Sonja Badu-Thompson believes what she saw growing up in school, led her into the education field.
Badu-Thompson says, “It make you wonder what the ceiling had for you. If you don't see teachers if you don't see administration, then where are the people who look like me?”
Badu-Thompson says her Mom was a Cafeteria Manager, her Dad was a member of the Custodial Staff. And she was determined to do something else not just for herself but for the future generation.
Years later she became a Literacy Instructor for the San Diego Unified School District.
She says, “We didn't have a lot of brown educators so ti was imperative that whatever gaps of information I could be there for the up incoming brown students that would be going through San Diego Unified.”
Badu-Thompson is one of the thousands of educators attending the California Association of African American Superintendents and Administrators Professional Development Summit in Mission Valley, addressing the Brown vs, Board of Education Case 70 years later.
This historic court case established racial segregation in public school was unconstitutional.
The Key Note Speaker Cheryl Brown-Henderson the daughter of one of the Plantiff’s in that case.
She says while progress has been made in light of that ruling, there’s still much more than needs to be done.
She adds, “There are people then and now still troubled with the level playing field and troubled by the idea of th equal education opportunity and not wanting parody for all citizens … this is supposed to be a multi-racial democracy.”
And that’s something Badu-Thompson hopes to work to change, one program at a time.
She adds, “I want to see intervention and dollars that help close the gaps in education for marginalized students.”
