I have always loved school.

I am a proud, self-proclaimed teacher’s pet. I loved fresh notebooks, sharpened pencils, new schedules, and the feeling that a new school year offered a chance to begin again.  Back-to-school commercials didn’t produce feelings of dread for me LOL. There was something powerful about walking into a classroom knowing that new ideas, new relationships, and new possibilities were waiting on the other side of the door.

My love of school was also shaped by my mother, who taught in Chicago Public Schools for 33 years. I grew up seeing both the beauty and the weight of the profession. I saw the preparation that happened long before students entered the classroom, the concern she carried home for young people, and the deep commitment required to return each day ready to teach, encourage, correct, and believe again.

Still, for years, I ran from becoming a teacher myself.

Perhaps teaching felt too familiar. Perhaps I was determined to chart a different path. Whatever the reason, I built my early career in the corporate world and imagined that my future would continue there. Then a corporate layoff changed my trajectory. Suddenly, the career I had avoided came back and stood directly in front of me.

Teaching was no longer a distant possibility. It was an invitation.

Answering that invitation changed my life. I can honestly say that teaching remains some of the best and most meaningful work I have ever done.

Teaching gave me a front-row seat to human potential. Every day, I watched young people from the south side of Chicago discover something new about the world and, perhaps more importantly, something new about themselves. I saw students wrestle with uncertainty, overcome frustration, find their voices, and develop confidence in their ability to learn and lead.

I also learned that teaching is an extraordinary act of belief.

Educators show up each day believing that growth is possible, even when the evidence is not yet visible. They believe that the student who is struggling can eventually thrive. They believe that curiosity can be awakened, confidence can be rebuilt, and a future can be expanded through the right combination of challenge, care, support, and opportunity.

That kind of belief is not passive. It requires preparation, courage, patience, and persistence. It requires educators to keep learning, adapting, reflecting, and recommitting themselves to the young people and communities they serve.

As we enter another back-to-school season, I find myself thinking about the many educators within the Surge community. Our fellows and alumni are leading classrooms, schools, organizations, districts, foundations, and systems. Some are directly welcoming students back into buildings. Others are creating the conditions that allow educators and young people to succeed.

Wherever they sit, their leadership matters.

Back-to-school preparation is often described in terms of supplies, schedules, staffing plans, lesson plans, enrollment numbers, and academic goals. All of those things are important. But beneathevery strong school year liessomething deeper: a shared belief that students can learn, educators can lead, and communities possess the wisdom and strength needed to create better outcomes for their children.

At Surge, we believe in the brilliance of the people closest to the challenges facing our education system. We believe that Black and Brown leaders are not simply participants in the work of transformation. They are architects of it. They bring insight, experience, cultural wisdom, relationships, and an unwavering commitment to their communities.

Our responsibility is to recognize that brilliance, invest in it, connect it, and help create the conditions for it to flourish.

This school year will undoubtedly bring both promise and pressure. Educators will be asked to respond to complex needs, shifting expectations, and challenges that extend far beyond the classroom. Learners will arrive carrying their own hopes, fears, gifts, questions, and stories.

My hope is that we meet them all with belief.

Let us believe in educators enough to support them, trust them, develop them, and listen to them.

Let us believe in learners enough to challenge them, protect their curiosity, honor their identities, and refuse to place limits on what they can become.

A new school year is an invitation to begin again. My own journey taught me that sometimes the path we resist is the very path that calls us home.

May we enter this season prepared, hopeful, and ready to believe.