Antonio Arellano says he felt supported by faculty members as he pursued a degree in education at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.
But the 2019 SJU graduate also felt he could have used a mentor whom he might have gone to for advice about the unique challenges a person of color can face as they embark on a career in the teaching profession.
“There were times when I had a really big case of imposter syndrome, wondering if I belonged here or if I was living up to other people’s expectations,” Arellano said. “I didn’t have anyone I could truly talk to about that. I didn’t even figure out what imposter syndrome was until I started working and people described it to me. I was like ‘Holy cow, that’s exactly how I felt.’
“Knowing that it was an actual thing gave me a greater sense of confidence, and it would have been helpful to hear that perspective from others when I was a student.”
His own experiences are a big part of why Arellano – now in his second year as a third-grade teacher at Rosemount Elementary School on the southern edge of the Twin Cities metro area – jumped at the chance to get involved with the education department’s Teacher Leaders of Color Program.
The initiative – now in its second year – offers students scholarship assistance, professional development opportunities (such as an on-campus panel discussion with three leaders of the St. Cloud school district’s family advocate groups held on Feb. 25) and the chance for additional community building outside of what already exists in the department as a whole.
It also pairs students of color pursuing education degrees with teachers of color, who provide mentorship through in-person and virtual meetings.
“Teachers are shaping our future, and I’m not sure enough people fully realize that,” Arellano said. “We need more teachers of color because we need our students to know and understand different perspectives. It’s important for me to be a backbone for teaching candidates of color as they pursue their goal of getting into the teaching field.”
The need for additional teachers of color is real. Minnesota Department of Education figures show that while 36.7 percent of the state’s student population identify as students of color or American Indian, just 5.9 percent of the teacher workforce meet that description.
“Our teacher workforce does not reflect the diversity of our student population,” CSB and SJU education professor Allison Spenader said. “That’s why among all colleges of education, there’s been a real focus on how we get more people – who would be excellent teachers – involved in the profession.”
Spenader said an equity audit of the education department conducted in 2019, as well as other less formal conversations, showed a need to increase efforts to effectively support students of color.
“We had heard from some of our students of color that the feeling of community wasn’t always as strong,” she said. “So we were looking for more ways to offer support to some of our candidates in order to meet the needs they were facing.”
That’s why the department applied for and received a pair of two-year Collaborative Urban and Greater Minnesota Educators of Color (CUGMEC) grants from the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board. They are being overseen by Spenader, Dr. Madeleine Israelson, Dr. Jennifer Meagher and Mary Jo Leighton.
The grants – which utilize funding approved by the state legislature – were awarded in the summer of 2023, and the first cohort featuring 17 students began that fall. The mentorship component began with the second cohort – which includes 19 students – at the start of this school year.
“We already have (CSB and SJU) graduates participating as mentors, but our hope is this becomes cyclical,” said Spenader, one of the program’s grant coordinator. “That we have participants who go from being mentees to mentors.”
Arellano is currently working with education majors Maria Dean and Robert Adderley, and both said the experience has been tremendously helpful.
“It’s just helpful to be able to talk about diversity in a safe space,” said Dean, who worked with kindergartners at Madison Elementary in St. Cloud last semester, and is currently working with fourth-grade students at Kennedy Elementary School in St. Joseph.
“A lot of my classes do focus on that, and I think every student – whether they are persons of color or not – gets how important it is to be able to work with different people from different backgrounds or with different disabilities. But this is more personal. It helps to be able to ask questions of someone who has been through some of the same experiences I might be about to face.”
“It really helps to hear from someone around the same age range who is now in the classroom every day,” Adderley added.
“You can draw from his experiences, especially as a person-of-color and as a male in what tends to be a more female-dominated field.”