Maya Gwynn
With KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn with Black Perspectives IE, a show where we learn about the amazing things members of the Black community are doing in the Inland Empire. My guest today is Dr Cherina Betters, Chief of Equity and Access for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Cherina Betters
Thank you for having me.
Maya Gwynn
Of course. So, you are the first to serve as the Chief of Equity and Access for the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, which is a huge honor. Can you tell me about the excitement and the difficulties that come with being the first to serve in a role like this?
Dr. Cherina Betters
Yeah, absolutely. I think anytime you're tapped with the first of something, it brings on its own weight. It brings on its own pressure. When you're talking about the work that I do equity and especially in our current political context, specifically as it relates to misunderstandings about what does it mean when we have a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, there's some challenges embedded with it, but if you focus on the challenges, you miss the reward and the opportunity that exists with it. And I always tell folks that as much as I am proud to be the first. My goal was not to be the last.
Maya Gwynn
How do you deal with the pressure that comes with a title like that, especially in this time where there is a clear attack on DEI initiatives?
Dr. Cherina Betters
My concern is for our democracy. And I want to begin to center these conversations not limited to diversity, equity or inclusion. I want to talk about the state of our democracy and the future of our democracy, if we don't come to a place where we recognize that those conversations and to have discourse, civil discourse is needed and necessary. But what we don't have is a vehicle for it. This is, to me, DEI is the vehicle for that civil discourse, to be able to hold space. I think one of the fundamental challenges when it comes to these conversations, however, is that not everybody sees himself in it, because we've decided to demonize it and make it about maybe, you know, the melanin in one skin or somebody's economic standing, as opposed to centering the conversation about each and every. And each and every - there's always room to discuss each and every so my hope is that our democracy continues to thrive and strive to become a more perfect union by focusing and centering conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Maya Gwynn
Your work focuses on building relationships to help students succeed. Can you share a moment when a connection or partnership you made had the potential to change the trajectory of a student's life?
Dr. Cherina Betters
My goodness, you know, I was doing this thing called a Williams Visit. That's just a part of a check and balance for our government that in the state of California, that involves us ensuring that students have what they need. So we were in a particular school district. I was at a school site. Part of my role was to announce why we were there. We do our thing. The team checks everything. And at the end of it, a student came up to me, and they had taken a piece of foil from this bubble gum wrapper, and they had shaped it into a heart, and they had just put their name, and they said, I love you, and they just signed their little name to it. And the student, male student, on top of that, he like, leaned over to me, and he just said, he called me auntie, and he goes, this is the first time I ever felt loved in school. I didn't even have a one to one conversation with him. And to me, it's those moments. It's those things, and you oftentimes in education, don't get to have the opportunity for somebody to freeze you like that and make you reflective and say even a thank you. But the notion that people don't know when they're in the presence of somebody who genuinely cares for them.
Maya Gwynn
You have a lot of degrees, which is incredible. For you to be in school for this long did you have someone early on who made like, a really big impact, like a teacher or a mentor when you were starting your education journey?
Dr. Cherina Betters
One that really stands out to me. Has to be when I was in middle school. And it was actually some school counselors, and they received two young white ladies. But I just remember I grew up primarily in Arizona, and this was at the time before Arizona had Martin Luther King Jr holiday, and there was this big old controversy and it cost them the Super Bowl. They refused to pass Martin Luther King Day, yeah, and they got boycotted. I just remember, you know, growing up in school, there weren't a lot of people that I could point to that maybe look like me or shared some hair follicles that I had, right? MLK was pretty much it, but people will still talk about them. So I just remember being in middle school, these counselors came to me and they said, “Hey, listen, ASU, Arizona State University is having some statewide written word about the importance of MLK.” And they asked me to write something and to submit it. And I was like, Man, I'm about to write. And I didn't think about it, right? I mean, I played him, like, I got you. I want to play basketball with my friends. And I remember, like, the next day they came up to me, they're like, Hey, did you write it? I was like, yeah, yeah, um, it's in my backpack. Man, I must have ran a class and wrote something real quick and typed a little something something up, and I gave it to them, and they submitted it. It ends up winning second. And I remember I went to, you know, city council, and they recognized me. I remember I went to a school board meeting. They recognized me. And I was like, hey, you know this is pretty cool. And they called me into their office, these counselors. And I was sitting down, they had this book, and the book was like, something like the 50 greatest, I don't know, whatever black folks, whatever it was. And I'm flipping through this book, and I'm like, Oh, I'm a big Oprah Winfrey girl. Oprah, if you listening, listen, I know the show is over, and I am willing to go to Africa, Talk to your little girl school, hook me up. Anyway, so I'm sitting there, and I saw Oprah, and that just took me out. Maya Angelou, took me out. And I'm like, oh, man, these people are great. I get to the end of the book, and when I get to the end of the book, there's blank pages. And they said, What do you see? I looked up at them. I said, blank pages, like, what you see? And they said, Look again. And I was staring hard. I could tell they knew I was staring hard. And one of them put her hands on top of the book, I'm still holding it, and they looked at each other, and they looked at me, and one of them said, Cherina, we expect your picture to be in this book. And I gotta tell you, it scared the holy heck. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know that somebody saw me. I mean, you're talking about everybody on one book that had ever, in my opinion, done anything, and they said, me, me. My face is supposed to be in this book? But I want you to know, to answer your question, it was those things, that fed into me.
Maya Gwynn
We're gonna move into our rapid fire question, if your work had a theme song, what would it be?
Dr. Cherina Betters
All I do is win win win no matter what. That’s what I’m out here doing.
Maya Gwynn
If you had to teach a master class or give a TED talk in a random skill, what would it be?
Dr. Cherina Betters
Holding on, keeping the faith. There's a poem that says, when you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. Keep the faith. That's what the conversation is going to be about.
Maya Gwynn
Last question, favorite IE restaurant or landmark, that reminds you of the Inland Empire?
Dr. Cherina Betters
Why are you going to do me like this? Okay, places like In and Out. There's this Mexican spot I used to go to called Casa Sanchez. That was my jam. I used to tear that place up. These places just remind me of the IE. They remind me of home. They remind me of the experience.
Maya Gwynn
Thank you so much for being here today. How can people keep up with your work and support you?
Dr. Cherina Betters
You can always follow me on my socials. I use my whole real government name, so it's literally Cherina Betters. I'm not creative at all. You can always catch me on the website for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Under the superintendent's tab, there's an equity tab, you're gonna see my little smiling face. So always grateful for anybody that wants to engage in conversation and do right. Just do right.
Maya Gwynn
Thank you so much for being here and for your optimism. You just lit up the whole room as soon as you came in. Dr Cherina Betters is Chief of Equity and Access for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Support for this segment comes from the Black Equity Fund at IECF, advancing racial equity and supporting long term investments in black led organizations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Join us next week for Black Perspectives IE. For KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn. Thank you.
