Advocacy Director, Latinos for Education and School Committee Member
Manny opened by sharing a little bit about his background. A proud Salem resident, Manny has served on the School Committee for the past four years and professionally has worked primarily in government and non-profits. He worked in the State House for Representative Paul Tucker and former Representative Juana Matias of Lawrence before taking his current role with Latinos for Education.
Upon graduating from high school, Manny attended Salem State for two years before transferring to Northeastern University to finish his degree and take advantage of their co-op program. He learned from his time at the Boys and Girls Club that networking was important, and he felt he could do this best through the co-op program. His co-ops included one at Attorney General Maura Healy’s office and two at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Manny took former Governor Dukakis’ public policy and administration course and wrote his 30-page paper on extended learning time in public education. His focus was on the return on investment for extended learning time and partnerships at the middle school level, and he dove deeper into programs at the Collins Middle School. Manny also stayed connected to Salem during this time through community service with the Boys and Girls Club.
Through his volunteerism and a leadership and development course he taught with Brad Malone to 30 young men at the middle school, Manny was inspired to pursue a career in education. He was on his way to teaching at the Bentley Academy when he was drawn to public service at the legislative level because of the 2016 election. He worked closely on education policy at the State House, which inspired him to run for School Committee so he could make positive changes for students in Salem. He gained a lot of great experience with education policy working in Representative Tucker’s office on the student funding debate. He was then approached by Latinos for Education and recruited to be their Advocacy Director. Leaving the State House was a difficult decision, as he enjoyed this work very much, but Manny heard a larger calling and felt this growth opportunity could help him create more equity and representation for students in Massachusetts.
Manny closed by giving us an overview of Latinos for Education and his work there. Founded in 2017, their mission is to develop, place, and connect essential Latino leadership in the education sector to ensure the Latino voice is heard and mobilized to achieve better educational outcomes for Latino children. They strive to achieve this through accelerating leadership pipelines, mobilizing leaders and communities, and connecting Latino leaders through technology. Latinos for Education offer programs including the Aspiring Latino Leaders Fellowship, Latino Board Fellowship, Latinx Teachers’ Fellowship, and School Board Preparation Program. These programs focus on the professional development, voice elevation, and retention of Latino educators.
Latinos for Education also has an advocacy arm in their organization where Manny’s work is based. Their focus is on educator diversity, but they did not have a policy agenda in the Commonwealth when Manny joined back in September. He began the process of identifying what has become the six stages of the educator pipeline: attraction; recruitment; college access/completion; certification; retention; and development/advancement. Latinos for Education brought organizations from within the state with expertise in these stages together to holistically address educator diversity. To date they have brought 50 organizations together, including school district leaders, higher education institutions, and practitioners. Manny recruited several representatives from the North Shore including Superintendent Steve Zrike, LEAP for Education, Salem State University, and North Shore Community College.
Manny shared the demographics of Massachusetts students, which includes about 25% identifying as students of color. This percentage is much higher in gateway communities. Salem, for example, has more than 45% of students identifying as students of color. Comparatively, the educator workforce in the state has about 8% identifying as educators of color. Working with the chairs of the education committee at the state level, Latinos for Educators worked to file the Educator Diversity Act, which is comprised of four components to address educator diversity disparity. These include establishing pathways for alternative certification; creating uniformity requirements across school districts in hiring and promotional practices, biases, and mandated diversity and inclusion training; establishing an Educator Diversity Data Dashboard; and elevating the voices of diverse educators via Educator Diversity Councils.
MANNY CRUZ
Jacob Segal opened our meeting with why he is a Rotarian. Many years ago, he was asked to join Rotary and was told it was good for your business. He joined, and it has been a wonderful venture since. He has enjoyed the people he has met, including Doc Eisner, and the community of our Club. He is proud to be a Rotarian and feels it is a worthwhile organization that does great work throughout the world. Jake selected Glen Niemy to share next week.
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