On the back wall of her classroom, Mundelein High School teacher Georgina Aguirre has a sign that reads: Explore. Learn. Grow. 

While that sign may be meant for her students, Aguirre will be living those words during the next two years as the new facilitator of an affinity group at MHS designed to support educators of color.

The Illinois State Board of Education (in partnership with Teach Plus) selected Aguirre to facilitate the group over the next two years. She is one of more than 40 facilitators across the state who will engage in a facilitator fellowship with the Illinois Affinity Group Network.

“I’m excited about it,” she said. “But it’s scary. It’s so unknown. You just don’t know what the reward is going to be in this kind of work until you do it.”

The network of affinity groups brings teachers of color together to build a supportive community, examine the current issues they face and make recommendations that can help address those issues. As a facilitator, Aguirre will facilitate monthly meetings with staff members at MHS and participate in meetings with other facilitators across the state. She will also receive support from a leadership coach.

“I’m coming in on the shoulders of other staff members who have done this work and opened my eyes to it,” she said. “In our Affinity Group, it’s not just teachers. It’s everybody in the building who is benefitting from this work.”

Ultimately, the students will also benefit. According to the Learning Policy Institute, teachers of color boost the academic performance of students of color, including better reading and math test scores, higher graduation rates and increased aspirations to attend college. While one key strategy of the Illinois Affinity Network is to increase the recruitment and retention of teachers of color, it also helps address opportunity gaps between students.

Aguirre, who has a large majority of Latinos in her Special Education English classroom, understands why those gaps exist. She moved to the U.S. from El Salvador as an eight-year-old.

“We have a duality of both cultures. A home life and a school life. For myself, I had to learn how to balance both. A lot of times people who look like me have to disassociate. You have a self that comes to school and you learn how to act, but it’s not authentic and you have a self at home where you can express everything that you are,” she said.

So, what can educators do to help bridge the gap and help students who may struggle in the same way she did?

“Listen. I think that’s the biggest key,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t listen just to understand - we want to help or fix. But as we see how our population of students is growing, we have to change as educators too.”

One of her goals during the next two years is to see this trickle down to Mundelein Elementary School District 75 where Aguirre serves on the Board of Education. Another of her goals is to grow as an educator and to help others grow. The sign on her back wall serves as a reminder.

“I tell my students if you don’t explore, you can’t learn. You can’t grow. That’s what we’ve been doing. That theme is exactly what I envisioned this summer when I was getting my room ready.”