The Black Male Educators Alliance (BMEA) operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to revolutionize the educational journey for Black and Brown children. This is achieved by establishing culturally sustaining policies, structured programming, and teacher pedagogy that shape students into catalysts for community transformation. Established in 2017, BMEA initially focused on elevating the presence of black males in Michigan classrooms, yet its vision has since expanded to liberating students, teachers, school leaders, and school systems/policies to transform the education landscape for Black and Brown communities across the state of Michigan and nationally.As the COO for BMEA I have the privilege to oversee the organization’s daily business operations and administration. Simply put, my top priority is operationalizing our CEO’s vision. This includes managing financial, marketing, funding, and logistic-specific operational activities/initiatives and serving in an advisory capacity/support for pertinent financial decisions that affect the organization.

The Black Male Educators Alliance (BMEA) operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity with a mission to revolutionize the educational journey for Black and Brown children. This is achieved by establishing culturally sustaining policies, structured programming, and teacher pedagogy that shape students into catalysts for community transformation. Established in 2017, BMEA initially focused on elevating the presence of black males in Michigan classrooms, yet its vision has since expanded to liberating students, teachers, school leaders, and school systems/policies to transform the education landscape for Black and Brown communities across the state of Michigan and nationally.As the Chief of Staff for the Black Male Educators Alliance, I am responsible for impacting productivity, streamlining strategic initiatives, supporting program management, and communicating objectives as set by the CEO. Additionally, I plan, manage and support administrative financial, and operational activities and support effective time management for the CEO, and serve in an advisory capacity for pertinent decisions that affect the organization.

Founded in 2017, BMEA is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit created with the primary goal of recruiting, engaging, and developing Black male educators. Founded initially to increase the 2% of Black educators nationally, BMEA's has expanded its work to develop effective culturally responsive Black educators who cultivate learning partnerships AND grow independent thinkers into change agents for their communities. It is an honor to support the work of this organization, dedicated to the impactful work of changing educational outcomes and experiences for all children, and ultimately transforming the mindsets of both, veteran and aspiring educator communities nationwide through professional development training, coaching and mentoring.

At the helm of the Integrated Marketing Communications Crew for Detroit 90/90, and U Prep Schools, I strive to develop and lead the implementation of marketing and communication strategies, plans, initiatives, and activities network-wide to attract potential new stakeholders and retain existing ones; Counsel senior leaders on-brand messaging, developing and maintaining a healthy culture network-wide, and support the vision as established by the CEO, as well as the Academic and Operations Houses.

As the Director of Community Engagement, and formally the Director of Programs & Partnerships, I enjoy telling the story of this unique 10-school network dedicated to providing culturally responsive educational experiences for its just under 5000 families. During my time here I have supported strategic communications projects where I developed the organizations inaugural crisis and internal communications plan and procedures under the new leadership structure. I have also initiated process improvements to their recruitment and enrollment procedures, as well as their student international travel program. My process improvements now offers 6th-12th grade scholars the opportunity to experience three international trips rooted and themed in the career pathways that define the three districts: UPA (Law & Social Justice), UPAD (Art & Design), UPSM (STEM).

In late 2011, as a contracted Project Manager for HFLI, I designed and successfully led a robust recruitment and enrollment campaign for school start-up at Henry Ford Academy: Elementary School. The school opened in 2012 fully enrolled and with a wait-list of over 200 families. In the six years following, as the Manager of Community Engagement, I managed marketing for the K-12 network's recruitment and enrollment campaigns, and partnered with Detroit community leaders to expand marketing reach. Additionally, I supported staff recruitment and retention, and was tasked with developing partnerships with corporations to enhance student experiential learning. l also supported partnership development for schools across the nation at HFLI's Design Thinking Conference via round table discussion facilitation.

Councilman James E. Tate, II was first elected to the Detroit City Council in 2009 and established three early youth initiatives: 1) teen pregnancy prevention; 2) literacy; and, 3) youth mentoring. In addition to enjoying the responsibilities of researching topics and writing all press releases and external communications related to the Councilman's youth initiatives, I also created programs and initiatives to support the three aforementioned focus areas. One such program was the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaborative (TP2C). This was a school based teen pregnancy prevention and awareness “elective” study that focused on 9th grade students. I designed this program in 2010 after a comprehensive study released, by Data Driven Detroit (D3) indicated that in some Detroit neighborhoods, one in four births was to a teen mother. The goal of the collaborative was to establish a strong support system for students and challenge them to tackle the issue of teen pregnancy through educational interaction. In collaboration with the Detroit Medical Center (DMC), The Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion (DDHWP), St. John Health System, Teen H.Y.P.E., Alternatives for Girls and Project U-Turn, TP2C was piloted at Osborn College Preparatory Academy in April of 2010. The Collaborative shifted into DPS’s two gender-based high schools to provide a more individualized awareness and prevention opportunity to city youth. In early 2011 TP2C re-launched the 9-week program at Frederick Douglass College Preparatory Academy for Young Men and Detroit International Academy for Young Women. A Youth Council was also developed, and served to decrease literacy rates, and foster both mentoring and community outreach for youth in the City of Detroit, under Councilman Tate's guidance.

My love for informative community reporting led me to begin a radio career with Radio One - Detroit, where I produced for Detroit legends John Mason, Karen Dumas, Pulitzer Prize winning Wall Street Journalist, the late, Angelo Henderson and former Detroit News columnist and ESPN commentator Rob Parker of “Parker and The Man”. I was also "Staci with an I", co-host on Kiss Sunday Today!

As a member of the Communications and Marketing Team, I was the content curator of brochures, pamphlets, newsletters and other publications for various departments within the agency.