On a Different Pathway

Jasmine Fernández, Ed.L.D.'25, had worked in Virginia. She had worked in New York, in the city where she was born. But she had never worked in the Deep South, so when it came time to pick her location for her doctoral residency, she started thinking about Tennessee. That shift came after taking a class on education reform with Professor Jal Mehta, who shared a report that showed an eye-opening fact: A big swing in student demographics in U.S. public schools meant there was a growing number of students of color, primarily Black and Latine, who were now residing not just in big cities, but in suburban and rural parts of the country. 

“We were having these really rich discussions about where we serve and what are the challenges,” Fernández says, “and it started to pique my interest because my career has been historically in what I would say larger urban metropolitan school districts. I was eager to serve in a different political context to deepen my understanding of how to enact system-level change, particularly for Latine students, the fastest-growing population in U.S. public schools, including in Tennessee.”

She began focusing some of her coursework on Nashville Public Schools, and then connected with Keri Randolph, Ed.L.D.'20, executive director of the nonprofit Chattanooga 2.0. Randolph told her something, she says, that really stuck. 

“She said, ‘Chattanooga is big enough to matter, but small enough to innovate.’” After doing extensive research on the district, Fernández decided to spend her Ed.L.D. residency with Hamilton County Schools, where she has been focusing for the past year on strengthening “belonging” for Latine students, who make up 22% of the district’s student population. She has done this, she says, by examining and influencing the conditions and opportunities that shape Latine students’ sense of belonging across multiple environments, such as schools, the district office, and the broader community.

Her own sense of belonging, and her interest in this work, is rooted in her experience growing up in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Nicaraguan and Puerto Rican parents, including one who was behind bars. She says it’s why she decided to pursue a career in public education.

“My father was incarcerated from when I was in the third grade until I was a senior in college, and he passed away behind bars in 2011,” she says. “When I talk about my story, I always say that it was educators. It was my third-grade teacher, Ms. Long. It was my guidance counselor, Ms. Brown. My high school teacher, Mrs. Swersky. All these educators who saw beyond my circumstance and believed in my potential and helped me to get to where I am.” 

"In the United States, there are 2.7 million children under the age of 18 who have an incarcerated parent,” she says, and 10 million children and young adults overall who will experience parental incarceration at some point in their lifetime. “There's a lot of data that shows it's so much harder for children who've experienced parental incarceration to complete college, let alone get a doctorate. By the statistics, I'm not supposed to be where I'm at today.”

Fernández credits the wrap around services she received as a young person and the healing work she has done since then for allowing her to now tell her story — and encourage young people with similar backgrounds that she has worked with over the years in afterschool programs and national nonprofits to also tell theirs. “For me, it’s important that other children who are experiencing parental incarceration know that their parent’ circumstances and mistakes does not define them,” she says. “For me, I felt like I needed to go back and serve in public education as a personal obligation because of what it did for me. I really do believe that education is what afforded me a different pathway to where I am today. And so that's a part of my story that I, over the last couple of years, have publicly shared more openly. Especially in this day and age, I want to make sure that wherever I go, wherever my career takes me, that I continue to amplify the voices of children who are impacted by parental incarceration.”

Those stories are important, she says. 

“With our Ed.L.D. capstone, there's a chapter that everyone has to do, and it's about what you’ve learned about yourself as a result of this residency. We call it the implications of self,” she says. “For me, something I've always known is that I care deeply about people, about community, about stories.” She says the experience of being in the Ed.L.D. Program and working in Tennessee for her residency has reinforced that the work of educators has to be both theoretical and personal. “I have to care enough for people but also hold the system accountable and make sure I am pushing for structural change but not at the expense of students and staff,” she says.” There has to be a balance.”