‘I got into it because of the kids.’ Care for racial justice lies in the heart of Jessie Ryan
The problem with too many people who run for school board is that some view these elected seats as stepping stones to higher office or platforms to appease political interests.
In Sacramento, that means that too many elected school board members worry about their political aspirations and alliances more than the school children whose interests they are supposed to represent.
Jessie Ryan, president of the eight-member Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education, is an exception.
Ryan, who is running for re-election, has demonstrated over the years that she will put the interests of school children and the financial well being of SCUSD over any other consideration. When it was scientifically documented that SCUSD teachers have a long history of suspending more Black kids than any other school district in California, Ryan dug into the issue more than any of her board member colleagues or fellow elected officials in Sacramento.
Just ask J. Luke Wood, a professor at San Diego State University. Wood is one of the authors of “The Capital of Suspensions: Examining the Racial Exclusion of Black Males in Sacramento County,” the 2018 study of Black suspension rates in Sacramento County schools.
“Jessie seems to be one of the only leaders in Sacramento who truly understood the gravity of the situation,” he said.
He remembered sharing the information in Sacramento two years ago at C.K. McClatchy High School. “When we had the presentation of the study, Jessie was one of the only elected officials from Sacramento who showed up to the town hall,” he said. “She was the only one who came up and talked to me.”
As a result of Wood’s study, Ryan led a district school board that severed its contract with the Sacramento Police Department.
Open heart, open to change
SCUSD was an early supporter of a law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 that prohibits teachers and school administrators from suspending students for “willful defiance,” a subjective term that was misused broadly by teachers and school administrators – resulting in too many suspensions, particularly of Black, Native American and Latino students.
The district also adopted Ethnic Studies as a high school graduation requirement in June of 2017, one of the first actions taken by current Superintendent Jorge Aguilar. It’s a move the district hopes will enhance racial and ethnic diversity within its teaching ranks.
Wood said that instead of being defensive, or ignoring the issue altogether, Ryan took to heart the implications of a district that has historically marginalized Black students in its classrooms.
“There is a tension in Sacramento that we believe doesn’t exist in the same way in other communities,” Wood said. “Sacramento has a history of exclusion. Look at the way a freeway was constructed to split Oak Park (a culturally rich community where Ryan lives)...We believe Sacramento is Ground Zero in this national fight (over Black suspension rates).”
This isn’t the only divisive issue that Ryan has confronted as a school board president of SCUSD.
Some SCUSD parents of students with disabilities have long felt marginalized by the district. They felt that the district and its teachers disenfranchised their kids. They felt the district and its teachers either violated the law or the spirit of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees public education to children with disabilities.
“Of all the board members, Jessie Ryan actually met with us,” said Angel Garcia, a disability rights advocate and an SCUSD parent of a child with autism and dyslexia. “Jessie has dug in deeper than any board member than I’ve seen because she cares.”
For more than 20 years, dating back to the early 1990s, disability rights parents within SCUSD had said that a provision in a labor agreement between the district and its teachers gave too much power to teachers to keep disabled kids out of their classrooms.
Ryan listened to the Coalition for Students with Disabilities and the Community Advisory Committee, and led the school board to remove the discriminatory provision from its 2017 labor agreement.
“The biggest thing that she has done is to question,” Garcia said. “She has done that fearlessly. She has questioned things and become a target because of that.”
Ryan, 42, is a target – but not only for speaking out and bringing change on key issues irrespective of the politics. In the last two years in particular, she has led a board that no longer wants to kick the can down the road on district finances.
Past SCUSD school boards abdicated responsibilities – state auditors warned them 15 years ago that the district’s health care expenses were too high. Repeated audits, including one by State Auditor Elaine Howle, reached the same conclusion.
And the district has insisted on maintaining core state standards as part of its current distance learning plan. Ryan – the only school board member who spoke at a Monday press conference – explained why the district had to hold firm.
“My passion for being on the school board is based on the belief that every child can learn and thrive with consistency and support,” Ryan said.
To protect children from being broken
Ryan was raised in poverty by a single mom and experienced homelessness as a child.
Her children – a 10-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy – are SCUSD students. Both children, who are Black, were in the foster care system before they were adopted by Ryan and her husband, Arsenio Mataka, an environmental adviser for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
They are a blended family: Ryan is white, Mataka is Latino. They adopted their son at 6 months of age and then, 10 months later, his biological sister when she entered the foster care system.
“My daughter had been in seven homes, in five states,” Ryan said. “My biggest job is to make sure that my children are not broken by an educational system that often devalues the experiences and brilliance of Black children.”
Anthony R. Sadler, pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Oak Park, said he was moved by Ryan and Mataka choosing to live there to raise their children.
“They made a conscious effort to live here,” Sadler said. “It says a great deal about their decision so that their children would be raised around other kids of the same (racial) group. They were so sensitive about it.”
In her day job, Ryan is executive vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a statewide non-profit working to ensure all Californians have equal access to attend and succeed in college. In 2017, Ryan was honored by former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson for authoring SCUSD’s “Safe Haven” policy, which protected immigrant students regardless of status.
Being the school board chairman is supposed to be a part-time job and it pays $787 a month in the form of a stipend.
“I see Jessie come home at 3 a.m. and sit in her car, trying to sort things out,” said her neighbor, Rachelle Ditmore, who runs City of Refuge, an Oak Park non-profit.
“When things got rocky with the school district, she had politicians telling her to jump off the ship,” Ditmore said. “She told me, ‘I didn’t get into this for my political career. I got into it because of the kids.’”
Ryan is facing consequences for her work and advocacy.
Her opponent in November is Lavinia Grace Phillips, who lists John Borsos, an operative with the California Teachers Association, as one of her campaign consultants.
That Borsos would go after Ryan to try to knock her off the school board this fall is not surprising. The fights to address the Black suspension rate in SCUSD, the fights over students with disabilities and the budget fights have all placed Ryan in the cross-hairs of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, which Borsos helps run.
Regardless, the question for voters will be: Do you want a school board candidate who puts kids first regardless of politics or one recruited because of politics? Ryan is what we say we want in a leader. She is fully invested in doing the right thing, and not the political thing.
“I’ve only endorsed two political candidates in my career and she is one,” said Wood. “Jessie is an unrelenting advocate for racial justice. A lot of people talk like they are but very few really are. Jessie is.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
