Dr. Chonika Coleman-King
Executive Director
Dr. Chonika Coleman-King is currently Assistant Professor of Teachers, Schools, and Society at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on how best to prepare teachers and teacher candidates to teach with an emphasis on social justice in schools that serve economically disadvantaged children and students of color, specifically Black children. Her research interests also include the development of culturally responsive curriculum and teaching practices across content areas. Additionally, Dr. Coleman-King focuses her work on anti-racist teachers, urban education, and the experiences of Black immigrant and Black American youth in U.S. schools. Dr. Coleman-King is the author of the book, The (Re-)Making of a Black American: Tracing the Racial and Ethnic Socialization of Caribbean American Youth which documents the complex interplay between race, class, and immigrant status for Afro-Caribbean immigrant youth and the role of schools and families in helping students develop their racial and ethnic identities. Her grants include the National Science Foundation, Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) grant for $390,000 and the National Science Foundation, Discovery Research preK-12 (DRK-12) grant for $45,000. She also has a grant for $850,000 from Knox County Schools, where she is tasked with helping educators develop competencies around teaching racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically minoritized students.
Dr. Taryrn Brown
Project Director
Dr. Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Teachers, Schools, and Society program and the Program Coordinator for the Schools, Society and Policy Specialization in Education Sciences at the University of Florida. Her program of research has three major foci: the intersection of gender, race, and class in the lives of Black women and girls in and out of school settings; amplifying Black women and girls’ voices in prevention science; and the role parents, schools, and communities play in Black girls’ socialization, literacies, and identity construction. With research at the nexus of Black girlhood Studies and Black feminist thought, her work leverages various theoretical foundations (e.g., Black feminist theory, ecological systems theory; Black girl literacies; and Black girl cartography) and critical qualitative methodologies (e.g. youth participatory action research; photovoice; and photo elicitation). As a scholar-practitioner, her scholarship aims to amplify equity-centered pedagogies in teaching and learning. She is the founder of the Black Girlhood Collaborative, a collective space for research, teaching, and learning in Black girlhood.
Michael Scofield
Coordinator of Community Outreach and Research
Michael Scofield is a second year doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction concentrating on Teachers, Schools and Society at the University of Florida. As a second-generation educator, Michael’s passion for teaching was cultivated when he moved to Florida and taught at a Title I high school. During Michael’s 10 years as a teacher, he witnessed an inequitable system that created barriers for marginalized students especially regarding course offerings. It sparked his interest in advanced academic programs and how they can be leveraged to positively impact students. It is Michael’s hope that through his Ph.D. studies he will be able to gain a better understanding of educational policies that impact marginalized student groups, how to utilize teacher education programs to dismantle social barriers for students, and how advanced academic programs can support long-term educational success for marginalized groups.
Sophia De La Cruz
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Sophia De La Cruz is a 2023 Student Leader Intern at Akwaaba Freedom School from Lakeland, Florida, where she grew up in a family of several teachers. Her mom is a teacher who recently founded a bilingual Montessori school, “Mi Escuela Montessori” in Polk County, and her dad is an entrepreneur, successful business-owner and immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Her parents cultivated her passions for civil rights and educational equity, and she is currently pursuing a career in public service and legal advocacy, through which she hopes to combine her passions for education and foreign policy to internationalize and improve the quality of education in the U.S. and internationally. Sophia has worked with Akwaaba Freedom School since fall of 2021, and has helped earned $5,000 in grants for AFS research and enrichment trips through the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and Brown Center for Leadership and Service at UF. She has over 7 years of experience with mentorship and tutoring, as well as experience teaching English as a Language Assistant—or an English teacher—at UF’s English Language Institute, and leading regular workshops and trips at Pace Center for Girls of Alachua. She is excited to serve as an SLI during the summer to mentor and learn from 2023 scholars, and share her love for reading, language and global education.
K’Lor Simms
Servant Leader Intern
K’Lor Simms is a rising junior at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her passions for entrepreneurship, medicine, nutrition, and plant science inspired her to create her own major entitled Medicinal Food Science and Entrepreneurship. Her greatest inspiration is her grandmother, whom she observed as a little girl provide healing to their community through the use of herbs, foods, and selfless acts of service. Her upbringing in Jamaica has instilled in her a deep sense of community and a desire to give back to the less fortunate. In the future, she wants to pursue a career in medicine and find innovative ways to make healthcare more accessible to underprivileged communities. This summer, she hopes to serve as a role model to the scholars that with a creative and open mind, the possibilities to change the world for the better are endless.
Natalya Green
Graduate Research Assistant
Natalya Green, M.Ed., is a graduate research assistant for AFS. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida acquiring her degree in Educational Leadership with a focus in Education Policy. Her research interests align with improving educational outcomes for historically marginalized groups including children within the foster care system. When Natalya is not working, she enjoys spending time with her family and her pets.
Amy Christensen
Graduate Research Assistant
Amy Christensen is a first-year doctoral student in the Teachers, Schools, and Society program in the University of Florida’s School of Teaching and Learning. She was an elementary teacher in Alexandria, Virginia for 6 years, teaching first, second, and fifth grades. During her time as an educator, Amy’s excitement about anti-racist and social justice-oriented teaching grew. She is especially passionate about teaching through culturally sustaining picture books and justice and discourse-oriented math tasks. Amy’s research interests include critical consciousness development through teacher preparation programs, social justice learning through mathematics, and using culturally sustaining picture books to increase student reading engagement.
Thacher Loutin
Site Coordinator
Thacher Loutin is a first-year doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction concentrating on Critical Race Studies, Ethnicity and Culture at the University of Florida. Thacher had a very curious nature since childhood, having always loved learning for its own sake, even if it required a great deal of effort. She decided early on to devote her professional life to the study of education to which she has a genuine vocation. She has a decade of solid work experience as a teacher in the primary and secondary system (K-12). At the heart of her career aims is her unswerving desire to help students learn and better themselves, motivating them to become positive contributors to society. As a Critical Race Studies researcher her work contributes to educational initiatives that are centered on issues of social justice, diversity, and equity. She is committed to fighting against injustice and aiding in the development of education systems that are more equitable. She looks forward to developing a special research interest in diversity and culturally responsive teaching, educational and curriculum reform and or teaching and learning in multicultural societies and is also interested in critically analyzing the social processes that produce and sustain structural injustices in educational institutions. Thacher looks forward to serving Akwaaba Freedom School as a Site Coordinator.
Deandra West
Site Coordinator
Deandra West is a 2nd year doctoral student in the Curriculum and Instruction program, specializing in reading and literacy education at the University of Florida. She began teaching in 2015, where she taught elementary for 6 subsequent years. She became well acquainted with the disparity in the education system during these years and strived to enact culturally relevant practices to enrich the learning experience of her students. Her research interests include: the epistemology of a reader, identity and meaning construction, and BIPOC children’s literature. Her future research aims to highlight the literacy practices of students from marginalized communities, bringing value, positive change, and further developments to their education.
Chenelle Cobb
Servant Leader Intern
Chenelle Cobb is a senior at the University of Florida and majors in Elementary Education. Chenelle is relatively new to the Gainesville area and is from the Windy City. As a result of the intersectionality she experienced in education due to her race and disability, Chenelle is passionate about working in high-need communities and implementing Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT). Chenelle wants all children to know they are valued, loved, and capable. After graduation, Chenelle hopes to join Teach for America to partake in social justice and education reform. She will implement a Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Culturally Linguistically Sustaining Pedagogy (CLSP), and Socal Emotional Learning (SEL) framework in African American communities. For now, Chenelle enjoys interning at local Elementary schools in Alachua County where she strives to reach those deemed unreachable. Chenelle is excited to partake in closing the achievement gap as a Student Leader Intern.
Tykedra Horne
Servant Leader Intern
Tykedra Horne is a rising Junior at the University of Florida majoring in Health Education & Behavior and minoring in Florida Teaching. She is from Chattahoochee Florida, which is a small town located near Tallahassee, Florida. The community in Gadsden County helped Tykedra discover her passion for education and medicine. Her short-term goal is to become an educator during her gap years prior to medical school, to increase literacy rates among students in grades 9-12. Her long-term goal is to become a healthcare professional and reduce low health literacy rates in low-income communities.
Riya Chakraborty
Servant Leader Intern
Riya Chakraborty is a Doctoral Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in ESOL/Bilingual Education at the School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida. Her professional goals constitute contribution, advocacy, and agency in the field of equity and justice-oriented teacher education, bilingual/multilingual education, rural education, and higher education administration through teaching, research, and service. She is also enthusiastic about mentoring, professional development and taking leadership roles for the welfare of the teaching-learning community.
Fernande Jeune
Servant Leader Intern
Fernande is a first-year graduate student in Counselor Education pursuing dual tracks of School Counseling and Mental Health Counseling at the University of Florida. Her goals are to support the next generation through advocacy, encouragement, guidance, and service. She has a diverse background working with children locally as a recreational gymnastics coach, volunteer teacher, and guardian ad litem. As well as internationally, volunteering in an orphanage and schools. A statement that resonated with her in a leadership training recently was “Availability is the best ability”. She believes that we don’t need to have it all to make a difference, just a willing heart and open mind to be available to invest in others as well as ourselves. She is excited and grateful for the opportunity to serve as a SLI and join the team for summer 2023.
Akwaaba Freedom School Advisory Board
Dr. Christopher Busey, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Florida
Tina Certain, Alachua County School Board Member
Dr. Dierdre Houchen
Dr. Katheryn Russell-Brown, Professor of Law at the University of Florida
Dr. Erica McCray, Director and Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Florida