One Year into COVID-19

Larkin Tackett
2 min read

In many ways, today feels like the 387th day of March, 2020. 

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, our team of consultants is holding a tension. On the one hand, we are grateful to our clients for the opportunity to grow and to serve from the safety of Zoom. One the other hand, we feel the tremendous pressure, trauma, and learning loss the pandemic has caused, especially for students from Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and low-income communities.

Since the first school closures a year ago, MAYA has added three additional consultants, and over 25 new engagements and clients. Our consultants are leading MBK Scholars, which doubled the number of young men of color in Central Texas matriculating to college and career programs after high school. We identified opportunities to increase Kindergarten readiness by infusing systems and practices with the latest evidence of early brain development and relational health. MAYA consultants designed the KIPP Foundation’s College and Career Success Curriculum and supported high schools and universities in Texas and Tennessee to use continuous improvement practices and DEI as key strategies to accelerate postsecondary readiness and success.  The growing demand for the MAYA team’s expertise is a testament that our mission is more important than ever as we navigate the pandemic. 

Throughout our work and during this difficult year, our team has been inspired by the words of award-winning poet, activist, author and leader, Sonya Renee Taylor. “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was never normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, My friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” 

MAYA stands in partnership with our clients and communities to stitch a garment with threads of educational equity and excellence in which all children and families thrive.

 

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Larkin Tackett

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