Nola's Education, Nola's Future
Title
Nola's Education, Nola's Future
Format
Video
Subject
Antoinette Williams
Description
This video is about Antoinette Williams and more specifically Nola's educational system. In which Antoinette Williams is interviewed and provides us with a glimpse into the present and past information regarding issues in Nola's schooling system.
Creator
Madison Byrdie
Source
My Nola My Story via Youtube
Publisher
Mass Communications department at the Xavier University of Louisiana.
Date
12/1/20
Contributor
Madison Brydie
Rights
My Nola My Story
Relation
My Nola My Story 2020
Language
English
Type
iMovie, Video
Identifier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhS5gfiT2Z0
Coverage
A Digital Humanities project by Xavier University of Louisiana's Mass Communication department students, led by Dr. Shearon Roberts
Original Format
Transcription
Madison Brydie: (Voice Over)nola's future is currently in the hands
of the children today
and more specifically the education that
is shaping them nola's education was one
of the lasting effects of katrina which
changed the system completely antoinette
williams is one of the youngest
candidates running for the school board
election of district five
she is the future of education in nola
she knows the community and has
experienced the educational system
her story is a reflection of noah's
story
*On Screen- What do you offer as such a young candidate? *
Antoinette Williams: experience and i know that's super funny
because people are like you don't have
any experience but
i think experience comes in all
different types and
the people that are currently on the
board as well as the people who are
running
for school board are so far removed from
our kids that are actually in the
classroom right now
that they can say they can make judgment
calls based on how things were when they
were in school
but that doesn't apply now i'm the only
one running
that has experienced our school system
post katrina so
um i'm not sure if you're aware but
katrina was a major storm we had here in
new orleans
and it changed the entire layout of the
city but more specifically it changed
the entire makeup of our school system
that's when the charter experiment
started um
so currently new orleans aside from
coghill which is getting ready
to be charted in the following school
year new orleans is the only city in the
entire country
that's made up of complete charter
schools
so it's it's very unique
to say that majority of the people who
are running didn't go to a charter
school and more specifically they didn't
go to the charter schools
in new orleans so they don't know the
current experiences of our students so
my age is an asset
because i'm old enough where i can hold
my own in the room of
people older than me but i'm also young
enough where i can still relate in a
room
of our k-12 students
*On Screen- Why did the educational system make a shift to Charter Schools?*
so there was already a push for it prior
to the storm
but what happened was um there was more
pushback and prior to the storm you
needed a certain amount of votes from
parents and teachers and all of these
other stakeholder groups to charter a
school
once katrina hit they um
basically tried to well what they did
was
they put policy into place saying okay
everyone's away
so we can't get these majority votes
because no one's here
so we should be able to make a judgment
call so that allowed the schools to
begin chartering but what also happened
during katrina
all of our teachers were fired so
can you imagine you're going through a
major natural disaster
you're away from home and now you lose
your job
so the schools were offered
money um resources to pay their teachers
while they were away
but with firing the teachers they didn't
give them that additional pay
um so as schools begin to get chartered
one by one after that
um 2018 mcdonald 35 which is the high
school i graduated from was the last
direct run school
in the city and then it was charted off
to inspire
um and since then we the district has
reclaimed cockhill
to serve as a temporary operator until
they can give it to the next charter
operator so
like i said next school year we'll be
completely try to run again like we were
in 2019.
*On Screen- Do you agree politically with chartering the schools ?*
Antoinette Williams no so
let me be more specific with my answer
charters ideally work out
in theory but it hasn't come to fruition
in practice
so the ideas behind charters is to give
these articles
management organizations more autonomy
so that they can provide
different types of schools for our kids
new orleans is an extremely diverse city
um and i mean that from race to
interest like we have kids that are
phenomenal in stem but we also have kids
who excel in arts so there's different
avenues and the charter schools were
supposed to
provide different types of schools for
different types of students
and theory that sounds great that sounds
like new orleans would be the perfect
place to have those types of schools
because it would suit our kids that's
not what happened
all of our charters are a copycat carbon
print of one another
they're all they're all focused on
college prep which is great
i'm an advocate for kids going to
college but i also understand
and from talking to my kids that's not
what everyone wants
so if i'm a kid who knows the vocation
that i want to go into with a trade that
i want to learn
i should be offered the opportunity to
learn that and to do that
and that's not what we're seeing here in
the city
*On Screen- What polices would you focus on if elected?*
Antoinette Williams: your involvement like anyone and
everyone knows that that's my top
concern that's
primary concern there are many other
things that i want to address
like holding the charter management
organizations accountable to having a
safe and equitable learning environment
for our students
we need to increase oversight on our
funding to make sure
our resources are being allocated
equally equitably i mean
and different things like that we need
to have more programs and incentives to
keep our teachers here
there are several things but the top
priority at the center of every single
thing i do regardless of what it
involves will be student centered in
student lead
because there isn't anyone who's saying
because this impacts our kids let's hear
their input
and that's ridiculous there's no way
anyone can tell you what's best for you
without having a conversation
with you
*On Screen-What fuels you Passion for Education?*
Antoinette Williams: when i was little i went to school and
we
had to test in the sixth grade and the
test basically determined what route you
would take
and i tested very high so i was granted
access to the ap courses the advanced
placement courses
whereas some of my friends several of my
friends who lived in the same
neighborhood with me
they didn't have access to those same
classes they were put on
the regular route the first problem i
noticed was
when teachers would be addressing us we
were the ap students and the non-ap
students it's character damaging to call
a child a non-ap
student like there was other terms that
they could have referred to them as
but saying ap and non-ap that
i didn't like that it messed up our
social skills in terms of
there was this level of illegal elitism
in the school at such a young age
*On Screen- How has traveling given you a new perspective?*
Antoinette Williams: i've been to nine different countries
but traveling around
also showed me the the emphasis other
countries put on learning different
languages
like i haven't met one person
outside the country that only speaks one
language that's something that's very
well
outside of the us and outside of london
every other country speaks more than one
language and i'm sitting like
these people are getting it right when
it comes to education
we're struggling
*On Screen- Why is being bilingual specifically important in New Orleans?*
Antoinette Williams: new orleans is completely diverse so our
largest
three languages in the city was in the
school system i'll say
um it's english of course spanish and
vietnamese
so at like our school board meetings we
have a translator
in spanish we have a translator in
vietnamese and we also have sign
language
um but outside of the schools there are
other
languages that are popping up like we
had neighbors once
and then my grandmother sat there for
the longest trying to figure out what
language they spoke because we knew
it wasn't spanish i studied french i
knew it wasn't french
but it had like french accents
so we were trying to figure out like
what was it and we still couldn't figure
it out but yeah we have
completely different people out around
the city which is great
but we need to be able to communicate
with each other and
americans and people in the uk tend to
get very comfortable
because the global language is english
so regardless of where i went there was
always people there who spoke english
even if it wasn't their first language
and a lot of those people there spoke
english better than we do
because they have put such a strong
emphasis
on speaking english because they knew
how important it was to be able to
communicate with other people
Madison Brydie: (Voiceover) antoinette williams the future of noah's
education and therefore the future of
nola
watch out for her in the upcoming school
board election of district five as she
becomes a voice to the underrepresented
students
and community that is negatively
impacted by the educational system
Antoinette Williams: (Closing Note) your possibilities are limitless like
you can literally do
anything and i know it sounds like so
cliche but i sincerely mean
you can do anything
you
*Closing Credits*
of the children today
and more specifically the education that
is shaping them nola's education was one
of the lasting effects of katrina which
changed the system completely antoinette
williams is one of the youngest
candidates running for the school board
election of district five
she is the future of education in nola
she knows the community and has
experienced the educational system
her story is a reflection of noah's
story
*On Screen- What do you offer as such a young candidate? *
Antoinette Williams: experience and i know that's super funny
because people are like you don't have
any experience but
i think experience comes in all
different types and
the people that are currently on the
board as well as the people who are
running
for school board are so far removed from
our kids that are actually in the
classroom right now
that they can say they can make judgment
calls based on how things were when they
were in school
but that doesn't apply now i'm the only
one running
that has experienced our school system
post katrina so
um i'm not sure if you're aware but
katrina was a major storm we had here in
new orleans
and it changed the entire layout of the
city but more specifically it changed
the entire makeup of our school system
that's when the charter experiment
started um
so currently new orleans aside from
coghill which is getting ready
to be charted in the following school
year new orleans is the only city in the
entire country
that's made up of complete charter
schools
so it's it's very unique
to say that majority of the people who
are running didn't go to a charter
school and more specifically they didn't
go to the charter schools
in new orleans so they don't know the
current experiences of our students so
my age is an asset
because i'm old enough where i can hold
my own in the room of
people older than me but i'm also young
enough where i can still relate in a
room
of our k-12 students
*On Screen- Why did the educational system make a shift to Charter Schools?*
so there was already a push for it prior
to the storm
but what happened was um there was more
pushback and prior to the storm you
needed a certain amount of votes from
parents and teachers and all of these
other stakeholder groups to charter a
school
once katrina hit they um
basically tried to well what they did
was
they put policy into place saying okay
everyone's away
so we can't get these majority votes
because no one's here
so we should be able to make a judgment
call so that allowed the schools to
begin chartering but what also happened
during katrina
all of our teachers were fired so
can you imagine you're going through a
major natural disaster
you're away from home and now you lose
your job
so the schools were offered
money um resources to pay their teachers
while they were away
but with firing the teachers they didn't
give them that additional pay
um so as schools begin to get chartered
one by one after that
um 2018 mcdonald 35 which is the high
school i graduated from was the last
direct run school
in the city and then it was charted off
to inspire
um and since then we the district has
reclaimed cockhill
to serve as a temporary operator until
they can give it to the next charter
operator so
like i said next school year we'll be
completely try to run again like we were
in 2019.
*On Screen- Do you agree politically with chartering the schools ?*
Antoinette Williams no so
let me be more specific with my answer
charters ideally work out
in theory but it hasn't come to fruition
in practice
so the ideas behind charters is to give
these articles
management organizations more autonomy
so that they can provide
different types of schools for our kids
new orleans is an extremely diverse city
um and i mean that from race to
interest like we have kids that are
phenomenal in stem but we also have kids
who excel in arts so there's different
avenues and the charter schools were
supposed to
provide different types of schools for
different types of students
and theory that sounds great that sounds
like new orleans would be the perfect
place to have those types of schools
because it would suit our kids that's
not what happened
all of our charters are a copycat carbon
print of one another
they're all they're all focused on
college prep which is great
i'm an advocate for kids going to
college but i also understand
and from talking to my kids that's not
what everyone wants
so if i'm a kid who knows the vocation
that i want to go into with a trade that
i want to learn
i should be offered the opportunity to
learn that and to do that
and that's not what we're seeing here in
the city
*On Screen- What polices would you focus on if elected?*
Antoinette Williams: your involvement like anyone and
everyone knows that that's my top
concern that's
primary concern there are many other
things that i want to address
like holding the charter management
organizations accountable to having a
safe and equitable learning environment
for our students
we need to increase oversight on our
funding to make sure
our resources are being allocated
equally equitably i mean
and different things like that we need
to have more programs and incentives to
keep our teachers here
there are several things but the top
priority at the center of every single
thing i do regardless of what it
involves will be student centered in
student lead
because there isn't anyone who's saying
because this impacts our kids let's hear
their input
and that's ridiculous there's no way
anyone can tell you what's best for you
without having a conversation
with you
*On Screen-What fuels you Passion for Education?*
Antoinette Williams: when i was little i went to school and
we
had to test in the sixth grade and the
test basically determined what route you
would take
and i tested very high so i was granted
access to the ap courses the advanced
placement courses
whereas some of my friends several of my
friends who lived in the same
neighborhood with me
they didn't have access to those same
classes they were put on
the regular route the first problem i
noticed was
when teachers would be addressing us we
were the ap students and the non-ap
students it's character damaging to call
a child a non-ap
student like there was other terms that
they could have referred to them as
but saying ap and non-ap that
i didn't like that it messed up our
social skills in terms of
there was this level of illegal elitism
in the school at such a young age
*On Screen- How has traveling given you a new perspective?*
Antoinette Williams: i've been to nine different countries
but traveling around
also showed me the the emphasis other
countries put on learning different
languages
like i haven't met one person
outside the country that only speaks one
language that's something that's very
well
outside of the us and outside of london
every other country speaks more than one
language and i'm sitting like
these people are getting it right when
it comes to education
we're struggling
*On Screen- Why is being bilingual specifically important in New Orleans?*
Antoinette Williams: new orleans is completely diverse so our
largest
three languages in the city was in the
school system i'll say
um it's english of course spanish and
vietnamese
so at like our school board meetings we
have a translator
in spanish we have a translator in
vietnamese and we also have sign
language
um but outside of the schools there are
other
languages that are popping up like we
had neighbors once
and then my grandmother sat there for
the longest trying to figure out what
language they spoke because we knew
it wasn't spanish i studied french i
knew it wasn't french
but it had like french accents
so we were trying to figure out like
what was it and we still couldn't figure
it out but yeah we have
completely different people out around
the city which is great
but we need to be able to communicate
with each other and
americans and people in the uk tend to
get very comfortable
because the global language is english
so regardless of where i went there was
always people there who spoke english
even if it wasn't their first language
and a lot of those people there spoke
english better than we do
because they have put such a strong
emphasis
on speaking english because they knew
how important it was to be able to
communicate with other people
Madison Brydie: (Voiceover) antoinette williams the future of noah's
education and therefore the future of
nola
watch out for her in the upcoming school
board election of district five as she
becomes a voice to the underrepresented
students
and community that is negatively
impacted by the educational system
Antoinette Williams: (Closing Note) your possibilities are limitless like
you can literally do
anything and i know it sounds like so
cliche but i sincerely mean
you can do anything
you
*Closing Credits*
Duration
8:57
Producer
Madison Brydie
Director
Madison Brydie
Files
