A Catonsville Middle School student’s face lit up when Brittany Jakubowski greeted him in his native language. “Hola,” was all she said.

Jakubowski recalled the conversation from a few years ago as short-lived — she couldn’t understand the Spanish-speaker’s lengthy response — but it was important to her that he feel included as a newcomer to the U.S. She committed to learn the language on the Duolingo app, recently completing a 365-day streak.

At a time when public schools are under pressure to scale back diversity programs, Jakubowski remains dedicated to making her students feel like they belong. That strategy has boosted participation in the classroom and raised test scores — and helped earn her Baltimore County Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year award. She’ll soon be in the running for the statewide award, announced in October.

Jakubowski said her students used to feel self-conscious about their differences, but now they jump at the chance to show off their cultures at the annual diversity fair she grew from a class project to a celebration that draws hundreds.

“I know a lot of changes that have been happening in our country have made this, I think, feel even more important to the students and the families,” Jakubowski said.

Windows and mirrors

The 36-year-old knew from a young age she wanted to be an educator. As a kid, she pretended to be a teacher and made her neighbors her students; a shed was their classroom.

Years later, Jennifer Madrid, her English teacher at Perry Hall High School, helped cement her career choice. Jakubowski had never seen a teacher like Madrid before.

“She made me feel like the classroom belonged to all of us, empowered us to ask questions even if it challenged her, and wasn’t afraid to admit when she made a mistake or was wrong,” Jakubowski said in an email. “She was really human and relatable and dare I say COOL for a teacher back in my day.”

Madrid, who’s now a career navigator at Loch Raven High School, said it only made sense when she found out her former eleventh grader was nominated for Teacher of the Year.

“She just had ‘it,’” Madrid said.

The veteran educator explained that teaching isn’t only delivering content; it’s also managing humans in a classroom. Jakubowski lets her little humans be themselves, which creates trust and love between them, Madrid said. Building those relationships isn’t easy, but Jakubowski has the skills to pull it off.

Jakubowski never left Baltimore County after graduating from Perry Hall in 2007. She received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Towson University and has spent her entire 11-year teaching career at Catonsville Middle.

She still gets excited when a student figures something out, she said, and uses that excitement to encourage them. Middle schoolers — the “critical middle,” Jakubowski calls them — need that kind of support as they figure out who they are.

The Institute of Education Sciences reports that middle school can be one of most stressful times in a student’s educational career. Fostering a sense of belonging may help them stay engaged, according to the report.

Jakubowski’s current students, who she described as witty with crazy lingo, doesn’t think they like to read. In reality, they just don’t know which books they like, she said. Books that are considered classics may not be relatable for them.

As the English department chair, she’s helped write curriculum for the school, where half the kids are students of color. She also helped choose reading materials that include the graphic novels “School Trip” and “New Kid” by Jerry Craft, a Black illustrator. Books by Black authors Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds are also on the summer reading list. One of Jakubowski’s favorites is Reynolds’ “Ghost,” because it has a Spanish translation and is part of a series. Some students read the rest of the series on their own.

Her selection process is rooted in the school system’s philosophy of “windows and mirrors.” A mirror reflects the reader while a window shows the rest of the world, she explained.

“Either way, it opened their eyes to seeing something,” Jakubowski said.

‘Celebrate who you are’

Eighth grader Harmony Harper was catching her breath as students approached her for a hug or high-five. She and her classmates had just finished a dance performance that drew eardrum-bursting screams inside the middle school’s gymnasium.

They, along with Spanish teacher Nakiera Hopkins, performed the Park Heights strut and the Baltimore two-step, sprinkling in some flips while songs by Baltimore artists like Lor Scoota‘s “Bird Flu” blasted through speakers.

Their performance followed Middle Eastern and Caribbean dances.

“We got Pakistan culture, we got Dominican Republic, culture from everywhere, for real,” said Harper. “But Baltimore needed to have its own culture. So we had to show them.”

The performances were the latest addition to the diversity fair, which Jakubowski puts “her heart and soul” into it every year, Harper said.

The after-school event flooded the entire campus with students, parents and food trucks one evening this month. But it first started as a class project.

During the 2017-18 school year, Jakubowski’s sixth grade class read a book that inspired a discussion about culture. Some kids thought they didn’t have any culture, but Jakubowski gave them an assignment: Research a family recipe.

“A lot of them went home and asked their great grandmas about recipes that were important to their culture, or they asked, ‘Why do we eat this every holiday?’” Jakubowski said.

They turned the class’s collection of recipes into a book — one that was printed, bound and distributed. The kids still wanted to learn about their lineage.

Interviews with parents and grandparents revealed that family members sailed on the Titanic, worked for the FBI or fled from terrible conditions in another country. Jakubowski wanted her 30 students to show the public what they found, so they displayed their findings in the hallway after school. Jakubowski said 75 people came to see it. She got the sign-off to do it again the following year, and it eventually grew into the huge event it is today.

Projects from Jakubowski’s class lined the perimeter of the gym. Some included trifold boards that explained the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos or shoebox floats that featured London’s Big Ben.

Staff members like Hopkins, the Spanish teacher, wore custom black-and-green T-shirts designed by a student, that read “Your voice makes our story.”

“We have to teach them, ‘Hey, it’s OK to be different, it’s OK to have something different. But it’s also OK to celebrate who you are because that’s what makes you, you,” Hopkins said.

At first, only one or two people wanted to perform. Then staff had to turn kids away.

“They want to be represented and I love that,” Jakubowski said. “I think they should be.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.