Though bordering on being soft-spoken, education and political empowerment advocate Regina Gardner continues to make her voice heard as she fights for change.
Gardner’s official title is vice chair of the Fort Bend Houston Super Neighborhood’s education Committee. But unofficially and probably more accurately, she is the fighter you want on your side, pushing for the education and political issues most important to many in Fort Bend County and beyond.
Gardner’s youth was dominated by powerful displays of the village/community ethic where all players contributed the best of what they had to offer so that each member, especially the youth, was equipped for success in life.
“All the way from Houston and Sunnyside to Missouri City Middle School to Willowridge High School, there was just a whole line of excellence in terms of the quality of the educators,” Gardner recalled.
Influences
Gardner, who eventually became an HISD teacher, was heavily impacted by her childhood village. Those experiences and village members instilled within her a sense of excellence that she could not shake.
“I grew up in a community called Sunnyside, and there was a little elementary school down the street from my house called JJ Rhodes Elementary School. There was a principal there, her name was Ms. Jay Harris, and she was just a phenomenal campus administrator,” said Gardner, who experienced the same level of educator care when her family moved to Mo. City. “And I remember having these wonderful teachers that really cared and really took time to teach us and to motivate us in all areas.”
Most importantly, in Sunnyside and Mo. City, Gardner experienced a caring village both in school and at home. That experienced helped give birth to here current educational advocacy.
“The African American community here in Houston, in the late seventies, there was like a migration out of the city into the first line of suburban areas. So, I was blessed and I was lucky to move into this community where there were just a lot of like-minded minority families there,” said Gardner. “And they were about business. They were about supporting their kids in school. We had a village. “
That “village” which Gardner describes as all “about accountability,” impacted her worldview when it came to education.
“Just having that example of knowing what [school operations] looks like when it works, I just couldn’t get that out of my head,” Gardner added.
So, from her perspective, things were obviously off when she became a teacher.
“When I was an educator, looking around at what was going on in the school system, I was like, ‘What are these people doing? I know this education thing can work because I’ve seen it work.’ And, I just didn’t wanna take no for an answer,” she said. “I didn’t wanna believe what I was seeing. That was the driving force that I know this thing works, and whatever y’all are doing, it’s not working. But we’re gonna figure out how to get back to that place.”
Battles, victories
With that mindset, Gardner went to work seeking to recreate that village experience for today’s students.
She’s done so in multiple ways. Soon after leaving the teaching profession to seek a master’s degree, Gardner paired up with a parent coordinator who was also a friend of hers from high school.
“We tried to figure out how can we advocate to change this thing around. We partnered up and went to different community organizations like the Fort Bend County NAACP. I actually became the education chair for that NAACP branch. But we weren’t able to make much headway,” said Gardner.
Gardner says they partnered with a Ft. Bend pastors’ group. Though they met some people who eventually helped them achieve some educational victories, in the moment, they couldn’t affect the level of change they sought.
They eventually worked with the Herman Park Rotary, which was instrumental in getting the State Board of Education to approve an African-American Studies course statewide.
“We worked with Lawrence Allen and Dr. Georgia Provost, and others who were instrumental in getting that done,” she added. “That was one of our big to-dos, But we had so many other things we had to just keep pushing on.”
Through the Fort Bend Houston Super Neighborhood’s education committee, Gardner and crew have been looking at how their local school district has been impacting Willowridge’s feeder pattern schools, trying to figure out how we can partner with the district to improve those schools. It’s taken almost a decade, but Gardner says good news on that front will soon be announced.
Longtime Ft. Bend resident and Ft. Bend school parent Pamela Gray is not surprised.
“I’ve known Regina most of my life, and she’s always been a fighter,” said Gray. “Even though she’s not the loud, over-the-top confrontational type of change agent, when she talks, people listen. I absolutely love her heart for service and for kids.”
Accountability
Foundational to any educational success, according to Gardner, is something that was in abundance in her youth’s village experience.
“To me, it’s so basic. It’s just simple accountability. From the youngest student to the oldest administrator on any campus, we have to have accountability. That’s what I see that’s lacking on every level. The adults are not holding the kids accountable. The district is dumping everything on the teachers. So, the teachers hold all the accountability for everyone. And they can’t manage that.”
Gardner adds, that without accountability, another key component to educational success is lost – trust.
But she is not giving up on her crusade.
“We went through the NAACP, the Pastor’s Association, the Rotary. So, I was like, if we don’t have the village, then I’m gonna go out and pull the village together. I’m gonna talk to elected officials. I’m going to anybody who will listen. That’s where I’m gonna go. I want this village, and if the village isn’t here where I am, then we’re gonna just go pull it together,” added Gardner.
