Karla Vigil, CEO, Discusses the Invisible Tax
“We could do everything we want to do in the classroom, [but it has to change] at the policy level, that’s where the power’s at.” -Karla E. Vigil
On March 16th, Karla Vigil, the Equity Institute’s co-founder and chief executive officer spoke on a panel with three other influential BIPOC education leaders, Dr. Tauheedah F. Baker-Jones, Dr. Maurice R. Swinney, and José Luis Vilson. Their discussion focused on the invisible tax on educators of color and their change-making work in this sphere. The conversation explored both the burdens that educators of color experience in their work as well as their resilience and impact in this field.
Karla spoke about her path to building the Equity Institute, which largely stemmed from her personal experience working as an educator of color in Rhode Island. She shared her efforts to lead with an intentionally anti-racist and equity lens and the opposition she encountered. This is the invisible tax educators of color often experience. The responsibility of being the voice of equity and inclusion in school communities where folks may want diversity but are not fully aware of everything that accompanies change. While many educators of color carry out this work passionately, powerfully, and gracefully, it creates an additional tax of mental and physical exhaustion that white educators do not experience and is often not supported.
“Some of the things that we experienced, or that I experienced in my classroom, was the extra work. For instance, I had to redesign all my curriculum because it was not equitable, it was not done from an anti-racist lens and so a lot of my time was being in the school from seven to five and then designing and preparing my lessons because they did not, the standard curriculum was not up to par and did not speak to the work that I wanted to do with my babies.”
Importantly, the conversation involved tangible action steps and practical advice for making education spaces more equitable and diverse. As Karla shared, Equity Institute focuses both on strengthening existing communities and transforming policy on the district and state level. EduLeaders of Color, a program within the Equity Institute, was initially co-founded by Karla as a space for educators of color in Rhode Island to be in community with each other while also advocating for important changes. In speaking about the process of developing this organization Karla reflected, “What do we need to do to fit in the system? . . . we quickly realized it was not us, it was the system and systemic issues and the institutions that needed to change.”
The organization grew to encompass policy work to address issues such as educator diversity and preparation. The conversation highlighted the necessity of combining multiple forms of action, such as community work and policy work to effectively create noise and make space in the education world for BIPOC educators.
Towards the end of the discussion, in addressing a question posed to the panelists about what is a white person’s role in this work Karla said, “ [White community members can] push for the change that we need — because as Dr. Baker mentioned we need everybody to do this. It can’t just be on us. It’s on everyone.”
Check out the video below to listen to the full discussion.
