Rosemary Kamei, Board President; Mary Ann Dewan, Superintendent; Yee Wan, Director Multilingual and Humanities Education Department
The Santa Clara COE in partnership with the National Association for Bilingual Education is leading the national My Name, My Identity Initiative. The initiative, launched at the first California Global Education Summit, is intended to help create a culture of respect and inclusiveness in school communities across the nation by asking educators, parents, community members and students to take the pledge to pronounce student names correctly and to honor their identities. MNMID is making a difference in the lives of many educators, students and community members. Teaching about students’ names, cultures and identities has deepened students’ understanding of themselves and their cultures, and empowers them to share their name stories. The initiative empowers teachers to build relationships and community in the classroom. The campaign has received over 7,000 individual pledges and over 1,000 district pledges. There has been at least one pledge from 20 different countries.