Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of Jennings School District, received an honorary Doctorate from Eden Seminary as a result of her commitment to addressing equity, justice and the underserved.
She was recognized at Eden Seminary’s 2016 Commencement Service 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 13 at Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ, 826 Union Blvd. in St. Louis.
Anderson’s parents are pastors, and her mother attended Eden Seminary for part of her doctoral training in theology.
Anderson has said that schools are the hands and feet of Christ and her work has demonstrated that belief in action.
“Serving children and families in Jennings has been one of the greatest blessings,” Anderson said, “and it is humbling and a tremendous honor to be recognized for the work by Eden Seminary.”
Under her leadership in Jennings, a school district serving almost 3,00 children has gained full accreditation and has opened the area’s largest school-based food bank, school-based clinic, and school homeless shelter and foster home.
In 2012, the Jennings School District opened a food pantry, in partnership with the St. Louis Food Bank, to provide 8,000 pounds of food to district families monthly. Any family in need of groceries uses the school system as their source for free groceries. The food bank focuses on produce and vegetables that are often the first items removed from the diet in a high poverty household.
In the midst of the unrest in neighboring Ferguson, she led district students on a protest march to the Jennings Police precinct before school to negotiate with St. Louis County Police leadership.
In the July 2015 Diversity edition of The St. Louis American, Anderson published a long essay, “Improving communities by improving schools: Fighting the cycle of oppression and intergenerational poverty in Jennings,” that sets forth her program for school reform in detail.
“Schools are the center of the community and when schools are transformed in positive ways, communities are transformed. The continued rise of poverty is not surprising when policies and practices that could contribute to eliminating poverty are not addressed well. The foundation of systematic oppression is rooted in practices that contribute to a system becoming self-perpetuating because the conditions are institutionalized and habits are formed that are not interrupted,” she wrote.
“However, if habits are changed and practices that previously contributed to maintaining impoverished communities are replaced with practices that remove barriers instead of creating them, many more schools nationally would be transformed. This would ultimately give an opportunity for a new system to be created. By creating new systems of success in school districts, we can begin to break the cycle of oppression and poverty.”
She made a connection between school reform, public health and her own family experience.
“As a wife of one of the decreasing number of OBGYNs who still accepts Medicaid and the parent of an amazing daughter who is majoring in public health at Saint Louis University, I often see the clear correlation between the investment in people and successful schools. The investment in teachers contributes to their efficacy and ultimately their positive outlook for students for the future,” she wrote.
“The impact of the investment in mental, physical and social public health care for families in high-poverty schools has a direct impact on parental school involvement and student performance. Health care for the poor is too often the emergency room and if schools are going to improve, they must invest fully in all aspects that contribute to the whole child and family developing.”
In July, Anderson will begin leading Topeka Public Schools, which is where the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education took place, which ended legal segregation in schools.
