San Bernardino, CA — For more than 25 years, educator Tamika Casey has worked inside classrooms, schooloffices, and district departments with one central goal: ensuring students in San Bernardino are given what she describes as “every opportunity to succeed.”
Casey is a principal on assignment with the San Bernardino City Unified School District (SBCUSD), where she workswithin the district’s Equity and Targeted Student Achievement Department, known as ETSA.
Her work focuses on improving outcomes for students who have historically been underserved, particularly African American students across the district.
“As an educator, it means a lot to me that our students, our scholars here in San Bernardino are given every opportunity to succeed,” Casey said. “None of that should determine who deserves access to high-quality instruction.”
Casey said her equity work centers on affirmation, access and accountability.
She pointed to decades-long disparities affecting African American students, including lower academic performance and higher rates of suspensions and chronic absenteeism.
“Our department tries to show that when given the right environment, the right support for the family and the scholar,our scholars can achieve greater,” Casey said. “We can close those gaps that have been persistent for decades.”
A cornerstone of that effort is the Sankofa Magnet Program, a district program designed to teach to and through thestrengths of African American students, while remaining open to all students.
“Sankofa” is an Akan word from West Africa meaning “to look back in order to move forward.”
Casey said the program also uses the word as an acronym: Students Accumulating New Knowledge, Optimizing Future Accomplishments.
“For us, it’s about fetching greatness and wisdom from our past to be great in our future,” she said.
Casey said Sankofa provides students with cultural affirmation that is often missing from traditional curricula.
She emphasized that understanding ancestry, heritage and cultural history plays a critical role in student confidence and academic success.
“When people know who they are and where they’re from and who their ancestors are, they thrive and havebetter outcomes,” Casey said. “In Sankofa, they’re taught their culture, their heritage, their greatness.”
The program’s emphasis comes amid broader national debates over how race, Black history and culture are taught in schools.
Casey said African American history has increasingly faced efforts to minimize or erase it, making programs like Sankofa more important than ever.
“If history is not truthfully told, those things are bound to repeat themselves,” she said. Casey noted that the school district has remained supportive of the work.
“Our school district is our ally,” she said. “They don’t shrink back from the conversation of African American student achievement and the need.”
Early results from the program show measurable academic gains. Casey said Sankofa students, in their first year of California state testing, outperformed other classes on their campuses as well as African American students districtwide.
She credited that success to strong relationships, culturally responsive instruction and high expectations.
“Our scholars need to be pushed,” Casey said. “They need to be told that they can do it and be held accountable to high expectations.”
Beyond academics, Casey said the district hosts a range of family-centered initiatives, including Black History Month programming, an African American Parent Advisory Council, Natural Hair Day events and other community engagement activities designed to strengthen family involvement and student identity.
In addition to her district role, Casey is a consultant and co-author of an equity-focused leadership book used in professional development.
Through her organization, Casey Education Solutions, she provides cultural proficiency training for school districts and educators.
“This work extends beyond my profession,” Casey said. “It’s a way of life for me.”
