Interview with Youth Speaker Kevon Lee

Featuring Youth Speaker, Kevon Lee, Inspirational Speaker, Activist, and future Ed. D in Educational Leadership

Transcript

Interview with youth speaker Kevon Lee

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

kevon, students, relates, homeless youth, backpack, graduate, satisfied, pandemic, youth, people, foster youth, amazing, education, grandmother, foster, homeless, school, kinship, outstanding, teacher

SPEAKERS

Kevon, Don

Don  00:03

Hello, and welcome back. I'm done English. And I'm excited, extremely excited to bring to you another version of our podcast. And with that I want to bring to you a guest that we have today. And his name is Kevon Lee. He is currently a student worker with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools in his first year welcome Kavon.

Kevon  00:25

Man, it's great to be here. I'm happy to be here. Happy to talk to you and just dive in and see what we're going to talk about.

Don  00:32

I appreciate that. So Ton.., let's get right into it Kevon. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing.

Kevon  00:38

So when it comes to my upbringing, a lot of people don't know unless I say that I was a former foster and homeless youth. So I've been through My trials and tribulations I've been to poverty where we had to worry about what we're going to eat on the seventh day of the month, because money and food ran out by the time in a month because we had to pay bills. My grandmother had to make sure that I got to school, she had to make sure I had clothes on my back. So money wasn't a big thing in my family. We went through a lot of poverty. So but that taught me one thing that I had to work for everything that I had, and I knew as growing up as a child that I did not want to live in that situation when I got older.

Don  01:16

Wow, Kevon, well, that's, first of all, I admire you for what you've been through and been able to continue to strive to do your best. Tell us a little bit about your education.

01:28

I believe education is very important, especially coming from foster and homeless youth. Because we don't have that pedigree to where everything is given to us, I had to work harder, I had to go beyond I had to make connections. And it all pays out. And one thing that I learned that if you never give up, literally, if you never give up, you can accomplish anything you ever want. So I just graduated with my bachelor's, I'm going to go get my masters. And sooner or later, I'm gonna get my Ed.D. Because I feel like that the next generation, I have to do this. It's not even for me at this point. At first, I was doing it for myself. But I'll find like, I don't want to do it. So once I start thinking about, okay, there's another generation, there's another population looking at me because they believe that and they've been taught and told that they cannot achieve that amount of success, which is education, until somebody told me like Kevon you could do this, you could become great, you could become an educator. So that's why I want to go get my doctorate. And I just want to just get back to them and show them that they have somebody they could look up to.

Don  02:36

So Kevon, as you know, here in our Student Deserve Success grants, we deal with foster youth and homeless youth, as well as child welfare and attendance. And so, you know, when students return to in person learning, there are some concerns as it relates to the pandemic as it relates to COVID-19. What would you tell students in middle and high school and even elementary school, as it relates to return to in person learning,

Kevon  03:02

I will say enjoy school, definitely, because you only live that amount of time. So being in high school or elementary, middle school one time, but also be safe, because you got to think about your family at home, maybe they have a condition that if they was to get COVID, it wouldn't be really good for them. Make sure you're wearing your mask, make sure you washing your hands, make sure the people you're around are wearing a mask because you don't know where they've been from. But at the end of the day, while you're doing this, try to make the relationships and just have fun while you are in school.

Don  03:33

And what do you think that we as educators should be our top priority as we're dealing with students who are back in school for the first time to say a year and a half? How do you think we should relate to those students in regards to our expectations of them?

03:48

I think the expectation is to always be high, because you want your students to be the best but understand that they just went through a hard time, some of you might have lost family members I lost family members during the pandemic. So you got to think you haven't seen them in a year and a half. So they're totally different people. They could have grown the year know what might have happened over the pandemic. So you have to be in their shoes, you can't just automatically think like, Alright, I need you to do this, I need you to do that. You need to guide them because that's what as educated are here for we're here to guide them and make sure that they are better for the next generation so they could teach to the next generation.

Don  04:24

Kevon, when I heard you say that you're going to be starting your master's program. Where are you going to where and when will that occur?

04:32

So I started September 8 At Cal Baptist University. So right here in Riverside, I'm very excited. I'm going to go get my Master's in higher education, leadership and Student Development. And I decided to do this because I was actually told my sophomore year that I will never get a higher education. And so I just graduated with my college diploma. And now I'm going to actually major in higher education just because that teacher told me that okay, you couldn't do it, but I was glad that she told me even though there was a lot of teachers that told me like Kevon, you can do this, I'm gonna help you do the door to the process, I'm gonna help you, whatever it takes, I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna help you good scholarship. But it was that one teacher that really motivated me and pushed me to the next level. 

Don  05:15

So that's amazing, because he used other fuel versus using that to encourage you not to try. So I really commend you for that. Tell me a little bit about the climate amongst your peers. What have you all discussed as it relates to return to in person learning returning to camp school campuses.

05:35

So I feel like it's 50/50 Some people feel like it might not be the best thing because a lot of students, a lot of the young population do not get vaccinated, they believe they do not need to get vaccinated vaccinated, because we have been told on social media that our young people aren't getting sick as they are, they're bouncing back. So the mortality rate for young people isn't high. So a lot of them believe like, Okay, I don't need the vaccine, but they're not seeing the bigger picture. And then you got other people who are returning back to campus and like, Okay, I need to get this vaccine because I want to reduce my chances of getting COVID because I have a grandmother at home, or I have a mother at home and I don't want to get them sick. So I feel like it's 50/50 Usually all them are excited to be back on campus. Because campus life is different. Being in school actually communicating with the teachers not doing just a screen is a lot better. And especially for me, it's a lot better than just being online.

Don  06:31

Wow. You mentioned you were a former foster youth and McKinney-Vento youth experiencing homelessness and you work with the foster youth services coordinating program here at San Bernardino County Schools as well as the homeless education program. What do you think? or what have you seen as it relates to outreach from those programs? How are they assisting youth in schools? One? And then secondly, how do you relate to that? Do you think if you would have gotten more supportive would have assisted you as it relates to your situation, being homeless and in the foster care system?

07:11

So we hear we do amazing work. I never knew that there were people like this who do that, because I knew my grandmother saw his kinship. So when it came to services from foster homeless, youth I didn't really get them because I didn't qualify mostly because you know because of kinship. But with that being said, we do amazing things like we just gave out 10,000 backpacks. So I think is amazing. I have little kids coming to me, literally little kids and mothers, some of them were even crying because it was like, Oh, we didn't know who's gonna get the backpack. They wrote thank you letters. They were like, Oh, my family can't afford it. Thank you so much for this backpack. And it's just the little things that we do we given our backpacks, they have big smiles on a face. And yeah, it just is amazing thing just to see that and see what we do. And then the community actually appreciates it. And so that's not we don't boast about that that just what we do. Since I've been here. We just been doing that we've been giving services to all type of youth. And I think that's really what it's about.

Don  08:15

Outstanding  yeah, we try and serve all of our promise youth rather than to be homeless, or foster, or youth they were experiencing trials with and tribulations with the, with the penal system as well. So well, I'll tell you, what, you have been outstanding. I appreciate your time. I encourage you to continue in education, we need people like you. And if you were gonna leave us with one thing, as it relates to not just our students, but our staff, our families in relationship to the last year and a half in the pandemic, what would you leave us with?

08:55

I will leave you guys with do not be satisfied with the goal. One thing I've learned over my years is that people, we set goals, and once we accomplish that goal, that's it. So when I was younger, I was like, okay, I'm gonna lose this weight. So when I got down to that weight, I was satisfied. But then I had to realize, like, if I get satisfied, I'll gain the weight back. So I tell a lot of people when it comes to education, especially young kids who only 3% of foster/homeless youth graduate from college, I believe like 50% graduate from high school or somewhere around there. That's not enough. We need to bring them numbers up. So your goal shouldn't be oh, I want to graduate from high school. Because once you graduate from high school, then what? That you shouldn't be satisfied just with that you should want to prolong that and reach other levels of success in your life. So I'll just be, don't be satisfied with the bare minimum but go further beyond then you can even fathom

Don  09:50

Kevon Lee ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate your time. Kevon, outstanding interview, keep doing what you're doing, make a difference and transform lives in education thank you so much Kevon.

Kevon  10:03

Thank you.