys, and she based her success as a mother on grim statistics: In the mid-1980s, for multiple societal reasons, one in three Black men over the age of 18 was either incarcerated, dead, or on drugs. Mr. Hood's mother told her boys, "I don't want any of my children to be a statistic." So she bussed them to primarily white schools outside the neighborhood, where, typically, the three brothers were the only three Black boys in their school. Mr. Hood recalled that by 2nd grade they were taking the city bus to school, and that they first learned to navigate the world in that capacity. Mr. Hood's mother went back to school and started going to college when Mr. Hood was a junior in high school. It was the first time there was a computer in the house. "We were big time!" he reminisced. "Look at us, we were typing stuff!" When his mother went to college, that is when a young Mr. Hood started thinking that maybe college was something he could consider for himself. "If I had not seen that model in her, I don't think I would have viewed college as a serious option." After completing community college, Mr. Hood set his sights on Morehouse College, a historically Black college recommended by a classmate. Mr. Hood said he was moved by its history of nurturing Black leaders and innovators, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Spike Lee. He applied, was accepted, and signed up for the student orientation. As orientation day grew closer, the pressure of how to pay the $39,909 price tag started wearing on Mr. Hood. He and his mother had been denied loans 18 times. He was afraid of leaving, going to orientation, and having to come home and tell friends and coworkers that he didn't have the money to stay. More than that, he was deathly afraid of what that experience would do to his psyche. When he proposed staying home for another year to his mother, his mom kicked him out. She told Mr. Hood, "Your future is not here. Drive to Atlanta. It will work itself out." And indeed it did. Of the many things that his time at Morehouse taught him, Mr. Hood highlights affinity as one of the most important because it affirmed him and who he was. And affinity brings him back to the work of DEI. He shared, "How do we make sure that Trevor is a space—no matter who you are—that when you come through these doors, we will see you; we will appreciate you; we will affirm you? How do we do that? "We must know something about one another and what matters to one another. It's knowledge. Your generation wants to feel like you are making a difference, but in order to make a difference in this world, you need the skill sets of knowing who you are, and how to connect with others. Because so many times we treat people the way we want to be treated, but that doesn't necessarily help the other person. It's really about treating that person the way they want to be treated." "What you see is what you'll be." "We have to build a bridge of knowledge." When Mr. Hood opened the floor to questions, he first focused on the curriculum. A student followed up on a list of recommendations that SOCA had made in 2020, and specifically what progress had been made toward bringing the stories of people of color into even greater focus in the English and history curricula. In terms of further diversifying the curriculum, Mr. Hood laid out an order of actions to bring that to fruition. First, working toward a more diverse faculty. "What do I mean by 'diversify' in this context?"

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