Interviewer:

In one word, in one word, what is your top priority for Detroit's children, for the school district?

Cidney Calloway:

One word? Exposure.

Interviewer:

Okay.

Cidney Calloway:

There's a lot of potential in our pupils and we just need to show them what they can be. I'm a radical imaginative imaginator, right? My imagination goes everywhere. I've been exposed to everything. And I want to give our students the same opportunities. My educational background allowed me to participate in every type of educational model available to students. So I went to parochial private school. I went to suburban public schools. I graduated from urban public schools, but I got to see what could be offered to our students. The possibilities that lie within the powers that be with our Board of Education, with our administration, with our building staff, with our families and communities. And our children deserve the opportunities. They deserve that exposure. So bringing in, programing them, even just introducing them to the program that already exists in this city, tapping into the community foundations that are already doing really hard work, forming and solidifying our partnerships with a lot of the organizations that exist. They just need the exposure. They need the opportunity. They have the potential. It needs to be tapped into. So that's what I'm really focusing on, whether it be through our literacy programs offered throughout the city, whether it be the arts, that I, again, am a huge proponent of being a graduate of the Detroit School of Arts. Just giving people in our children a way to express themselves, allowing them to communicate and giving them the words and vernacular and vocabulary to communicate effectively. It's exposure. So I am a millennial, and they love to call us lazy, but I call us efficient. We are not going to be reinventing any of the wheels. I'm going to fine tune programs and policies that are already on the books, because I'm an avid reader, and just make sure that they're targeting our most vulnerable students, making sure that they're targeting our most challenged students because they're not challenging students, they're just challenged.

Interviewer:

Right.

Cidney Calloway:

So they have obstacles that we need to assist them in overcoming and making sure that we're wrapping our arms around our our families, embracing their needs, embracing again that potential, the possibility that lies within each and every family, every community. So yeah, just listening, listening to what the needs are coming out of the school buildings. And just being there and using the power and the energy that I have, being obligated to my community, being rooted in my community and pushing those things to the forefront. So I am a proud advocate for our families.

Interviewer:

Love it.

Cidney Calloway:

I can talk circles around anybody. We're going to get to the root of the issues, and I'm going to make sure I have a million and a half ways to reiterate how we're going to get those issues resolved.

Interviewer:

That's right. Represent for the millennials.

Cidney Calloway:

Dassit! Dassit.

Interviewer:

“When I was a student, I wish my school had...”

Cidney Calloway:

More students, crazy enough. So, Detroit School of Arts, very small, audition to get in type of school, right. My graduating class was 171, but I knew being a part of my neighborhood and community, there were so many more talented students that deserved the opportunity to perform on big stages to get in front of these master class or master class teachers and professors from Juilliard. So my school, we had those opportunities, and I just wanted to extend that to every school. So every neighborhood school that has a stage deserves to have a stage that's always lit up, that gets to bring in, you know, that top, top talent to teach their students. Right? So I don't want it to be a magnet thing. And it's only you have to go to this one school in order to have this incredible experience. I want to spread that wealth, spread that opportunity to every neighborhood school. Because you have a stage, you have the talent, you have the teachers. You can do this. So I wanted more students at DSA, but I also want small type of DSA programing and cultures and feelings in all of our neighborhood schools to let them know that they can tap into their own creativity as a way to express themselves. They can tap into that creativity when it comes to our STEAM and STEM programing. They can tie that all into how they flow throughout the world. So one of my main platform things is bringing back the five W's being well-read, well-rounded, well-traveled, well-dressed, well-spoken.

Interviewer:

I love it.

Cidney Calloway:

And that's that's literally the basis for being a productive and happy citizen in society these days. That's