More About Our Teachers: Sophia Macias
Sophia Macias is one of 100 new Teach For America educators who began teaching in DFW last month. She joins a network of 1,500+ Teach For America teachers and alumni in DFW who have made a lifelong commitment to ending educational inequity, which starts with a minimum of two years in the classroom.
I joined Teach for America because I want to give back to low-income minority communities like the one I was raised in. When I first began my undergraduate career, I had my heart set on going to graduate school and obtaining a Ph.D. However, as I moved through my undergraduate years I began to realize that graduate school was not the only thing I cared about. As a low-income Latina in the majority-white cisgender-male field of physics, I became increasingly aware of the fact that institutions like the university I was attending, did not work in the favor of minority students: especially not female minority students. So I began taking sociology, gender, and race courses alongside my physics and math courses in order to understand these underlying institutional inequities. What I learned made me both angry and sad. I began to scratch the surface in understanding institutional racism and sexism in ways that were never addressed or obvious in any of my years in K-12. In my junior year, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in academia, but I also knew that I wanted to help students like me, who came from disadvantaged communities and break down those systemic barriers that still exist, especially in STEM fields. At some point, I remembered that my high school physics teacher, who was one of my most treasured high school teachers, was a part of an organization called Teach For America. When I began researching this organization, I found that its goals and values of providing an equitable education to communities in need aligned closely with my own. This organization has made me realize that I yearn to return to my community and be a STEM teacher that students can look up to and seek out advice. I want to be a voice that lets students know that higher education is accessible to them, especially in STEM. I want to do my part in breaking down barriers to ensure that education becomes more equitable, and I believe that the first step for this goal is Teach For America.
Our Advisory Board Members
Kathy Crow, Board Chair
Lindsay Billingsley, Board Vice-Chair
Margaret Hirsch, Immediate Past Board Chair
Meredith Bebee
Honorable Dan Branch
Kelsey Bridgewater Clark
Kenji Hashimoto
Lee Hobson
Katrina James
Dean Stephanie Knight
Libby McCabe
Bill Payne
Karen Pollock
Anne Raymond
Dawne Tribolet
Elizabeth Wattley
Teach For America finds, develops, and supports a diverse network of leaders who expand opportunity for children from classrooms, schools, and every sector and field that shapes the broader systems in which schools operate.
We know that the first 90 days can be an especially difficult time for our teachers, so we are creating a longer developmental runway and a more seamless experience than in the past. We are doing more than ever before to support our teachers towards meeting the first 90 days outcomes, which puts our teachers on a critical path towards extraordinary broader student outcomes.
Your support of TFA right now will provide critical training for Teach For America educators in the first 90 days to catalyze their learning in the following:
-Planning and delivering rigorous instruction
-Creating and maintaining productive, engaging, and inclusive learning environments
-Build the foundations for sustaining themselves as teachers through challenges compounded by the pandemic and systemic racism
-Building meaningful relationships with students, families, and colleagues
Realizing educational equity and excellence will take a broad and diverse coalition of people-of diverse races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, political views, and other aspects of identity and spheres of influence- united around a common purpose and shared values.
We know that the change effort must be shaped by those of us who are most directly impacted by educational inequity. We also know that progress is only possible if each of us works effectively across lines of difference-with students, parents, partners, and each other-and if each of us understands and leverages the assets we bring to this work based on our identities and life experiences.
This understanding guides our strategy as we pursue our mission, and impacts how we allocate resources to recruit, select, train, support, retain, and engage corps members, alumni, and staff. In all we do, we act on the following beliefs.
Diversity is crucial for successful change efforts and is one of Teach For America's greatest strengths.
The full potential of our diverse network will be reached only when we are an inclusive community.
The predictability of success or failure for our students or individuals in our organization should not correlate with any social, cultural, or other identity-based factors.
Organization name
Teach For America - Dallas-Fort Worth
Causes
Education - K-12
Operating Budget
$3,000,000 - $9,999,999
Counties Served
Dallas, Tarrant
BIPOC Serving
Black or African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latinx
BIPOC Leadership
Executive Director/CEO
Equity Statement
Equity Statement
Address
3000 Pegasus Park Drive #1045