This past year has been tumultuous, especially for educators. Across the country, school leaders have had to juggle navigating a global pandemic and our nation’s racial reckoning. They’ve transitioned to virtual teaching and learning, created space to discuss police brutality and systemic racism in their schools, and addressed the physical, social, and emotional needs of their students and families. In light of all, they have persevered through. Our School Leaders Who Inspire Series is intended to celebrate and highlight the prominent and impactful educators we have the pleasure of working with.
Over the course of this series, we will share interviews with school leaders about their motivations to lead and teach, their biggest lessons, influences, and best advice. You will learn more about their contributions to the public school system and how they have worked to provide their students with a high quality and equitable education.
Our Conversation with David W. Nowlin
How long have you been working in the charter school sector?
I have been working in the sector for 24 years, and next year will be our 25th anniversary
What motivated you to do this work?
After returning from serving in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, I joined the Board of Child Inc., a Head Start program. My ten years on the board, along with my experience as a Marine Corporal taught me how to run organizations, formulate and implement ideas, and overcome challenges.
I used my GI Bill to enroll at the University of Texas, where I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies. During my Education journey, I often thought about where I came from: a middle-class neighborhood in Abilene, Texas where everyone I knew lived with both parents, had sufficient food, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back. But when I looked back at my African American classmates, only four of the seventeen boys were doing well. I then asked myself, “what had gone so wrong to impact the remaining youth?”
Around this time, the first Texas charter schools were being established. I taught in one of them, then joined a team that received a charter to start Texas Empowerment Academy. The team wrote a curriculum that spoke to the needs and aspirations of students, and ways to change their direction in life.
One of the other motivations for how I approach my work is due to Lieutenant Colonel Valentino, United States Marine Corps. I have never met a man that was a supreme leader, a man who took everything on his shoulders, and fought for his troops the way he did. He was an example for everything that he wanted you to be. For example, his uniform was always top-notch, so then he held you accountable for your uniform, and on Mondays and Wednesdays, he always led our 15-mile runs. Colonel Valentino was always fair and judicious, and had your number if you were wrong. I always look back on that type of leadership, making sure you are paying attention to detail, and most importantly, remembering why you come to work every day, and always keeping your eye on the prize. I looked up to Colonel Valentino, and if it was not for him, I would not be where I am today. No matter what my Marine Corps friends talk about, his name is always supreme.
I took away that you learn to lead people not necessarily because you are a leader, but by example. You do this by becoming a servant, focusing on the reason for success, always keeping your eye on the prize and understanding why you come to work every day. In the Marine Corps, it was something else, but now it's for the children, making sure that they have a success story to hang their hat on, or get a fair shake, and to make sure that they have someone to stand behind them to get a solid Education.
What book, experience, or resource has had the biggest impact on how you approach this work?
The book that was influential that I truly read and understood was The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. Here is a Black man establishing schools through the South for African American children who are coming out of peonage and contract lease systems after the Civil War. He was trying to find out how to serve his people. He was setting up schools throughout the South, ensuring that the education that they received was preparing them for a new experience, a new life, and a new opportunity. So the book resonated with me; it was so touching and so close to who I was and what I have been through in my life that it was a magnanimous moment in my life.
The Souls of Black Folk is basically how I built the school, along with The Mis-Education of a Negro, by Carter G. Woodson, but children are my biggest resource. I’ve had children where maybe there was no hope, and their families have not had education success for generations, but the work we do turned them around. Their success motivates you to go further. The biggest lesson I learned from my school community is if you put in the work, then whatever dreams and aspirations you have will come, that most success deals with 90% hard work, 10% intelligence. In working with my students, I have never found a student that could not learn, even if they came with a label. I’ve never had a child that we spent time with hard work, compassion, and understanding that did not become successful. I can walk in my community and see kids that have been discarded by others, that we have served become successful. That means a whole lot to me, and the lesson to me is that any and every child can succeed if you can be what you need to be with them.
How many black teachers or professors have you had over the course of your own education and how has this impacted your educational experience?
I have not had many African American Teachers throughout my education experience. I went to Taylor Elementary when I was young in Abilene, Texas and all of my teachers were white teachers because this was the end of segregation. I think we were the first generation to go through unsegregated schools in Abilene, Texas, and most of my teachers were white. The Back teachers I knew were not really on our team. I think they were trying to keep a job, and trying to fit in. It was not until I moved to Houston that I saw a plethora of Black teachers. I remember my science teacher, who was the most beautiful Black woman I had ever seen. I used to walk my brother and sister to school every morning to drop them off, and then go to school, and then pick them up after school, then walk them home. She noticed and took an interest in me and began to give us rides. In my mind, it was like a service thing, something that she did not have to do. That left an impression on me, in my eyes an act of kindnesses that she didn’t have to do.
When I got to college, I met a couple of African American teachers. Mr. Hayes, at Austin Community College, was teaching African American History. On the first day of class, we butted heads. I thought I was a genius by then in the subject matter that he had been teaching for over 30 years. He had me stay after class and mentioned ‘you talk about some real stuff, where are you from?’ He soon became my mentor. I was raising my son, he was 4 years old, and I didn’t know why I was going through college except spending my GI Bill. Mr. Hayes was a guide and has been there since I left the Marine Corps.
I had two other professors, who were also huge in my development. They cultivated me and sharpened my academic skills. They also made me write 45-page papers, took me out of class, and nurtured me into the academic man that I am today.
What strategies or best practices does your school use to help support your students’ racial identity development?
Hard question…we don’t have to develop that, African American students know who they are. Sometimes they may have a negative self-identity formation because society has taught them to equate being black with something negative. We have to transform that, not in trying to convince them in ordinary means but extraordinary means. To name a few:
- Teaching them about history where they are included
- Having them excel at Math and Science
- Going deep with the books that they read in English
- Accepting them for who they are when they walk in the door
- Make sure students see themselves on the walls, in the books, and being part of a world history story
What we do is not what a lot of people do. The curriculum that I developed for the last 24 years has been centered around one question. If I had my own country, what would I want my citizens to believe and become? What would push our country forward and make us a powerful country? So in that concept, the curriculum that we developed is designed to create greatness in who we are as a people, and other people to become great within us, with an understanding of how we have been influenced and the influences that we have had on others. Not to minimize or maximize racial identity, but to give an acceptance of where we stand today with an appreciation of where we have been in the past and a dream for where we will go in the future.
What can lenders do to more effectively support schools and school leaders?
Lenders can get out and provide more information to up-and-coming schools. I understand that it is a financial situation, but don’t fit them to your model, but find a model that they fit in. What we have tried to do is stay true to who we are throughout this whole process, be authentic to the success that we have, and not sell out who we are, what we do, or how we got here. Lenders can build models around success that schools have, and understand the models from which they come. I understand that everything is data-driven, but sometimes you lose out on opportunities because it is bigger than data. Performing financially and academically are important factors; however, at the same time when you find successful organizations that have been around for years and you see positive economic growth, etc, perhaps at that point the lender should build the model to fund based on what they see and not try and change who the recipient is by some standard that they have that may not work for the population that is being served.
I am glad that we have been authentic and brave enough to turn down situations where people have asked us to change how we do what we do because they have some idea of how we are supposed to be successful. For every door we have closed for someone who thought like that, another has opened for someone who understands how we do it, and can honor the success of Texas Empowerment Academy. You might not understand or get us holistically because some things are beyond the one, two, three, and four-plus fives, etc. Some things are bigger than that and move with heart, spirit, and movement. Those concepts can't always be measured mathematically but when you see an organization like TxEA, I know there are a lot more out there. We are not a huge charter school conglomerate, we are built from, about, and for the people we serve, and when you see that success over time, I think the lender should honor that success and build the lender model around the success as they see it.
What is the best piece of advice you have gotten in your career so far and why?
The best advice that I have received is to stay the course. Always recognize what is important every day, and focus on what is important because people will pull you away and make you go left and right, up and down to the point that there is confusion. When you keep your eyes and what is important, which is the children, and the children's success then you can deal with all the other stuff. One of my mentors always said that if you get a child to pick up a book on his or her own, then that child is getting an education.
About David W. Nowlin
David W. Nowlin has been the superintendent of the Texas Empowerment Academy since 1998. In his role, as superintendent, Mr. Nowlin runs the day-to -day operations and responds to the demands of all constituencies and interest groups in the district: teachers, students, parents, staff, advocates, and the community at large. He works with school leaders and the school board to serve the needs of students and meet the district goals. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Texas at Austin.
Prior to working with charter schools, Mr. Nowlin joined the Board of Child Inc. In his 10 years in the program, he learned how to run an organization, formulate and implement ideas, and overcome challenges.
Our Work with the Texas Empowerment Academy
The Texas Empowerment Academy (TxEA) was founded in 1996, and has operated as a charter school for 23 years. Since its inception, TXEA has grown into a jewel in East Austin where primarily African-American students attend. Today, TxEA now serves about 400 Pre-K to 12th grade students. The Texas Empowerment Academy’s mission is to provide its students with a sound education in a nurturing and stable environment conducive to learning and academic excellence. Students at TxEA benefit from a culturally rich and dynamic curriculum that offers a variety of Fine Arts programs that include theatre, band, visual arts, karate, and dance. The Texas Empowerment Academy's curriculum differentiates from standard curriculums found in traditional schools that solely focus on state standards because it instills a sense of pride, confidence, self-worth, and understanding in TxEA students. The academic and social components of the curriculum help students break historical barriers to success within a global society.
The LISC Charter School Financing Team has approved a $10 million loan to support the construction of a new 81,838 square foot, two-story school facility in Austin, Texas for the Texas Empowerment Academy to serve up to 800 students in pre-K through twelve grade.
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