S2 Bonus: Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary

School Colors

Brooklyn Deep

Politics, Education, Government, News

5 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I know this work can take you under if you let it, so I try not to let it take me." Pat Mitchell is the beloved longtime principal of P.S. 48, an elementary school in South Jamaica. She cares deeply about her students, many of whom struggle with poverty and unstable housing. While school was often a place of stability for her students and their families, COVID-19 changed everything. In this special episode, we follow the first pandemic school year through the eyes of Ms. Mitchell.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Peace, y'all. Before we get to the end of this season of school colors, we need to take a bit of a detour.
0:08.1	Most of this season has been about diversity in District 28. We've talked about how the District 28 diversity planning process was stopped by COVID-19.
0:17.1	But we haven't really talked about the pandemic itself or how it affected education.
0:22.7	In this bonus episode, we look at the pandemic through the eyes of one elementary school principal.
0:28.5	Good morning. Is this Principal Mitchell?
0:30.7	It is.
0:31.4	Hi, this is Max Friedman from School Colors.
0:34.1	Hi, how are you?
0:35.7	I am doing all right. How are you?
0:39.3	Good. I'm overwhelmed.
0:43.1	You first met Pat Mitchell in episode six.
0:46.0	She was a member of the District 28 Diversity Working Group and the longtime principal of PS48.
0:51.4	The first time I talked to Miss Mitchell was on the phone.
0:54.3	First, I actually would just love it if you would just tell me about your school.
0:57.1	Oh, okay. So yes.
0:58.9	So our school is an amazing place to work.
1:03.0	We're in the heart of South Jamaica and Queens, New York.
1:07.3	Although this has been a historically African-American area, many of the new families are immigrants, and PS48 is increasingly multilingual.
1:15.8	Her scholars speak Urdu, Bengali, Hindu, Mandinka, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and more.
1:22.3	The scholars that come into our building are, for the most part, undersisturbed and come from a myriad of backgrounds
1:29.2	that include poverty at the very, very top of the list, but then all of the risk factors
1:36.5	that poverty brings with it. So chronic absenteeism, children who are undernourished or malnourished, children who have parents who are incarcerated,
	...

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