Our Story

My name is Lauryn Gray. Years ago, my great grandfather immigrated to the US from Chihuahua, Mexico. He and my great grandmother started a family in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called “Martinez Town”,  where they felt they could be their authentic selves, speaking their language and celebrating their culture with their own people. They had three children, who all grew up in Martinez town and maintained their ability to speak Spanish.

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The Third Generation Effect

 

When it came time for my mom to start school, there was a new movement in education, where schools felt their job was to fully assimilate multilingual and multicultural students to make them “American”. So my mom wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish. She would get in trouble for speaking it in class, being told “This is America, we don’t speak Spanish. You need to learn English".  This resulted in her being ashamed of her first langage. Over time, even though my grandmother would speak to her in Spanish at home, she would respond in English.  So she now has an ear for the language, but can no longer speak it. This is called the 3rd generation effect. It's the pattern of a native language being lost by the third generation following immigration. Though my Latina heritage is an integral part of my identity, I am a direct product of this effect, having experienced both language and culture loss in my family. 

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Multilingual Students

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The US is now currently serving more multilingual students than ever, but as a school leader, I continue to witness our systems perpetuate this same pattern of both language and culture loss. Though it may not be as directly as what my mom experienced, our education system continues to view our students through a deficit lens. Immediately upon entering school, multilingual students are labeled. And though this label is meant to provide them with support, it results in students internalizing the label negatively, viewing themselves as deficient. The outcome of this is many of our students repeating grades, or ultimately dropping out, not believing they are capable of more. 

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Over the last couple of years, I have been asked by many about my professional next steps, and whether I was going to try to be a principal at one of our District high schools. But whenever someone asked, I found I couldn’t visualize myself in any of those positions, and I couldn’t figure out why. After much reflection, I realized that my lack of excitement stemmed from my concern that taking on that role would mean perpetuating the many inequitable systems our students grapple with daily.

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Addressing Education Inequity

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My leadership is grounded in the quote "...the solution to educational inequity is not to help students navigate a dysfunctional system that was never designed for them. We can't use the same structures and systems if we want different results'' (Elena Aguilar). I’ve worked tirelessly to repair systems and structures that are preventing our students from reaching their fullest potential. But the more I processed this work, the more I realized I need to stop trying to make broken systems work for our students, and instead, I need to create new ones for them. Not a program, not a school within a school, but a stand alone institution where multilingual students no longer feel isolated, where they feel united in their diversity, and are able to shine and be celebrated for their unique identities and lived experiences. And thus, United Academy was born. 

United Academy believes in the need to disrupt the pattern of language and culture loss, and to eliminate the deficit labels our multilingual learners experience that impact their long-term growth and success. We are committed to creating an educational experience that seamlessly integrates identity exploration and validation with rigorous, label-free academics to cultivate self-aware, creative, and critical thinkers who are prepared to solve the challenges of tomorrow’s diverse society, while also maintaining and strengthening  their cultural and linguistic dignity.