How Community and School Choice Transformed Denisha Merriweather’s Life

She went on to become the first in her family to graduate college and later earned a master’s degree. Now she leads Black Minds Matter, supporting black school leaders and creating opportunities for families across the country. So I want to know. How does a story like DIA’s become a movement? And what will it take to make sure opportunity reaches every child, not just the lucky few?

Denisha, welcome to the show,

Denisha. Once again, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you on and um, this is gonna be a fun conversation.

Denisha Merriweather: Yes, thank you so much for having me on. It’s always a pleasure.

Kevin P. Chavous: You know, uh, your story is so compelling, and look, I know you’ve heard that a lot, but with the work you’re doing, uh, the work that you know, I’m passionate about in terms of making sure that every child feels valued and feels like that they can go to a school that works for them.

I mean, you epitomize that. And I have to say, uh, failing third grade twice. Um, what did that feel like? And talk about that recovery period because for you to be in that place where you’re being told by the adults who have custody of your education that you can’t learn. Talk about that.

Denisha Merriweather: Yes. And you know, we are having this conversation.

I am, uh, well into my adult years and, you know, the impact of those early years, um, academically, they still weigh on me. You know, I have children now and I even think how, you know, I thank God for resilience because. Some of those early days and the, the challenges that I went through both, um, in my, my home and academically, my kids will never have to deal with those things, and that’s why I am passionate about the work that I do so that no kid across America should, um, have to deal with some of the things that I dealt with.

But, you know, growing up, I, I not only struggled in school, but I came from an unstable family home environment. We were oftentimes. Homeless and, you know, the, the definition, you know, going couch surfing and living in hotel rooms. We were not well off, um, living in Jacksonville, Florida, on the east side, it’s a community that’s written with poverty and high crime.

We often didn’t have lights, you know, we didn’t have water on, and that spilled over into the classroom. I, I looked different from everyone. I acted different from everyone. And then I, academically I struggled. I come from a family of high school dropouts and education was not something that was valued.

Um, the Merriweather name followed me into the classroom, and teachers would sigh. This is kindergarten, first, second, third grade. Teachers would sigh visibly, oh, here goes another meriweather. You know, we, we gotta deal with another one in our, in our, in our class this year. That made me really despondent, you know, talk about feelings.

I did not feel very motivated or enthused about going into this, you know, into this place knowing that I looked different, um, than students and I was not reading or performing academically. Um, one of my first earliest memories of school. It was me, uh, asking to go to the restroom. I was raising my hand. I need to go, I need to go.

And the teacher said, no, no, you need to sit down. You don’t listen to me, so why should I listen to you? And I walked out. I walked up and got, you know, left out of class and she said, you need to leave. Go to the principal’s office. I know, no, this was about second grade. Yelling, screaming, no, she. Picks me up and starts to drag me outta class.

I’m holding onto the walls, holding onto the floor, trying to grab anything to keep from getting kicked outta class. And I remember that. I remember just like I actually wanted to learn. I actually wanted to be there, but I just, I. I, I didn’t know how to, this is second grade, and so I am, I’m now in a, a place where I’m looking at my children.

I’m like, wow, you know, developmentally their kids, you know, develop brain is not developed and. Kids throwing tantrums and all this stuff. You don’t blame the kid. You know, you kind of, you know, all these skills and stuff of dealing with children and what if someone dealt with me like a, a child in those early years didn’t help me and I had the opportunity and the, uh, so I felt the third grade twice, couldn’t read.

Um, taking my state assessments, um.

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If that sounds worth exploring, you can head to k12.com/podcast. Alright. Back to the conversation.

Denisha Merriweather: Couldn’t, couldn’t read a licking, you know, and masking it. Fighting in school was not a very good student when it comes to being disruptive and all this stuff. And, um, that’s, that’s what happened in those early years.

And it, it felt, it felt, it felt bad, you know, it felt like there was no hope. It felt like, you

Kevin P. Chavous: know, your story is so. Unfortunately, typical. Um, and there’s so much that comes from your story that’s informative. Uh, I’ve had a lot of shows where we talk with teachers and talk with parents and talk with students, and there are a couple realities.

One is that, uh. If, if a teacher doesn’t make sure that each and every child feels valued and worthy and worth being there, uh, in the classroom, then they’re not going to do well. And the other reality though, is sometimes it takes just one. Positive influence to turn things around. And in your life, in your world, uh, you ended up, uh, living with your godmother who really valued you and instilled that belief that can do belief in you.

And then you changed schools and you went to a school where you were embraced. Uh, h how did that feel? And I, and I guess the real question is, when did you really believe you could succeed in school after those two factors?

Denisha Merriweather: Yeah. You, you hit the nail on the head, Kevin, because one, I. My godmother has been that, that stable person in my life since the, the moment I was born.

And then to go and live with her permanently. She had always, you know, grounded me in, in church and she’s like, you need to go to church. You know, and those are the types of things that happened just on weekends when I started to live with her permanently. That gave me stability. It did. And that is some, that’s a factor in my.

A story that I don’t often talk about, like kids having stability matters, you know, that that matters. Um, and I started going to a private school. She didn’t have, her income was not that much better. You know, she, she had stable, uh, income. She was a physical therapist, but she. Was able to put me in a private school on a scholarship on the tax credit scholarship in Florida, and she, her mission was.

You need to, you need to get out of this environment that you’re stuck in. I was changing schools often and she knew that finding a stable environment for me, um, academically. Now, this was also the school that our church had started, and so she wanted me to be around. You know, everyone that, that would correct my behavior.

’cause I was a, I was a, you know, I morphed during the school, uh, day. I was someplace some on different, on Sunday morning. I was another, another kid. No one would ever know that Denisha was causing a ruckus in them people’s school building. And she knew that that would help. You know, get me in the, and it did.

And so I went from being around, you know, in a, in a home environment where it didn’t seem like my biological mother cared. And then I went into school and it didn’t seem like the teachers cared, nor my peers. And that totally shifted. I went from a home then to a home environment where my godmother loved me and wanted to put me in environments where that love would also be seen.

The school environment. The teachers cared deeply. Not only about my academic success, but whole, all around wraparound and my peers, you know, I think that’s some, that’s a part where, uh, peers are very important. You’re, you know, interact. So yeah, we need teachers to love on students and show that they care, but also the, the kids who you are in interacting with, those also need to be sound and.

I came into the sixth grade at this school not knowing how to read on grade level and reading out loud from a basic sense of reading out loud. Students weren’t laughing at me like they were at other schools. They weren’t laughing. They were actually trying to help, you know, and being very encouraging.

You got this girl, you know, like you can do it. That was motivating. As well, everyone making the honor roll and then you’re the only one. It was a culture of excellence and I rose to the challenge, um, and I’m so happy for it.

Kevin P. Chavous: One thing that’s real powerful that, um, about your story as a result of that support, being in a new school, having the stability in your home life after school hours, um, you excelled.

Um. You the first Merriweather, you changed the trajectory of the Merriweather name to, uh, go to college. At graduate from college. You have a master’s degree. You’ve had various work experiences, uh, from the American Federation of Children to, uh, department of Education. You’ve testified in Congress. You spoke at a rally school choice rally with thousands of people at some point in time though.

You realize that just telling your story wasn’t enough. That in order to play a major role in, in contributing to the conversation about parents having the right to choose what’s best for their children and children having options other than the school that’s located in their zip code, what led you to really focus on moving beyond just.

The symbol to the activists for parents and families

Denisha Merriweather: of course. And so much of the work that we’re both doing and storytelling is sharing those powerful stories. That’s it’s not, um, it’s not for the faint of heart. And you do a beautiful job with your podcast sharing so many stories, and I appreciate you having me on because it, it is important to share.

But to your point, when I was. In high school, the scholarship program had been sued in Florida, and this is the program that I’d benefited from. Many, all if not all of the students at my, uh, private school benefited from this program. The teacher’s union was suing the program and I had no idea at the, at the moment it was a little bit confusing to me what was going on in the politic, in the politics realm of this movement in the early years.

And there were many solicitations to share stories and, you know, in the suit, you know, share the tagline. And, and I was just, you know, thinking that really, uh, during those early years that really. Impacted me a lot and it hurt me because I was almost done with my education. I was in high school, high school, senior, um, going off about to go off to college.

And this little kid at my school, he was about in kindergarten, he was involved in one of the commercials that we were shooting to end the suit, drop the suit, and he came to me. He’s like, wait, Denisha, am I gonna get kicked out? And because you know, this little kindergarten kid, he’s, he’s, you know, he, he, his eyes are so, you know, curious and he was just so happy to be a part of this commercial that was gonna be aired on television across the state, and it hit him.

What are we talking about? Am I, wait a minute, am I gonna be kicked outta my school? And for me that, that. Turn the page. I don’t want that to happen. I know that there are students who have experienced way more trauma in, in their education than I had, and I don’t want any kid to experience trauma in school.

I want them to live full, bright, healthy lives and be successful. Um, and that is one of the moments that turned the page for me. Another moment that turned the page for me was actually when our, our governor, uh, at the time, Charlie Chris, he was a Republican governor and then he, uh, supported school choice.

I was able to be, again, in a high school student at the Florida Capitol, receiving a signing pin. He’s photos everywhere. Um, of me receiving the signing pin from our governor, he expanded the scholarship program in the state. And it was amazing, you know, everyone in my church, everyone in my community, I was also involved in police athletic league.

They, everyone was raving Denisha. We saw this, this is amazing. I’m like, yes, local celebrity. Um, the, the moment he decided to run again, but this time as a Democrat, he said, oh, these people were pulling my leg. They were, you know, this was some ploy to get me to do it. And I don’t support this scholarship program anymore.

You know, I’m going to eject all these kids from the schools. I’m going to end funding. And I got a, again, I got a whiff of the politics and I began to dive deeper instead of just sharing my story and, you know, just sharing at events across the country, I began to put my ear to the ground and try to get a get.

A wave on what? What is this politics that’s going on? I don’t quite understand. I don’t, I don’t get it. And why are students and parents, the political football during this time, how can I help combat this? And that’s, that’s, those are the two moments early on where I decided that, you know, I wanna go a little bit deeper.

I wanna go a little bit deeper in this movement of education reform and, and help make sure that the voices of the movement are the ones who. Face front and center, um, be that the students who are benefiting from the program, um, or the, the education entrepreneurs who are, you know, utilizing these programs to help students more, I want for the, the beneficiaries, the voices in this movement to be face, be the face of the movement.

And so that when these. Uh, these things happen in the, in the world, just, just random acts. We will be able to point to the folks who are really at the center at the heart.

Kevin P. Chavous: One of the most crippling aspects of, uh, education in America is frankly the politics of education. When you recite your story, and I’ve heard similar stories like it, uh, this idea of, of what’s best for children or.

How can we ensure that things we know will help children learn, continue to grow and thrive? That gets lost in the political sphere. You’ve been active, uh, to by using your voice to speak out against. Ludicrous, insane sort of, uh, results that come from the politics of education, but you’ve landed in an interesting place.

Um, studies show, statistics show that only 6% of America’s teachers or African-American, and only 1%. Uh, African American men and, and there are a, a, a few number of African American school leaders. You founded Black Minds Matter, uh, as a way to highlight the fact that we need to have. Support for these fledgling school leaders who are doing a tremendous job in the classroom, but oftentimes get overlooked, oftentimes aren’t as politically connected.

And, uh, you’ve done an amazing job bringing together school leaders from all walks of life to celebrate them and to make sure that their voices are heard. Talk a little bit about Black Minds matter.

Denisha Merriweather: Yes. Um, I started this project in 2020 and this is the time of civil unrest. You know, not, not, uh, not surprising.

This is when George Floyd was murdered and everyone was getting canceled, left and right for not promoting, um, black excellence and. You know, at a, at the initial time, I’m looking around like, you know, this might actually help the education freedom movement black students can’t read. You know, when we look at national statistics, we look at NAP scores and recent NAP scores have just again confirmed that African-American students are far and far behind.

This was before COVID, and so we can’t blame COVID for the academic outcomes of black and brown. Kids in the country, only 15% of black kids are reading on grade level. And that’s very near to my heart because I couldn’t read and struggled for a very long time. And so I look at, looked at this, the, the cancel movement and thought, well, we’ll we’re gonna cancel the act, these poor academic outcomes for students, but instead we supported.

Pancake mix and syrup being canceled and you know, those frustrations got bottled up in an op-ed. And little did I know that that op-ed titled Black Minds Matter would resonate with so many and people would reach out and say, what more are you gonna do? This is, this is a very provocative topic, and I’m like, wait a minute.

We’ve been talking about school choice. For more than 30 years. This is not, this is not new, but I’ll run with the provocative name. And so running with this, you know, name of Black Minds Matter and doing a deep dive, really thanks to the, the, the great work at, um, step Up for Students Ron Mattis and.

Looking at our, our history and our, and our people. And, um, I went to a black founded school. I never thought for a moment, oh, I went to a black founded school. That it, it never crossed my mind that that was, um, a thing or that it was unique. And I, I discovered we, we went down this rabbit hole of how many, just how many can we find?

Across the country, how many black founded schools are out there? We are still expanding our directory, but we have over 500 schools that we’ve just, you know, rummaged through, um, online databases to, to find that’s a remarkable number. And then went, went a little deeper, like, okay. Let’s connect with these people.

These people are at the forefront of the movement. They are beneficiaries on so many aspects. So they have students and parents in their schools, they are educators. All of these, you know, check the boxes, you know, they’re minorities. They’re black and brown people. Um, and they have to, they’re at the implementation phase two of this movement.

They’re working. With their, oftentimes their scholarship granting organizations and the state legislature and parents and students to get them enrolled on the programs. We’re not hearing from them on what’s working, what’s not working. Um. Let’s, let’s, let’s hear from them. And it’s been really cool to hear these education entrepreneurs to share, hear, hear their stories.

You know, to your point, they’re, they’re mostly, uh, former public school teachers who decided, you know, I wanna help kids. More, I wanna help kids more. My hands are a little bit tied, you know, in the district, and I can’t do any worse. And I wanna help these kids get a, a better, I wanna help kids get a better education.

Um, these education entrepreneurs and their, their stories there. Their missions, they’re so diverse. You know, you got the hippie dippy schools, you got the Montessori, you got the, you know, uh, financial literacy schools, the, the AI school, all girls, all boys, everything. So diverse, all with the same mission.

And I also wanted to hear and highlight the voices of all different types of school leaders. I, I don’t care about, you know, the school being a charter school or the school being a private school, or it being a homeschool or a micro school. We want, I wanna hear all the voices that’s out there. Um, and that also set us apart.

We were agnostic as to what type of schooling environment we would promote and, um. The, the stories, the community so vibrant. You know, they, they hadn’t been heard before. They also, which is interesting, I would reach out and say, Hey, you’re a black school founder, I wanna hear from you. They would kind of scratch their head like, you know, I never thought about it like that.

You know, like, I never, I, I didn’t think that. And so even with the work of Black Minds Matter, they’re now branding themselves and their own promotion of their. School and their personal brands as black school founders and, uh, in inviting that into their identity because before they weren’t even, you know, their head down in the work trying to give kids a high quality education.

And what I came in and did was say, Hey, can you lift your head out of the sand and lend your voice to getting high quality bills passed? Um, and they were all for it.

Kevin P. Chavous: Yeah. And you’ve done amazing work with it. You know, uh, hearing you talk about the different types of schools and the diversity in terms of approaches to educating our children, meeting kids where they are.

No two children are light. So there shouldn’t just be one system that kids, uh, learn in. Uh. It just, it just speaks to the fact that it’s okay to share those voices and it’s also okay for us to embrace these micro schools and hybrid schools and ai. When you think about what’s coming down the pipe, now that you’ve become more steeped and as you said, have done a deeper dive, not just in educational freedom or school choice, but really what’s going on in the nitty gritty of schooling, uh, what excites you?

And, and what? What are you concerned about in terms of the future of education?

Denisha Merriweather: Well, I think what’s exciting, we, at the federal level, we now have a federal tax credit and everyone is really looking forward to how this is gonna play out and rollout and. Uh, rules making and all the things, how are we gonna, uh, provide every student in America with opportunity?

And I think that is going to continue a very long conversation around what schooling looks like in America. I’m really excited that maybe now we deal with compulsory, the compulsory law. We mandate the kids go to school, um, every day for so many hours. You know, this. The attendance law is so strict and what, what would it look like to have.

A free system of education that is totally opt, opt-in, opt out and free. Um, I, I, especially since we’re living in a global, you know, economy where we can catch a flight and go get on the train and go bullet trains, metros, and all the different forms of transportation, AI is increasing in many of the mundane day to day.

You know, large language systems that we deal with can be easily done away within and, uh, taken over by ai. So what would it look like to have more community with, for students? For, um, their lives and for our family’s lives. That is real. That’s that, that excites me to, you know, I love seeing kids outside playing when I’m driving and I see kids outside, you know, playing and that is so cool.

And I, that, that’s, that’s what, that’s what excites me. Um. I, I, I’m really looking forward to, and we see a little bit of it to be honest, in across the country we have where, uh, parents are now homeschooling at higher rate. Um, been before, um, even in the black, in the black community, they had the highest de, highest growth, um, in demographic group for homeschooling.

And this is post COVID in Florida. Um, many of the, the families who are now taking scholarship are taking scholarship to homeschool. And so, uh, I’m hoping that, you know. Hopefully the system will not just every student opts in to homeschool in order for this to happen. You know, my big dream of ending compulsory.

But that’s also a way to do it where parents say, well, you know what? In order to have the freedom of my kid to come and go and do. We’re just gonna homeschool. And homeschool is now so diverse. And you, it’s not just sitting at home anymore, it’s micro schools. It’s, uh, it, it’s, it is really cool to see this, uh, growth.

Um, I know I really got excited about that one. What was the next part? What was the other part of your question?

Kevin P. Chavous: I, I asked you, and this is the last question. What, what, what are your concerns? Because I, I, I agree with you that the future, uh, horizon, particularly in terms of, you know, uh, parental choice, school choice, educational freedom options is gonna grow, but.

It also suggests that the system is going to change radically. And you’re, you’re right. I mean, people are gonna talk about compulsory education, they’re gonna talk about more specialty schools, hybrid schools, home schools, what have you, uh, in the wake of all that, uh, what are you concerned about?

Denisha Merriweather: Well, I, I’m concerned about, this is kind of a full circle because the students who.

This movement intended to support and to highlight are the low income students, the students, the most vulnerable kids in the system. Those students are more often than not black and brown, and they are not privileged of, you know, my big dream on this side of, you know, parents being able to opt their kids out and take them to France if they want, those are the kids are, they won’t have those.

Freedoms, um, as much unless we focus on them and provide a space for them to still have access to, uh, to those, uh, to education freedom. And so the movement has grown substantially and we’ve achieved so much in the education reform space. But we also have a new problem where we really still have to do our main mission of focusing on low income students.

And so I, I, I, most of the students in the system will remain in the traditional public school system. We still have a large minority of students who are choosing about 7 million kids, you know, as opposed to. 74 million, you know, kids in the system. Um, and so we, we still need to focus on, on them and making sure that they have a high quality education.

And so that does that, that, that concerns me. It also concerns me that, you know, the education entrepreneur, um, being supported in creating learning environments. Because we have so many opportunities now for kids to pick and choose, but we are still seeing that there are not enough op enough outlets for families to choose, um, and pick for their kids.

And so we still need folks to, we need folks not still, we don’t have a robust. System of supporting entrepreneurs. And so my hope is that, you know, the big foundations now that the now we, that we have a stable, um, income source from this federal tax credit that now more foundations and, um, will get on board for profit, um, industries will get on board.

Supporting education entrepreneurs, because I do think that that is also, if we don’t focus in on these two groups of people, we will be back at square one. You know, we will really lose, um, uh, lose what we intended to do. And so, uh, yeah, that, that’s it.

Kevin P. Chavous: Well, Denisha, uh, Denisha, I really think that you, uh, hit the nail on the head, those legitimate concerns.

Uh, we need to remember why we got involved in this movement. To begin with. At the end of the day, if one child is not learning, no child is really learning. We all suffer. Denisha Merriweather. Allen, thank you so much for joining us on what I want to know.

Denisha Merriweather: Thank you, Kevin. Thank you so much for having me on.

It is been a pleasure. This has been so fun and I appreciate it.

Kevin P. Chavous: Thanks for listening to What I Want to know. Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show. On Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education and write a review of the show.

I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using hashtag WI WT K on social media. That’s hashtag WI WT K. For more information on Stride and online education, visit stride learning.com. I’m your host, Kevin p. Chavous. Thank you for joining. What I want to know.